Been hoping for a sequel to the indie tower defense darling Defense Grid? Now is your chance to directly contribute to the possibility, as funding is now open for Defense Grid 2 on Kickstarter. "But wait," you say, "wasn't the original Defense Grid super popular?" According to developer Hidden Path's CEO Jeff Pobst, Defense Grid: The Awakening was definitely a "success, even beyond what we had hoped." That said, Pobst adds that a Defense Grid sequel is just "too small" for publishers to care, hence the Kickstarter.

It's important to note, however, that the project's goal of $250,000 will not fully fund Defense Grid 2, but rather an expansion to the original game, featuring the first part of the Defense Grid 2 story. At $500,000 the original Defense Grid will be "remastered" in the Defense Grid 2 engine and will receive a multiplayer mode. At $750,000 will fund a level editor for Defense Grid along with Mac and Linux versions. In order to fully fund the sequel on PC, Hidden Path is looking for a cool $1 million.

Of course, there are lots of rewards up for grabs, notably those offered by some rather high-level partners, Razer and AMD. Razer is offering its Naga Hex mice while AMD is putting up some Radeon HD 6770 graphics cards (not exactly AMD's high-end solution). Both companies are "helping out" on the project and will be "supporting" it throughout. Whether this is limited to technical support or includes financial support as well is unclear. We've contacted Hidden Path to learn more.

As of this writing, the project has passed $130,000.

This week's Super Joystiq Podcast gets all Ryan Reynolds-y.

First up, Richard, JC, Dave, and Mike Suszek are talking about the big games of the week -- games like the hot, Dreamcast banger GunLord. If that's not enough to get you completely stoked, Richard hits on a bit of Minecraft, Mike goes deep on NCAA Football 13, and Dave shares his thoughts on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD.

In news, Alexander is back. Joined by Ben and Jordan, the boys hit alleged stolen Torchlight assets, the weird announcement of Battlefield 4, Fez patch drama, and a whole slew of Comic-Con news. Also, Ryan Reynolds.

Be sure to check after the break to see how you can snag yourself a free copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD on XBLA.

Listen to the Super Joystiq Podcast:

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A stream of the show and details about each segment is available after the break.

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You're reading Reaction Time, a weekly column that claims to examine recent events, games and trends in the industry, but is really just looking for an excuse to use the word "zeitgeist." It debuts on Fridays in Engadget's digital magazine, Distro.

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I've already bought several games during this year's Steam Summer Sale, including Legend of Grimrock, an old-fashioned dungeon crawler with a modern veneer. Good for me! Oh, except Legend of Grimrock is a PC game. I don't even have a PC right now, and I've never bothered to set up a dual-boot partition on my MacBook Air. The dread of missing out on the deal was so great, it overwhelmed the fact that I don't even have the preferred equipment for the game.

It happens every year, as Valve gets more and more adept at carving off costs and doling out deals at the perfect pace – slowly enough to keep you coming back, but not fast enough to let you realize you're spending something you don't have.

Money isn't the problem. Spending five bucks on the latest indie gem, even if it's buried in a shopping minecart of indie gems, won't be the death of you. The actual death of you, however, might be slightly more prohibitive when it comes to buying all these games. When are you going to find time to play all this stuff?

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No, not the book. The Rumble Fish, by Street Fighter IV developer Dimps, was a 2D fighting series that debuted on Sammy's Atomiswave arcade hardware in 2004, followed by a sequel.

Now Dimps has picked up the rights from Sega Sammy, who didn't seem to be doing anything with them. Dimps relaunched the series' website, promising new information soon. The simplest course of action for the company would be to release the PS2 ports digitally on PS3, but there's no news yet about how involved Dimps' plans are.

Would you like to hear a new Beck song? Of course you would. Would you like to see a new interactive music video for said song, with art by Pyramid Attack? It's very likely you would.

Would you like that song and music video to actually be a level in Sound Shapes, in which you literally travel along Beck's lyrics (like taking a trip through the Becktionary)? You're really going to enjoy this video.

