Born Ready Games has announced a new standalone "Strike Suit" game, coming to PC via Steam on April 30. The score-driven Strike Suit Infinity jettisons most of the objectives of the original Strike Suit Zero, save for the obvious one: shoot things in space.

Strike Suit Infinity recognizes success by placing you higher in competitive leaderboards, and hopes to augment the destruction of enemy spaceships with extrinsic rewards like points, chains, multipliers and credits to purchase reinforcements.

This $7 deal nets you an infinite number of interstellar vehicles, and the eternally relevant reminder that they, as with all things in outer space, are coming to kill you.

If Far Cry 3's grim tale of survival was a poor fit for the game's exotic, often preposterous antics, there are no such fears for its seemingly disconnected spin-off. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is nothing short of ridiculous, and deliberately so. Ubisoft's standalone shooter celebrates the endearingly excessive sci-fi action of a bygone era in entertainment, when men wore cyber-armor over cyber-arms and when eyes glowed red.

An animated introduction transports us to the post-apocalyptic near future... of 2007. Our new cyborg hero is sent to an island to take out a rogue terrorist group – full of evil cyborgs. The intro has music so pungent of Terminator 2 that I half expect it to tell me it'll be back, and the first 10 or so minutes are filled with references to sci-fi and action movies from in and around the 1980s. Blood Dragon pays homage to an era full of sci-fi missteps and overblown heroes exuding machismo.

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Indie developer Moise Breton turns to Kickstarter this week to fund A.N.N.E., a 16-bittish blend of shoot-'em-up action and Metroidvania-style exploration.

Similar in premise to Sunsoft's NES classic Blaster Master, A.N.N.E. features horizontally scrolling shooter levels that bridge smaller-scale, on-foot sequences. The game also boasts physics-based puzzles and a level-up system, further sweetening an already tempting package.

In its first few days of funding, A.N.N.E. has already earned over $10,000 toward its initial funding goal of $70,000. While the project is currently Windows-only, ports for Mac, Linux, PSN, Ouya, and Wii U are under consideration, pending stretch goal support. A.N.N.E. is also up for vote at Steam Greenlight.

Harmonix laid off a handful of employees today, a spokesperson told Polygon.

"We can confirm that a small number of Harmonix employees were let go today," the spokesperson said. "This decision was made due to shifting staffing priorities for Harmonix's multiple future projects."

In March, Harmonix secured investment from venture capital firm The Foundry Group, which confirmed Harmonix was working on three new games using variations of player input, beyond standard keyboard and mouse controls. This month Harmonix snagged BioShock 2 lead designer Zak McClendon as a design director, superannuation cited today from McClendon's LinkenIn profile.

Everything in moderation, dear. The Daily Mail reports Activision UK public relations executive Kathryn Kirton has admitted to stealing £18,963 ($29,000). Her co-defendant, Jamie Kaye, who worked for third-party firm Frank PR, admitted to taking £5,000 ($7,600). The thefts occurred back in 2011 using money intended for promoting the Call of Duty franchise.

For her part, Kirton used the money for a romantic £2,000 two-night stay at a luxury countryside estate, a £1,500 engagement party and spent £9,437 in "one of three shopping sprees." It appears things started falling apart when Kirton, using the Frank PR corporate card for one of the sprees, had Kaye bill Activision for it as Modern Warfare 2 launch expense. Kaye admitted using the money to send his family on a £3,500 family vacation to Florida. He also stole six iPads.

Both pleaded guilty to one count of fraud. The judge sentenced Kirton to 18 months, but suspended it due to the "devastating effect" it would have on her young son. Kirton's marriage is reportedly on the rocks and the stress of the past two years caused her two-year-old son to be born prematurely because of the strain of the investigation. Kaye was sentenced to nine months, but that was suspended for 12 months. He's been ordered to 80 hours of community service.

Earlier this year, former Gamestop VP of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Chris Olivera was sentenced to 51 months in US federal prison after he plead guilty to embezzling over $1.7 million.

Seriously, folks, the accountants will catch up with you eventually. Well, you know, unless they're in on it.

Nordic Games picked up most of the IPs in THQ's back catalog auction, dishing out $4.9 million for Darksiders, Red Faction, MX vs ATV, Titan Quest and a slew of unannounced games from THQ's long list of for-sale properties. Nordic was a surprise to some, especially next to Gearbox, which picked up the Homeworld franchise, and 505 Games, which snagged Drawn to Life and its sequel. But Nordic isn't new.

"We've been in conversation with THQ since January," Nordic CEO Lars Wingefors told Game Informer. "We signed all the NDAs in January."

