Activision has released a quartet of new trailers featuring the latest playable additions to the cast of Skylanders: Swap Force, giving an early look at some of the game's figure-swapping possibilities.

Above, you'll get an early look at Boom Jet, an engine-propelled Air character capable of firing volleys of rockets at enemies. Like other Swap Force Skylanders, Boom Jet's base can be removed and attached to other swap-capable figures, giving their in-game counterparts the ability to hover over rough terrain.

A trailer for fellow Swap Force initiate Grilla Drilla can be seen below, along with preview videos for the new core (non-swappable) Skylanders Slobber Tooth and Zoo Lou.

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Japanese indie fighter Yatagarasu was originally meant to find its way onto the 3DS, but will instead be released on the PlayStation Vita as Legend of Raven, publisher Nicalis has announced. Originally released on PC in 2011, a westernized 3DS port of Yatagarasu was announced just before last year's PAX Prime, though Nicalis has remained radio silent since. No release date has been given for the Vita version, which will be available through PSN.

The platform jump was made due to "incredibly overwhelming response from the fighting gaming community," Nicalis CEO/Executive Producer Victor Rodriguez said in the announcement. The Vita version of the game will feature parallaxing backgrounds and a new soundtrack, in addition to "lagless" ad-hoc local multiplayer.

Legend of Raven should not be confused with Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm, the PC-only, enhanced version of Yatagarasu that was just successfully funded through Indiegogo.

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Players who pre-order Sonic: Lost World will receive a bonus level, Sega announced. Based on Sega's Nights Into Dreams, the level features Lost World's "Deadly Six" antagonists teaming up with bosses from the classic Sega Saturn game.

Once players complete the level, which they can jump into at any time, they are given a special Color ability for Sonic to use.

Sonic: Lost World launches on October 22 for 3DS and Wii U.

The 3DS port of Retro City Rampage will not include 3D visuals, developer Vblank Entertainment has announced. It's the game's top-down perspective that makes the feat such a significant technical burden.

"With sidescrollers, developers can simply separate the background and foreground layers and distance them apart," the Vblank post reads. "However, with a top down perspective using cube-like objects such as buildings and vehicles, it would require the graphics to all be recreated as 3D objects, a new rendering engine, a camera system that players would be happy with, and further optimizations. For a new game it would be more feasible, but for an existing one, it simply would've taken too long."

Retro City Rampage for 3DS, which includes the most recent version of the game with enhanced graphics, was announced yesterday. The 3DS port will be playable at Nintendo's PAX Prime booth next weekend.

Retro City Rampage is coming to the 3DS eShop, Nintendo has announced. The news was buried in a Nintendo press release, which we've embedded past the break, revealing playable games at next week's PAX Prime show in Seattle.

Creator Brian Provinciano confirmed with Joystiq that this will be the latest version of Retro City Rampage, including the recently added Retro+ graphics mode that doubles on-screen colors and adds dynamic soft shadows to the game. He also said Retro City Rampage will be out on the 3DS eShop this holiday season.

Retro City Rampage, a game we thoroughly enjoyed when it launched last year, is a humorous open-world crime game that started as a project to port Grand Theft Auto 3 over to the NES. Provinciano did the majority of the work himself – which was the subject of a rousing talk at this year's GDC show.

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A purported Target retail listing suggests a new 32GB Wii U bundle is on the way, and that it includes The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.

Word comes from Destructoid, which claims a source at retailer Target shared some listings from the company's internal tracking system. The Destructoid source pegs the new console at $349.99, the same price as the 32GB console offered now at retail.

That same source also claims Nintendo will offer two special 3DS XL bundles that include a copy of Pokemon X/Y for $199.99. And though no launch date was provided for these proposed bundles, we'd assume Nintendo is eyeing October – that's when both Pokemon games and Wind Waker HD will launch.

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Activision's Skylanders series is doing big business – big enough for the House of Mouse to take notice and develop a multi-million dollar competitor. The result, Disney Infinity, shares surface similarities with Activision's series, but its gameplay skews toward an older audience, in the hopes of capturing a universal appeal. Disney Infinity makes a lot of promises, boasting gameplay that takes cues from big-name hits like Minecraft and LittleBigPlanet. The finished product is a rousing success, offering lightweight but solid co-op gameplay built on a foundation of undiluted nostalgia.

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Witnesses report the nefarious Payday 2 was sighted in a hit-and-run in the UK charts. It's believed Overkill's crime-it-up stole the prized top spot from Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, where Mojang's crafter had been safely stowed for three weeks straight. The police had nothing to say on the matter, and told us to stop calling them.

