More than two years later, Heavy Rain for PS3 still stands alone as the most unique and best interactive experience on any current generation console. You can disagree with me if you want, but you’re definitely wrong.

There have been some great experiences since then—Skyrim and Amnesia: The Dark Descent come to mind—but neither one of those is necessarily what I’d call “unique”. Are they both superb games? Yes. Are they both really fun to play? Yes, yes they are. Unique, though? Not really.

I won’t fully rehash my enduring love for Heavy Rain here, but if you’d like to read my review from back in 2010, feel free.

The reason I’m talking about old games is because last week at GDC 2012, Quantic Dream, creators of Heavy Rain, showed off a tech demo for the PlayStation 3’s real-time rendering capabilities and a new motion capture method called full-performance capture. The demo brings to life a female android named Kara. Kara is being assembled by robotic arms and running through her initialization sequence when a spark of independent thought prompts engineers to begin disassembling her for being “defective”. After begging for her life, Kara is warily put back together and joins the other androids, promising not to cause any further problems.

It’s a captivating and emotional piece that provokes the imagination. It reminds me that too many games today fail to incite emotion and makes me wish more developers would take chances with the games they make.

Though Quantic Dream denies that the demo is tied to a current project, I really hope to see more of Kara someday soon.

5. Nintendo Jacket – Nothing says I’m an old, balding creepazoid like this Nintendo jacket featuring the iconic original NES controller. Couple this beauty with a good pair of black sweatpants and you’ll be calling the police to arrest the ladies off of you.

4. Retro Gaming Ties – These ties feature classic scenes from gaming’s golden era. From Tetris and Pong to Space Invaders and Asteroids—each one seems to be frowning in on itself a bit with shame. Seriously, even the aging folks who developed these classic games think these ties are nerdy.

3. Piranha Plant Underwear – These stylish, black underoos are perfect for those who are geeky to the absolute core. The famous Piranha Plant from the Super Mario Bros. series makes quite the statement when worn under some skinny jeans and complemented with some Chuck Taylors. It’s too bad no one except your dude friends and your mom will ever get to see them.

2. Contra Sweater – This Contra turtleneck sweater is just begging to be part of a dysfunctional family’s Christmas card. Featuring the ambiguously gay duo of Bill and Lance, this winter weather masterpiece says “hey, it’s cool; I actually prefer being a virgin.”

1. Super Mario Bros. Sweater Vest – Speaking of virgins, this little fella sets ‘em up and knocks ‘em down when he wears this hand-knit masterpiece from the 8-bit era. If I ever see this guy out in public I’m killing him myself.

Yesterday we asked FreekNation to vote: What game are you most looking forward to this year?

Some of your answers were disturbing (Hello Kitty Online), intriguing (Kinect Porno) and just plain racist (I am a Muslim). Rising to the top were most of the games you’d expect to see—but in an order that was somewhat surprising.

Here are the top 5 most anticipated games according to you:

• Grand Theft Auto 5 – 266 votes
• Halo 4 – 81 votes
• Next Call of Duty – 65 votes
• Diablo III – 47 votes
• Mass Effect 3 – 41 votes

This poll was given via our Facebook page, revealing the most anticipated game for 2012 is Grand Theft Auto 5. And I would have to personally agree. Rockstar Games’ premiere franchise is always something to get excited about. What surprised me, though, was the order of the next two.

Knowing you guys like I do, I surely thought the next Call of Duty would have beaten out Halo 4. I clearly misjudged you and I’d like to know why. Is it because a new CoD comes out every year and you’re finally getting sick of it? Is it because MW3 hasn’t been out very long and it’s still “new enough” for you? Is it because it’s been so long since you’ve seen your beloved Master Chief and can’t wait to kill Covees correctly? What is it? Leave a comment and let me know before I question even more about myself.

“Cideko Air Keyboard Conqueror” is a long and confusing name for a controller. Nowhere in the four-word-title is there anything alluding to the fact that it’s a sweet multiplatform gaming controller. So, just to make sure we’re clear: It’s a controller. It’s sweet. And you can use it for the PS3 and PC. We’ll get back to the gaming thing in a bit.