Wingefors has been in the gaming industry for 20 years, he said, and has handled "a lot" of THQ products during that time. In November 2011, Nordic acquired publisher JoWood, in charge of Painkiller and Torchlight, and also ended up with Canadian publisher Dreamcatcher, spawning Nordic's publishing focus.

Nordic took part in the first THQ auction as well, which sold off properties such as Saints Row and some development studios for upwards of $20 million. That sale was too rich for Wingefors: "Saints Row went for $22 million and Koch bought that development studio with that burn rate on a daily basis. Even though I do have financial resources, I don't have those kind of resources."

Wingefors didn't want a studio. Nordic is a "middle man" looking for the right team to make some new sequels; there's already been plenty of interest in Darksiders, he said.

"We have to be very honest," Wingefors said. "I am a business man within the games industry. We are not the creative, talented developer that brings out new versions in house. I understand the potential of the IPs. I respect the original creators and the creative people who are able to create sequels. In the past 24 hours, we have been contacted and there have been a few discussions (but I can't confirm names)."

Nordic took home more than 50 former THQ games, but has yet to release the full list.

"As we still have some open points with regards to a couple of titles we will not publish a comprehensive list at this stage," a Nordic Games representative told Joystiq yesterday. "However, once everything is fixed and the ink is dry – around mid-May – we will go out with a comprehensive list of titles which we have acquired in the process."

Nordic will hold talks this summer with different developers, during E3 especially. Don't expect any sequels too soon, though.

"You won't see a new Darksiders this year," Wingefors said. "I don't believe in bringing out a shitty sequel."

As scheduled, the 'Redemption' DLC for Assassin's Creed 3 comes today to the Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 - tomorrow for European PS3s - but Wii U owners must wait a bit longer to redeem it. The final part of the 'King Washington' trilogy reaches the Nintendo console on May 16.

Before you can stop the madness of King George, you'll have to cough up 640 MSP on Xbox 360, or $7.99 on PC and PS3. If you have the Season Pass then you've already paid for it, so you'd best get going to old New York - just don't forget the straitjacket.

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Independent developer Bryan Lunduke, creator of what is almost certainly the world's only Linux distribution sim, raises eyebrows again this week with the release of The Lunduke Experimental Artificial Intelligence Terminal (or "L.E.A.I.T."), a text-based game for Windows, Mac, and Linux starring Ruby, a friendly, lovable AI engine.

You won't have long to bond with your new pal, however. Shortly after the game begins, Ruby goes nuts and starts infecting your files with a virtual virus. The only way to stop Ruby's rampage is to track its activity through your computer's actual file system, deleting infected documents and cornering it between emptied directories.

You won't damage your personal files while playing L.E.A.I.T. – Ruby's in-game destruction is fictional, and players don't risk losing or infecting real files. Still, the game may still inspire a twinge of panic whenever it pops up a notification that Ruby's infection has spread to, say, your work documents, or your collection of kitten .gifs.

You can download a demo of L.E.A.I.T. at Lunduke's site for free, while the full version will set you back $3.

Paypal froze Lab Zero Games' account briefly today, due to risk that a significant number of Skullgirls crowdfunding pledges would be revoked. Lab Zero allowed backers to vote on new DLC characters, leading to the theory that if their chosen character didn't make it into the game, some fans would pull their "vote." "Basically, they are terrified of chargebacks," CEO Peter Bartholow told Venturebeat. "If we spend all the money and don't deliver and everyone [requests] chargebacks, PayPal is concerned they will be on the line for [the money]. So, they are effectively treating it as a loan."

After discussions with PayPal, the company has "unrestricted" Lab Zero's account, but continues to hold around $35,000, which Lab Zero CEO Peter Bartholow had planned to use for payroll. "They've only got $35k of our money frozen, so we're not in any real danger," Bartholow said on NeoGAF. "It's just an inconvenience at the moment."

Update: In other Skullgirls news, Bartholow tells XBLAFans the "Slightly Different" patch should arrive in the next two weeks on Xbox.

Telltale Games went all-in this week on release dates for Poker Night at the Inventory 2, showing a full house of tweets for all the announced versions. Inventory 2 twists first onto XBLM tomorrow, April 24. Steam (PC and Mac) takes its place at the table on Friday, April 26, and it's followed by PSN on April 30 - at least in North America. A May 1 arrival for Europe's PSN is estimated but not yet finalized.

The new roster for the card game sequel features Sam from Sam and Max, Ash Williams from Army of Darkness, and sadistic AI GLaDOS from Portal as the dealer - which at least means you won't have to try to read her, which we really wouldn't recommend.