In other chart–crime news, is that Grand Theft Auto 4 we see sneaking into tenth place? With GTA 5 around the corner on September 17 and all the hubbub of last week, Brits seem very keen to reunite with their own in Scottish-based GTA studio Rockstar North. Elsewhere, chart mainstays like FIFA 13, Black Ops 2, The Last of Us, and Tomb Raider - it's still going, Square Enix! - continue to hang tough.

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Devil Summoner Soul Hackers for 3DS has been slightly delayed in Europe to September 20. Awaiting localization for nearly 15 years, what's an extra week? At least, that's what we tell ourselves whenever the shakes come on.

The 3DS game launched in North America this past April and in Japan last August. The game originally launched on the Sega Saturn in 1997, and then on the original PlayStation in 1999, both times in Japan.

Disney tightened its focus within the video games sector in order to concentrate on the upcoming multiplatform release of Disney Infinity, the Wall Street Journal reports.

As part of its restructuring efforts, the company canceled a previously unannounced Iron Man-licensed game that had entered production. Disney Interactive additionally passed on its option to produce multiple Star Wars-licensed games following its parent company's purchase of Lucasfilm earlier this year.

According to the Wall Street Journal's report, Disney Infinity cost the company more than $100 million to produce. The risk is great, but Disney counts on a big payoff, as Activision's competing Skylanders series has raked in more than $1.5 billion in sales since its launch in 2011.

Disney positions Infinity as a boost for its faltering Interactive division, which has incurred more than $1.41 billion in losses since its formation in 2008.

"If Infinity does well, it bodes very well for the bottom line of this unit," Disney CEO Robert Iger told the Wall Street Journal. "If it doesn't do well, the opposite will be the case."

"It's a Hail Mary with a tremendous amount of pressure to be a hit," said an unnamed source who recently left Disney's video game division.

A BMO-themed Collector's Edition of Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know! will be released for the 3DS version of the game, alongside its standard edition counterparts on the 3DS, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC when the game arrives this fall.

The Collector's Edition, which will run for $39.99, comes in a limited edition BMO SteelBook case and includes a DVD that features voice actor interviews, show creator Pendleton Ward's storyboard artwork "and more," in addition to "Finn and Jake's Dungeon Guide," a full-color manual with bonus artwork.

The standard editions of the Wii U and 3DS versions also have a bit more in-game BMO than the other ports. In the Wii U version, BMO's adorable little computer face will chill on the GamePad's screen, dispensing commentary via 300-plus voice clips, in addition to contextual clues and hints about boss weaknesses. The 3DS version features similar functionality on the touch screen, sans voice clips.

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The NPD Group has released its report on sales in the physical retail channel of the games industry during the month of July, with both predictable and surprising results. On the predictable side of things, all three segments (Hardware, Software and Accessories) continued their downward year-over-year decline, with total Hardware sales suffering a 34-percent decrease: $99.4 million this year as compared with $150.9 million over the same period in 2012.

Despite this industry-wide decline, Nintendo's 3DS saw a 14 percent year-over-year increase in sales as it held its spot as the best-selling piece of hardware for a third month in a row. This is the first time a handheld has topped the market for such a lengthy period since the Nintendo DS' three month streak in the fall/winter of 2010, according to NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 remained the best-selling home console for the thirty-first month in a row.

As per usual, the Accessories segment suffered the least amount of market fluctuation, experiencing only a three percent year-over-year loss and bringing in $133.4 million in sales. Also maintaining the status quo, this segment's stability continues to be attributed to steady sales of digital currency and subscription giftcards.

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Sam Fisher infiltrates the Wii U's eShop next week in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist, joining a Virtual Console release of Namco's arcade classic Galaga. The NES version of Donkey Kong arrives today on the 3DS's Virtual Console, meanwhile, and players can look forward to snuggling canines and equines alike in the one-two pet-sim punch that is Barbie Groom and Glam Pups and My Western Horse 3D.

Wii U

• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Ubisoft, 1-8 players, available August 20)
• Galaga [Virtual Console; NES version] (Namco Bandai, 1-2 players, $4.99)

3DS

• Barbie Groom and Glam Pups (Little Orbit, 1 player, $29.99)
• My Western Horse 3D (TREVA Entertainment, 1 player, $29.99)
• 10-in-1: Arcade Collection (Gamelion, 1 player, $2.99)
• Heavy Fire: Black Arms 3D (Teyon, 1 player, $4.99)
• Donkey Kong [Virtual Console; NES version] (Nintendo, 1-2 players, $4.99)

Nintendo only has to pay half of the $30.2 million a US District Court determined it owed to Seijiro Tomita for infringing on his 3D display patent. As both Bloomberg and Reuters reports, Judge Jed Rakoff gave Tomita and his company Tomita Technologies the option to accept $15.1 million in damages, or risk nothing by entering another trial.