Sega's Jet Set Radio HD port is also being released on iOS and Android this summer, concurrent with the console, PC, and Vita versions, Sega revealed today. Players will be able to use their devices' cameras to create graffiti, and share progress via OpenFeint.

We expect the high-resolution mobile game to be more faithful to the original than the Game Boy Advance version; however, we also expect it to be more difficult to control.

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When Iron Galaxy's Wreckateer is launched next week – the second game in Microsoft's Summer of Arcade annual promotion – it'll include a brand new feature that will show up in several upcoming XBLA games: Avatar Famestars. We first heard the name back in February when a trademark popped up for the phrase, but what exactly is it?

"Avatar Famestars is a new program from Microsoft Studios and is part of a select group of games that delivers new and exciting ways to play online with your friends and compete for social recognition," says Microsoft. Okay, what does that mean? A variety of in-game challenges (think: "get a perfect score five times on this game mode") are included in Avatar Famestar-supported games, and you'll earn rewards based on earning Famestar points (think: Avatar stuff).

Those rewards will cross from game to game, as will your point total. It's kind of like Ubisoft's UPlay program, but less ubiquitous – for now, Avatar Famestars is locked to your Xbox 360, though we wouldn't be shocked to hear about it heading to Surface, Windows 8, and Windows Phones in due time.

Beyond Wreckateer, Microsoft's adding Avatar Famestar support to already released games Full House Poker, and A World of Keflings, and several upcoming games: Fire Pro Wrestling, Homerun Stars, and Avatar Motocross Madness. Unfortunately, it's not clear when any of the already available games will get the update, but we expect upcoming games will simply debut with the functionality. Wreckateer launches next Wednesday on Xbox Live Arcade, and it'll be the first game on Xbox with Avatar Famestar support. Keep an eye out for our review early next week.

Welcome to Postcards from The Secret World, a trip through Funcom's new title from the perspective of a player new to MMOs. Read part one if you haven't!

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My character stands outside a locked cell in the Kingsmouth sheriff's office, there to uncover the secrets behind a 2002 murder case. All I know is that something vital to the case's mystery is inside that cell. The cell, as it happens, belonged to Larry Checkon, the man allegedly responsible for a string of summer murders – at least it did when he was alive.

My only clue was discovered inside the sheriff's computer, where I found a record of Checkon's actions after he was arrested. The sheriff had questioned him at the time, but Checkon kept quiet, telling the sheriff that she'd have to talk to his ghost if she wanted the truth. Somehow, this information is supposed to get me inside the cell and get me what I need.

The really weird part is that this isn't an adventure game, but rather an MMO: Funcom's The Secret World. It's this investigation mission – and others like it – that is fast becoming my new obsession.

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Ghostlight is a UK publisher that's known for its adaptations of Japanese games (specifically JRPGs). Last week it asked readers of its official blog if there was any interest in seeing Ghostlight bring some JRPGs from Japanese consoles to PC. The interest was apparently high, because this week's blog post says Ghostlight is planning on doing exactly that.

There aren't a lot of details yet, but Ghostlight says talks are underway, and while the original plans were to just release these games digitally, fan response has got the company thinking about boxed copies of these translated games as well.

"Being first in the next generation race is not important at all," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told Gamasutra in a recent interview. "One of the reasons we believe this is the time for Nintendo to launch the Wii U is it's going to be important for the world."

The world, it turns out, is full of people who have just bought an HDTV and don't plan to replace it anytime soon, and people who might want an alternative to an expensive tablet – albeit one that can't leave the house. Both of these aspects provide an opportunity for a device like the Wii U with a novel second screen. By providing an interesting new angle, Iwata hopes to return Nintendo to profitability. "I just cannot say that it's a good thing for Nintendo at all to record an annual loss for two or more years in a row," the world's most deadpan video game executive said.