At its very core, the “Conqueror” (that’s what I’m unofficially, officially renaming it to) is a wireless keyboard/mouse combo. The USB AIR dongle—which stores within the controller body quite awesomely—just plugs into your PS3 or PC for easy setup and use. The full QWERTY keyboard, complete with function keys and everything else you’ll ever need, works great for web browsing and other light-to-medium typing duties. The motion sensing gyro mouse also works really well and completes a perfect setup for those with HTPC’s or those who like to kick back on the couch while browsing.

For gaming, the Conqueror worked better than expected. Playing through some of the more casual games in my Steam library, like Beat Hazard and Super Meat Boy, the dual analog stick controls, d-pad and face buttons all seemed responsive and even let me beat a few times in SMB—not saying it was the controller, but it surely didn’t hurt me. Not wanting to solely base my review on casual games, I switched over to my PS3 to try out some Battlefield.

You’ll all be very excited to learn (as I was) that the Cideko Air Keyboard Conqueror is compatible with KontrolFreek’s entire range of gaming products. This is good news, of course, and it’s been added to our controller compatibility guide which makes it official.

Things on the Battlefield went well. I was doing my thing and the controller didn’t miss a beat. The build quality and battery life is excellent and it feels really good in the hands. My only (minor) complaint is that the triggers aren’t perfectly positioned—but hey, neither are the DualShock3’s triggers and no one seems to care about that. I didn’t expect it to necessarily be a “performance” controller anyway; so I was pleasantly surprised it performed as well as it did.

For $99.99 the price of the Conqueror may induce some sticker shock at first—but once you take in to account that it’s replacing a mouse, keyboard and video game controller for PC and PS3, it all of the sudden doesn’t seem so high. Combine that with the fact that you can use your existing collection of FPS Freeks, and you’ve got yourself a winner.

A dispute over pay and working conditions resulted in about 300 workers climbing to the roof of one of the buildings at Foxconn Technology Park in China early last week. The incident began when employees asked their bosses for a raise but were denied. Employees were told either to quit with compensation or to keep their jobs with no additional payment. Many employees took the former, but the company decided to terminate the agreement anyway and not pay the promised compensation. The workers protested the action by threatening to jump to their deaths.

The standoff eventually came to an end when the mayor of Wuhan showed up and literally talked the former employees off the ledge.

These particular employees were responsible for manufacturing parts for Xbox 360 consoles and production had actually come to a halt for several hours during the protest.

Microsoft had this to say:

"Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously, and we are currently investigating this issue," a spokesperson told the Huffington Post UK.

"We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge.

"Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy."

Foxconn factories in China were already under examination because of several suicides by employees in the past five years—actually forcing the company to install anti-suicide nets at some of their facilities. In addition to Xbox 360 components, Foxconn also manufactures products for Apple, Sony, Nintendo and many other Fortune 500 companies.

It’s true. After a week of insane holiday deals from us, our entire stock of FPS Freek CQC has been decimated like the surface of Reach after the Covenant invasion. Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, apparently every serious gamer on the planet decided that they were going to treat themselves to a set. We don’t blame you and we’re not complaining, but this means that some of you procrastinators won’t be able to experience how great CQC’s are.

We do, however, still have a small amount of holiday bundles left that feature FPS Freek CQC as part of the package deal and at discounted prices. Our Perfect Arsenal and GamerPack Recon both feature the CQC and are available for purchase right now (while supplies last, of course).

We asked you Freeks to share your best excuses to stay home “sick” and play your favorite video games. You answered. We got over 90 videos from you! It was fun. And your videos were… entertaining. Some of them were extremely… messed up. All of these ellipses are making me sound… stupid.

Anyway, Gamer’s PayDay is over and the grand prize winner is Jesse Carson with 345 "Likes"! Jesse wins $500 to stay home from work, a copy of MW3 and our Perfect Arsenal Pack (more on that later!).

Our three runners-up are Ben Phillips, Ryan Randall and Brian Lembke. You guys win a copy of Modern Warfare 3 and our Perfect Arsenal Pack. Congrats, guys! We’ll be in touch.

If you didn’t win this time, we’d like to thank you for having some fun with us anyway. Here’s a discount code worth 10% off anything in our store (including the new FPS Freek ELITE!) that you can use yourself or share with your friends. Enter code “payday” at checkout for the discount to be applied.

Here is the winning video from ­­­­­­­­Jesse: