(Some Of) The Big Stuff:

SOE Turns Independent, Eyes Xbox Support: The biggest news this week came on Monday, when Sony Online Entertainment, makers of franchises such as H1Z1, Planetside, and EverQuest, announced that it had been acquired by an investment firm for an undisclosed sum. What does that mean? For one, SOE has changed its name to Daybreak Games. Second, the company can now bring its games to Xbox platforms. Nice!

Legend of Zelda TV Show In The Works At Netflix: While it remains officially unconfirmed, The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that Netflix and Nintendo have entered production on a live-action Zelda TV show. Its aim is to be "Game of Thrones for a family audience." That sounds really cool. What do you think?

Call of Duty 2015 Confirmed, Coming From Black Ops Dev Treyarch: It may have been pretty obvious, but Activision made it official this week: Call of Duty: Black Ops developer Treyarch, which also created the uber-popular Zombies mode, is making 2015's Call of Duty game. The title is due out this fall. Expect to hear more about it this May.

Destiny House of Wolves DLC Release Window Revealed: Destiny's second expansion, House of Wolves, will launch sometime in the April-June quarter, Activision announced this week. Plus, the company teased that Bungie will launch a "major content release" for Destiny in fall 2015. What could it be? Activision isn't saying just yet, unfortunately.

The Other Stuff (Stories We Like, But Didn't Cover With a Standalone Post):

Another "React" gaming video came online this week, this one showing teenagers playing The Last of Us. I'm still not tired of watching these videos, are you?

This might be the closest thing we ever get to Portal 3. This amazing-looking fan-made Portal 2 mod has been in development for more than three years, and it shows. Check out a trailer and more information about the game on Steam, where it's schedule to arrive March 31.

Sega is starting to tease the next Sonic game. This week, the publisher revealed a teaser trailer for Sonic Runners, a free-to-play mobile game launching this spring for iOS and Android. Like its name suggests, Sonic Runners is a 2D side-scrolling runner. Read more about it here.

Last year's pretty-excellent licensed role-playing game South Park: The Stick of Truth could get DLC someday...but it also might not. That's what developer Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart told Polygon this week. Also in the interview, Urquhart talks about the game's multi-year, stressful development process, and whether or not there might be a sequel. Read the full story here.

As a result of GameSpy's closure, the PlayStation 3 version of the original Borderlands lost its online support. But now, thanks to a newly released update, the game's multiplayer functionality has been restored. Huzzah! Check out this Gearbox post for more.

Everyone likes making GIFs, but it's not always so easy. Thankfully, the folks behind Xbox fansite XboxDVR have introduced GIF-making functionality to their site. Hurray!

Indie developer Hammerfall Publishing has announced a Collector's Edition bundle and a brand new trailer for the upcoming game, Warhammer 40,000: Regicide. Watch the trailer below. The Collector's Edition, meanwhile, comes with nice-looking art prints depicting characters from the game, as well as limited edition apparel designed by the Warhammer artists Stefan Kopinski. Buy yours today at the game's website.

Ubisoft's arcade hack-and-slash game The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot has left beta, and is now officially available for PC, following its original console release in 2014. Download the free-to-play game today on Steam right here.

Stuck inside this winter from all the snow and looking to play something new on your Nintendo machine? You're in luck, as Ubisoft has rolled out a massive Wii U and 3DS sale, offering dozens of game at deep discounts. See the full list here.

Ubisoft this week released its "experimental climbing game" Grow Home on PC through Steam. You can buy the game today for $8. Grow Home, a strange game that employs a minimalist artistic style, sees players taking on the role of BUD--Botanical Utility Droid. He's an excitable, child-like robot who is sent on a mission to search the galaxy for a new species of plant that can oxygenate his home world, saving its people, and making him the hero.

Wildstar news! NCSoft and Carbine Studios have released the fourth content update for Wildstar, the PC MMO. Called The Protogames Initiative, the update introduces a swath of new content, including a new Shiphand mission and two new dungeons. There's also new quality-of-life improvements ranging from quest flow to itemization. See here for more.

As if Hideo Kojima's P.T. wasn't scary enough already….check out the video above to see P.T. like you've never seen it before--like a Blair Witch Project-esque found footage movie.

Following its release for PlayStation 4, indie developer Roll7 announced this week that its "grind-'em-up" skateboarding game OlliOlli is coming to Xbox One, Wii U, and 3DS in March.

