Racing fans: MotoGP is back! Italian developer Milestone returns to the simulation-focused series after a few years away with the newly revealed MotoGP '13 (via All Games Beta). The developer last tackled MotoGP '08, after which Monumental Games took over for a pair of releases. Milestone is back now, though it's not clear if Capcom is still handling the publishing duties.

The upcoming game's existence is revealed in the debut trailer up top, though be warned that it doesn't actually show you anything from the game. Between the trailer and the newly launched official website, we know that MotoGP '13 is due for a multi-platform release on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and PC. 

The website also mentions the existence of a full season mode (w/ MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3) along with an assortment of other modes (2013 World Championship, IRTA Test, Quick Race, Multiplayer). Real-life MotoGP events will also apparently inform the content in some way. There's no release date mentioned, though with big races starting in early April, you can probably expect the game to arrive around then.

New light has been shed upon Marvel's upcoming S.H.I.E.L.D. live action TV series. In what might be the most critical bit of info revealed about the show thus far, it seems that, contrary to popular belief, it will take place AFTER the events of mega-film, The Avengers.

ABC president, Paul Lee recently spoke to IGN about the show's connection to Marvel's hugely-popular, canon-coordinated comic book films, to which he would respond:

“There is no question that it is part of the Marvel Universe. In fact, the story takes place after the battle for New York." Adding: "This is S.H.I.E.L.D. They’re following their own particular stories. There are characters in it, Coulson, who clearly come from Avengers. So it’s part of the world, but we’re going to be very, very careful that we don’t tread on the toes of the features and build a whole new world. And that’s what Joss Whedon does better than anybody else. He’s built a world for us."

So, if it's not a prequel series, then how is it that Clark Gregg's Agent Phil Coulson, who (and I think we're well past the window where this would be considered a "spoiler,") was killed in The Avengers last year become resurrected to be the show's headlining star?

Well, in the true fashion of fanboy lake-fishing with proverbial dynamite, we're only left with more vexing questions like that.

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Release Date: February 26, 2013

Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier

Publisher: Ubisoft

Platform(s): Wii U

Rayman is back! After 2011's outstanding side-scrolling platformer, Rayman Origins, Ubisoft Montpellier returns for a direct sequel in Rayman Legends. The Wii U exclusive is one of the most wanted early 2013 games for Nintendo's new platform, and it promises to make use of the new console's unusual tablet-like controller to add an entirely new layer to the game.

What We Know:

Rayman and his pals are wandering through an enchanted forest one day when they come across a tent filled with paintings. No matter that hanging a painting from a flimsy tent wall is next to impossible. This is a video game. Get over it. It turns out that each of the paintings is actually a door into another world, with each piece of artwork offering a sense of what sort of world awaits.

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The list of nominees for 2013's annual D.I.C.E. Awards, to be held in February at the close of the Las Vegas conference, is out and the leader of the nominations packs is none other than thatgamecompany's PlayStation 3-exclusive Journey, with nods in 11 categories, including Game of the Year.

It's a commanding lead over the other contenders, with the critically acclaimed Telltale Games adventure The Walking Dead settling into the second place position with eight nominations. Other multiple category nods go to Far Cry 3 (seven nominations), Halo 4 (six nominations), Borderlands 2, and Dishonored (five nominations apiece).

The D.I.C.E. Awards will be held on the evening of February 7 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas to close out the annual conference. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences also confirms that Nerdist.com creator Chris Hardwick will host. You can check out the full list of categories and nominees right here.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 fans on PlayStation 3 and PC platforms finally get to sample the joys of the Nuketown Zombies map on January 17, 2013. Nuketown Zombies map started life as a pre-order bonus before being released in December 2012 for all Season Pass subscribers on Xbox 360.

The Call of Duty Twitter feed confirms the 1/17 release. It doesn't actually say that Nuketown is tied to Season Pass ownership the way it is on Xbox 360, but the fact that the tweet links to a Season Pass product page is pretty telling. We're checking with Activision just for the sake of clarity, but for now figure that you'll have to own a Season Pass in order to get Nuketown.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment seems to be preparing for the next phase of its Rocksteady Studios-crafted Arkham franchise, that is if a chunk of newly registered domains is to be believed. Domain manager MarkMonitor, which reps WBIE and many others in the entertainment biz, registered 15 new domains that all share a common theme: some mention of 'Arkham' and many mentions of 'Batman' (via Fusible).