Today's gold-coated, quick-fire deals from Amazon seem to have one thing in common: plenty of moider. A good portion of the deals are for games that get a bit angry and violent; we spot a mouth-frothing line-up that hints at Halo 4, Hitman: Absolution, and Dead Space 3 deals among others. Then there's the not-especially-calm Gears of War: Judgment, which is going for $34.99 until 8AM ET (5AM PT), tempestuously fidgeting as it revs its chainsaw.

At least the all-day deal brings peace and serenity in the form of God of War: Ascension. The latest PS3 whimsy starring the gentle, philanthropic demigod Kratos politely requests $39.99 for its individual services, or $279.99 for its 500GB Garnet Red PS3 bundle, which also includes God of War: Saga and a cuddly Kratos plushie (or at least it should).

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The Evil Within won't empower the player beyond "appropriate" weaponry and a delicate dearth of ammunition, claims Director Shinji Mikami.

"We're not giving the player really any extraordinary powers," he told IGN, "but we don't want to go in the opposite direction and not give them any means of fighting back – that would violate the rules of survival horror. So we're looking at appropriate types of weapons with a limited amount of ammunition in order to get them through ... if they're good."

The Evil Within follows a detective named Sebastian, an unfortunate soul summoned to a distorted, labyrinthine asylum crawling with creepy things. Mikami sees the premise as a source of proper scares, and frames it in an overtly cinematic way – right down to the survival-horror game's wider aspect ratio of 2.35:1. (As with some films, this means you'll see black bars above and below the image on HDTVs, which are typically in 16:9 ratio.)

Mikami's approach is reflected, arguably to a fault, in a live-action trailer for The Evil Within. If you have trouble stomaching the more grotesque parts, just substitute the gore for gourmet foods. The gnarled corpse becomes chicken, and the final shot is spaghetti escaping confinement in a microwave.

Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded needs to work out the kinks in its pick-up lines, but the game should be out by May 31 in North America, Replay Games CEO Paul Trowe told Shacknews.

"We should be in beta this week," Trowe said. "We need to get all the bugs and game freezes out of the way, and maybe do pick-up lines with the actors that may have been missed. We'll get the game to about 7,500 of our Kickstarter backers for the beta test, and they'll also be testing foreign language versions as well."

The beta should run about two weeks, Trowe said, and when it launches, Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded will be $20 for PC, Mac and Linux. During GDC, Trowe told us he hoped to see Reloaded out between May 15 - 30. The game is scheduled to hit Europe in June for £15.

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Publisher Deep Silver – new owner of the Volition-developed Saints Row series – has announced that Saints Row 4 is getting a special "Commander in Chief" edition, available for free to everyone who pre-orders the upcoming game.

Earning the special edition content means you'll get a snazzy Uncle Sam outfit, a "Screaming Eagle" jet, and a "'Merica weapon," which boasts flamethrowers, "dub step guns," and rocket launchers.

Saints Row 4 will see the Third Street Saints voted into presidential office on August 20 in North and Latin America, and August 23 in other regions.

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The Spring Sale over at Gamersgate continues with a nice daily deal on Bastion, Supergiant Games' wonderful action-RPG, for $3.75. Other deals today include Endless Space for $17.48 and half-off the Double Fine bundle, a collection of Brutal Legend, Costume Quest, Psychonauts and Stacking for $22.50.

This sale is bolstered by ongoing weekly deals, such as the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Collection for $12, Sine Mora for $4.98, Trine 2 for $3.75, Legend of Grimrock for $5.10 and Sonic Spinball for $1.70 – the full nine-page list is available through the source link below.

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Steam's weekly deals may not have official themes, but they each seem to carry an overall vibe, and this week, that vibe is "dead bodies and scary assaults." Each of the following games is up to 75 percent off on Steam through 10 a.m. PT on April 29: Resonance, Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, Postal 2 Complete, Primal Fears, Still Life, Still Life 2, Post Mortem, Perimeter 2: New Earth, Zombie Pirates and a software title, Construct 2.

Mutant Blobs Attack, for example, is half off for $4, and it supports Steam's controller-friendly Big Picture mode. Resonance, a deep and innovative point-and-click adventure, is 75 percent off for $2.50, and Postal 2 Complete is 60 percent off, $6. Check out the lineup right here.

Sir, You Are Being Hunted, but you should really take a break and watch this gameplay video. It won't only give your tired body a moment of rest, but the tactics demonstrated could save your life in Big Robot's tweedpunk, procedural stealth game, Sir, You Are Being Hunted. It's a win-win, as far as "being hunted" goes.

This is the first video in a new series, and it demonstrates strategies behind fleeing, healing, hiding and, occasionally, shooting at the enemy AI. Take a peek and if you like what you see, pre-orders for Sir, You Are Being Hunted are live now via the Humble Store.