Back in March, the US District Court in Manhattan judged Nintendo guilty of infringing upon Tomita's 3D-display tech patent, filed in 2003 and granted in 2008. Tomita's attorney, Joe Diamante, claimed Nintendo used his client's technology to develop the 3DS. However, yesterday Judge Rakoff said the award was "intrinsically excessive" and "unsupported by the evidence presented at trial."

The reduction in penalties is massive, but Nintendo plans on appealing the verdict, just the same. Spokesperson Charlie Scibetta told Reuters, "Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies and is confident that none of its products infringes the asserted patent. Nintendo will appeal the jury's verdict and reduced damages award to the court of appeals."

As for Tomita, his attorney informed Reuters, "We are still reviewing the decision and have no comment." We doubt we've heard the last of this case yet.

Within hours of making Pokémon X and Pokémon Y bundles available for pre-order, Amazon Japan saw its entire allocation of units snatched up by eager pocket-monster wranglers over the weekend.

Two bundles are coming to Japan: a special golden console bundle, which sold out within one hour of being made available for order, and a blue console, which sold out nine hours later. According to Amazon Japan's Twitter account (via DualShockers), all 100,000 units of the limited console bundle have been claimed. The online retailer continues to sell the game separately.

It's a Hyrule of life: Time changes everything. Here's a new GameXPlain video comparing SNES classic The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with footage of 3DS follow-up A Link Between Worlds, showing some of the ways the games' overworlds are similar and not so.

Beyond predictable things like different enemy placements, touched-up environments, and aspect ratios, it's interesting to note some of the more structural ways in which Hyrule has changed. For example, where once there were rivers in the dark world, now there are great big chasms of nothingness - and there's a bridge missing for that matter.

As Nintendo discussed in a recent Direct broadcast, A Link Between Worlds takes place in the same world as A Link to the Past, but is set a long time after the original game - which would explain the changes. While the overworlds remain similar, the dungeons are very much different, featuring new puzzles centered around new mechanics. Nintendo showed Link's power to transform into a wall etching, able to cross over gaps and slip between cracks in walls. Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata also teased the presence of a shadow triforce in A Link Between Worlds, as evidenced by the game's logo.

Zelda's return to the same-but-not-quite-the-same Hyrule of A Link Between Worlds is scheduled for sometime this November.

GameStop is looking to entice Skylanders: Swap Force early adopters with an exclusive pre-order bonus: the Dark Edition Starter Pack.

Outside of the requisite copy of the game and Portal of Power, the Dark Edition Starter Pack includes five exclusive dark variant figures: Dark Washbuckler, Dark Blast Zone, Dark Stealth Elf, Dark Spyro and Dark Lockjaw. On top of that, some sticker sheets with special codes, trading cards and a poster are included in the bundle.

Skylanders: Swap Force's main hook involves hybrid figures – each figure includes a bottom and top portion that can be interchanged with other compatible toys from the new lineup of 16. Portalmasters can tame a new torrent of toys this October, on Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, 3DS, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

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Skylanders rival-to-be Disney Infinity unveiled 'Toy Story in Space' as its sixth play set, along with a whole bunch of new playable characters for the Toy Box mode. The game's play sets include physical figures that grant access to in-game worlds and stories, in this case the Toy Story universe. Buzz Lightyear and Jessie are the packed-in figures, while a Woody figure is available separately.

Infinity's Starter Pack, priced $75, includes the game, three play sets, and a figure for each one. Those sets are The Incredibles, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Monsters University, and they come with Mr. Incredible, Jack Sparrow, and Sully figurines.

As ever with toys, some play sets are sold separately, and Disney has announced three other additional play sets so far. They are Cars, The Lone Ranger, and the newly confirmed Toy Story in Space, each one adding around six to nine hours of gameplay and priced $35. Unlike the other two, Toy Story in Space won't be available when the game launches for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii, and 3DS later this week - it's scheduled for October.

Disney also announced new figures for the Toy Box mode, the game's communal sandbox where collected characters can be brought together for crossover antics. While we'd prefer Wreck-It Ralph to get his own launch play set, the big lug does feature as an additional Toy Box character along with co-star Vanellope. The other newbies are Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey from Fantasia, Tangled's Rapunzel, Phineas and Agent P from Phineas and Ferb, Anna and Elsa from upcoming film Frozen, and finally, maybe the pick of the bunch, The Nightmare Before Christmas' Jack Skellington. The newly announced Toy Box characters will roll out starting October through to next year.

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