There's no way of knowing if these domains were purchased on behalf of Warner of course. What's more, the varied assortment of titles in the registered domain list suggests that this may be more of a protective maneuver, to guard against web squatters chomping up potential domains for a future game, film, or some other work of entertainment. You can hit the jump for the full list of newly registered domains.

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What exactly is Resident Evil: Revelations Unveiled Edition? If a newly posted Achievements list at Exophase (via Joystiq) is to be believed, it's a console port of the Nintendo 3DS title Resident Evil: Revelations. The game is certainly console controls-friendly enough, though one has to wonder what an HD port of a 3DS game might look like.

Keep in mind that Capcom hasn't actually confirmed the existence of such a port. The list of Xbox 360 cheevos certainly seems to nod in the direction of the 3DS game's content, but it's nothing that an Internet hoaxster couldn't have conceived. We're checking this out with Capcom, so stay tuned for more when we hear it.

Release Date: July 3
Director: Gore Verbinski
Rating: Not Yet Rated

Presumed dead and having touched the other side existence, a badge in the Old West, aided by a Native American spirit warrior, becomes the famous a masked marauder of justice, battling the forces of an evil robber baron.

What We Know:

Back in the Old West, John Reid (Armie Hammer of The Social Network) did his best to uphold the law. That was, until it cost him everything he knew and loved, ending up buried in a grave after a mysterious skirmish. So, you can imagine his surprise when he woke up on top of some crude scaffolding situated on a rock formation high atop a desert canyon.

In tune with all things spiritual, Native American bystander, Tonto (Johnny Depp) was nice enough to dig graves for the battle victims, including John's. Yet, despite his knowledge in such areas, the whole "dead guy waking up from a high altitude nap" phenomena was a bit of a surprise to him, as well. He's concluded that John, having successfully made a rare round-trip from the afterlife, was a Spirit Walker; "A man who cannot be killed in battle."

Such a thing will certainly come in handy when John wages a rather lopsided war against a brutal, avarice-obsessed tycoon named Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson), who is using the westward railroad expansion as a means to rule ripe territories while ravaging the homeland of Tonto's brethren.

Now cavorting incognito to maintain his deceased status, John becomes The Lone Ranger. Alongside Tonto and a freaky tree-climbing horse, the Ranger takes the battle to the forces of this self-obsessed steampunk Scrooge. (Who probably wipes his mouth with hundred dollar bills and uses rose-cheeked Dickensian urchin children as foot-rests.)

Rounding out the cast are Helena Bonham Carter (because, you know, Johnny Depp is in the film), William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, and James Badge Dale.

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Release Date: June 28  August 16 (revised)
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Rating: Not Yet Rated

The awkward journeyman justice-bringer is back! Now a High-School grad, he's weighing his options for higher education...by starting a new team of costumed heroes. Meanwhile, an old enemy of his plots a sadistic revenge.

What We Know:

When we last left our heroes, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Mindy Macready (Chloe Grace Moretz,) they had settled into an early retirement from crime-fighting as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl. -- Well, not so much, as it turns out.

A wave of wannabe heroes now roam the streets fighting crime and young Mindy just couldn't resist her instilled life-long vigilante ways and gets back to making her rounds as Hit-Girl. Unfortunately, she gets busted, caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar (and by that, we mean "viciously and violently spilling the blood of the wicked") and this time, her retirement is no longer voluntary. -- But she won't sit back without a fight.

Dave is also called back to the baddie-bashing beat as Kick-Ass when he joins a band of costumed crusaders led by a gritty former mobster in camouflage going by the name, "Colonel Stars and Stripes." (Jim Carrey) Calling themselves "Justice Forever," this group may not have the style, skills, resources, technology, or irradiated giant green brutes like "that other superhero team," but these enthusiastic amateurs nevertheless have the will to make a difference.

It turns out that Dave will need all the help he can get when his old frenemy, Chris D'Amico, still upset with him over that whole "killing his criminal father" incident, plots revenge by pulling together a team of super-villains to counter the rising Justice Forever. No longer calling himself, Red Mist, Chris, now known as "The Mother F**ker," is out to slowly cash out his vengeance on those closest to Dave, starting with his girlfriend, Katie. (Lyndsy Fonesca)

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We learned earlier this week that TT Games is going to be tackling LEGO Marvel Super Heroes as its next adorably geek-friendly game, and a newly released video from Game Informer offers an early look at how things are going at the studio. While you'll see various heroes in action, including Iron Man, Wolverine, and Hulk, the character you DON'T see is the most exciting one mentioned: GALACTUS.