Though Iwata isn't concerned with being first to market (even though the Wii U will be), he is very concerned about its price, having learned a painful lesson from the 3DS launch. "The pricing of Wii U is going to be one of the most important elements when it is going to be launched," he said. "The environment is different. Wii U is going to be launching in a different environment than when the Wii was launched. Also, the involvement surrounding [mobile and social] businesses is different than several years ago."

What isn't different from several years ago is Nintendo's confidence in doing its own thing. "We have not changed our strategy. In other words, we just do not care what kind of 'more beef' console Microsoft and Sony might produce in 2013. Our focus is on how we can make our new console different than [others]," Iwata said, reproduced here because we really wanted to put Iwata saying "more beef" into our post.

Square Enix's "Fabula Nova Crystallis" world – the occasionally bizarre and often beautiful universe of several Final Fantasy XIII titles – is scheduled for a big exposé as part of Square's 25th anniversary celebration for the Final Fantasy series. A stage presentation on September 1 in Tokyo's Shibuya district titled, "Final Fantasy XIII Lightnight Saga: New Developments Presentation" apparently features "details on the future of the FFXIII project" (via Andriasang's translation).

Beyond Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2, the Fabula Nova Crystallis series extends to Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII (renamed Final Fantasy Type-0). Of the planned "trilogy" of games, the only one yet to see release is Final Fantasy Versus XIII. In fact, nothing has been heard of the title in quite some time – it was a no show both at last year's Tokyo Game Show and this year's E3 Expo. A demo of the next-gen technology supporting Versus, the Luminous Engine, was given at E3, but Versus wasn't part of the presentation.

Kotaku's reporting that the game may be in flux or cancelled, though Square Enix reps refused to comment on the status of the title. With any luck, we'll find out more this September.

Minecraft for Xbox Live Arcade has now surpassed 3 million units sold. The announcement comes via Twitter from Mojang's lord of the blocks, Markus "Notch" Persson, who wrote this morning: "I got told Minecraft for XBLA passed three million sales today!"

The $20 downloadable title launched on May 7 and sold a million units in five days. It then reached two million sales in early June. Minecraft for XBLA has also enjoyed significant support through updates, the latest (v 1.73) having gone live last week.

Here's hoping you Europeans and your Vitas are ready to rumble, as Street Fighter X Tekken for Sony's handheld got a release date this morning of October 19. That's a full four days before your North American counterparts get their grubby mitts on the cross-publisher portable fighter, meaning you'll have a full 96 hours of practice time with which to become a master of Shadowloo.

It also gives you some time to study up on your American English smack talk. Here, we'll get you started: "I do declare my good sir, your pugilistic pugnacity is that of a homeschooled hill person!" Gets 'em every time!

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EA altered the tone of Dead Space 3 from solo chills to co-op thrills based on market research, a company executive stated in a recent interview. EA Games' marketing exec Laura Miele told MCV the company was really proud of the work on the first two games, but wanted to see how the franchise could reach more consumers.

"We were hearing feedback that they love the thriller game, but it was pretty scary, and the obvious next step was that they wanted to play with someone. So we introduced co-op into the game," said Miele.

Miele added Dead Space 3 was "no less scary" and "true to its roots," but that research found people were more comfortable playing the game with someone else. She said the implementation of co-op to share the scares was to "reach out to consumers that perhaps were not open to Dead Space 1 and 2." Sales of the franchise have been solid, but EA CEO John Riccitiello previously stated the company hopes the franchise will reach the "five million unit cadence" with Dead Space 3.

EA's latest free-to-play title, Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, has gone live in a browser near you. Aeria Games has turned the popular RTS franchise into a browser-based game, which means you can grow your base, play PvP and PvE scenarios, and even build social alliances and partnerships with other players, playing as the Global Defense Initiative or the Nod factions in any browser you happen to have handy.

This is just the latest online, free-to-play title that Aeria Games is launching for EA, after the success of Battlefield Heroes and Need for Speed World. Like those other games, it's supported with microtransactions and freemium items, and is probably destined to be profitable.