It's rare developers give fans (or the media) an inside look at how their finances break down, but that's exactly what Young Horses did this week for its latest game, Octodad. As you can see in the image here, Octodad made $5 million in revenue after 28,000 man-hours of development; developers also took four trips to the emergency room during the game's nearly three years of development, though it's not explained why.

New DLC is now available for professional wrestling game WWE 2K15 in the form of the "Showcase DLC" for all platforms. The add-on highlights the rivalry between fighters Christian and Randy Orton in 2011. Get it today for $10 or through the game's DLC Pass.

Blizzard isn't making Warcraft 4, but now you can...sort of. The developer this week released all sorts of Warcraft III assets for you to work with, including hero models for the game's four main races. Go ahead, make Warcraft 4, and maybe Blizzard will follow suit. Who knows.

Big news for fans of funny downloadable game Soda Drinker Pro this week, as its developer announced a long list of features (see below) to be included with the latest update on Steam. In addition, the studio said it remains in "heavy development" of the Xbox One version, while it also has a major "thirst-quenching" announcement to make soon. What do you think it will be?

• Game Save Options
• New Soda Simulations
• Entirely new Vivian Clark world now 10 times bigger than all of Soda Drinker Pro (see footage here and here)
• Achievements (360 no-scope Soda slurps and many more)
• Soda Customization and Crafting
• Steam Exclusive levels
• Optimized game exit settings (when you press the escape key it asks you if you want to close the game before it closes)
• People who purchased the original version of Soda Drinker Pro will receive Steam keys for free when it is released
• Oculus DK1 support & DK2 support coming soon
• Spaghetti Mode
• Special guests
• Much more!

Smosh Games has released their latest Honest Game Trailer, this one taking on Blizzard's immensely popular free-to-play card game HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft.

What is the secret of this mystery phone number? It was revealed on Monday by Hotline Miami 2 developer Dennaton, and calling the number puts you though to a garbled message, with the only recognizable word being “March." Is this the release date? Give it a call and hear for yourself.

Did you ever play Badland? You should, it's a beautiful and clever puzzle-adventurey thing that won iPad game of the year in 2013. Well, in a few months that game will ship on PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Wii U, Vita, PC, Mac and Linux! What’s more, the game will also come with a visual upgrade (not that it needed it!)

Everything is awesome, at least it is in this epic Lego Skyrim video from The Guildmaster Studio. Check out the video above. What do you think...time for a real Lego Skyrim?

Have a great weekend!

You're at a basketball game. The two teams are neck and neck in the fourth quarter. Suddenly, the crowd starts chanting, "Chum, chum, chum!" Kevin Garnett steals the ball and makes a breakaway down the court, when suddenly a shark comes from underneath the floor to swallow him whole! While such an event will never happen in real life, it's a regular occurrence in the game of #IDARB, the crowd-sourced, minimalist platform arena ball game.

In #IDARB, your objective is to get the ball into the opponent's goal. The level is set up as a 2-D platform-based arena, and the only tools at your immediate disposal are the ability to move, jump, double-jump, shoot, and, in the case of playing in teams rather than 1v1, a pass option.

That may not sound like much, but it is all that #IDARB needs. The initial rush for the ball sets the pace of the game. You and your opponent dash and drop to get to the central platform. You've grabbed the ball! Do you drop through the platform and try to ascend for an easy shot, or do you play footsie with your foe to try to slip past them as they attempt to swipe the ball from you? Ah, you've managed to evade their attempts to steal! You're on a path to an easy lay-up! But there's that familiar pulsing sound of your opponent frantically spamming their "shoot" button to swat the ball away and deny you your easy points. The ball goes flying across the stage, and the two of you take off to reclaim possession.

Every moment of a #IDARB match is filled with energy because, at any second, you or your opponent could get the angle necessary to set yourself up for points. Of course, if the easy lay-ups aren't your style, the more challenging three- and five-point shots are there to fill the void. The level's design is deliberately put together to offer perfect angles for long-range shots so that, once you've learned them and added them to your arsenal, you've gained a new tool for your adversaries to fear.