Yes, Marvel's planet-sized Devourer of Worlds is going to play some part in the story for LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. OF COURSE HE IS. If you're going to gather all of Earth's mightiest into a single, LEGO-fied game, who better to pit them all against than a LEGO-fied Galactus? TT Games' LEGO efforts tend to run hot and cold with me, but LEGO The Lord of the Rings is pretty outstanding and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is looking like it could definitely follow suit.

Electronic Arts and Crytek have fired off the latest episode of the Albert Hughes-directed and -produced web series, The Seven Wonders of Crysis 3, titled Cause and Effect. Taking a page from the acclaimed Dead Island reveal trailer, the all-CG short spins the clock back on Prophet's wanton destruction of CELL Corporation property.

This continues to be a sweet little web series based on Crytek's upcoming game, one which seems to serve little purpose beyond serving up a bunch of "Hey, that's really cool!" slices of action inspired by the game. Do you prefer this approach to a more typical gameplay trailer or dev diary? After all, a trailer can only do so much to sell you on a game; the final call can only be made when you actually play the thing.

Having recently played Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Far Cry 3 in the same week, it wasn’t long before I started craving that FPS middle ground between ultra narrow linearity and a story-driven sense of direction. The “wide linear” design of Crysis 2 hit that sweet spot, and after a brief but satisfying hands-on session with Crysis 3, I’m pleased to say that I’m wholly optimistic about Crytek’s 2013 sequel.

The traditional FPS controls (and having reviewed Crysis 2 only last year) made getting into Crysis 3 nearly instantaneous. Nor did I need much orientation with the added bow and arrow, which is toggled with the d-pad. Its tactical advantages complement an already fortified Prophet, the game’s protagonist, particularly when it comes to stealth. You'll  find enough tools and environmental options that you can’t help but be proactive, and it’s a joy to mix things up during a firefight, confusing the enemy by dropping in and out of stealth and keeping steadily fortified with the armor.

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Release Date: February 19, 2013

Developer: PlatinumGames

Publisher: Konami

Platform(s): PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has a silly name, but it's much more than just a title. It's a first step in a new direction for a franchise that has never shied away from trying something different. The nearly canceled, Raiden-focused (read: CYBER NINJA-focused) brawler is now in the hands of the best possible developer for this sort of release: PlatinumGames. Who else is crazy excited for over-the-top face-meltery?

What We Know:

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a canonical story set in the Metal Gear universe, but it's not the proper next chapter in the ongoing saga of Snake-related codenames. This action-centric adventure focuses on the cyborg ninja-fied Raiden, fully restored to peak condition after his alarmingly frequent maimings in Metal Gear Solid 4: Sons of the Patriots. The story follows Raiden, a PMC soldier boy, as he takes on a competing PMC that is wrapped up in various terrorist actions. The cutscenes are shorter but the story is just as wacky as you'd expect or hope for from a Metal Gear game.

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Crash Bandicoot was very nearly the star of his own Nintendo DS game, called Crash Landed. Renegade Kid was reportedly working on the title for Activision sometime in 2008/2009, and a newly posted video from Nintendo World Report gives a glimpse at what might have been.

The demo video's gameplay, which Renegade Kid's Jools Watsham tells Destructoid was put together in two weeks, features Crash as he hops and spins his way around a 3D beach setting. It's not clear why the game was canceled, but that's often the case with this sort of thing.

When Tomb Raider hits stores on March 5, 2013, it'll be joined by a limited edition wireless Xbox 360 controller with a design inspired by Lara Croft's rebooted origin story. The red-hued gamepad features artificial scuffing and the image of a tourniquet wrapped around its left hand grip. In more practical terms, the controller also features one of those nifty transforming D-pads.

Microsoft worked with Crystal Dynamics artists to fine-tune the look of the controller, which will sell for $59.99. The package also includes an Xbox 360-exclusive download token for the Scavenger Archer multiplayer character. We should be hearing more about that recently announced component of the game soon, but if you're in the market for a new controller and you're a big Lara Croft fan, you might want to wait a couple of extra weeks.