The scoring system further enhances the competitive drama. Your opponent has taken the ball. He stops on the central platform and aims at the platform above him! He shoots. The ball bounces off the ceiling above him, then off a platform below … and into the goal? Each bounce multiplies the shot's score by another factor. Fifteen points for a single shot! And you thought you were clever with that five-pointer from the bottom of the stage. You won't make that mistake again. As you face off for the ball rush again, you charge and activate your Fizzics, flying across the stage and barreling through the otherwise unpassable white platforms on a collision course with the the opposing goal. You miss, but the opponent foolishly waits below you. You jump downward, smashing his head and leaving him dizzy as you line up a three-pointer at the buzzer and take the round.

#IDARB's seemingly simple action is filled with depth and tons of trick shots to discover. The game also features social media integration into both Twitter and Twitch.TV stream channels that allow viewers or random passers-by to interfere with your game through commands called hashbombs. Muscle memory reigns supreme when a viewer drops the #light hashbomb and turns off the lights, leaving the illuminated ball and your player indicator triangle as the only clues to what's going on. Some hashbombs are more benign, such as a visit from Rick Astley or the transformation of the entire stage into a circus, with each player replaced by clowns. Others have drastic effects on the physics of the game, such as flooding the stage (with water OR beer!) or covering the stage in ice.

The single-player story mode of #IDARB is simple and does its job of introducing you to the game's features. Each stage is preceded by a short conversation with the AI opposition before you are set loose to play ball. Many of the conversations managed to elicit a chuckle or two from me, whether through silliness or dry humor. Your game escalates from a 1v1 starting point with no extra features to your being joined by a coffee mug and two other players as you take on 4v4s with randomly selected hashbombs interrupting your play. I personally never lost any of the matches, but I also felt like I wasn't the primary contributor to my victories. The coffee mug had several ounces of talent to slow-roast my opponents. Even if you aren't the leading scorer, however, the post-game victory screen allows you to waggle your right thumbstick to raise your victory pedestal and claim Most Valuable Player status.

If you have a gambling itch that needs scratching without bleeding actual money, the game features a fantasy mode where two AI-controlled teams face off against one another, allowing you or any of your Twitch viewers to bet on the teams, as well as drop hashbombs to attempt to influence the game in your favor. I found myself frustrated with this particular feature, but only because Murphy's Law insisted on bankrupting me every time I attempted to bet on a team.

Online play allows you to host and invite anyone from your friend list for a 1v1 match-up or hop into matchmaking with one to four players on your console to face off against an equal number of online opponents. Unfortunately, you cannot invite an Xbox Live friend to join your team as you queue up for matchmaking, so you're stuck only with friends you've acquired in person if you wish to play anything other than 1v1 online. The matchmaking process is fast, though no skill differentiation exists to ensure that your opponent will be able to keep up with your mad skills. Additionally, laggy games occur from time to time (especially when matched against opponents overseas or across the continent), and rather than one person being slightly desynchronized and having to compensate for latency, the game ensures that players are synchronized in every frame, causing the game to play in slow motion. These hiccups are mostly minor stumbling blocks and don't regularly interrupt the ability to take the game's good time online across the globe, but they are still worth noting.

Every moment of a #IDARB match is filled with energy.

The pixilated characters are divided amongst customizable teams, such as the standard Red and Blue teams, as well as the story mode opponents such as the Moustache Cops, Your Moms, the Barbarian Horde, Old McDonald’s farm (and their later forms, Breakfast). Other pop culture teams have found their way into the game as well, such as 8-Bit Halo characters, Retro City Rampage, Intellivision, and my personal favorite, the entire roster of Iron Galaxy's Divekick.

Players may edit character appearances or even create their own characters, which can then be shared through QR codes--take a picture of the QR code on your phone, and then use the Xbox One's Kinect to scan the code. Beyond just characters, players may make team logos and even team theme songs with up to four layers of a variety of instruments. Occasionally, you encounter player-created characters in matchmaking. Don't be surprised by the Internet, however, as you get matched against literal piles of poo and phallic drawings from time to time. The realm of possibilities is expansive, and anyone who seeks to do so can make a personalized impact on the game through the game's creative tools, leaving a fallback should one ever start to find the gameplay repetitive.

For me, the game's thrilling competition is more than enough to earn the stamp of approval. #IDARB doesn't look like much, but it brings a feast to the table. It stands as proof that all it takes to make a fantastic game, even with today's available technology, is a solid set of core gameplay mechanics with inherent depth.