When NBA 2K12 was released in early October, the highlight mode of the game was without a doubt NBA's Greatest. The mode gave basketball fans the opportunity to play with some of the best teams ever to grace the hard court. But what was missing was the ability to have the best players play against each other for court supremacy. That all changes with the upcoming release of the Legends Showcase, which is a downloadable content pack that will not only let you play as some of the greatest NBA players of all time, but also gives you the opportunity to see which duos and eras had the best athletes.

There will be five modes available in the Legends Showcase. If you just want to pick up and play one-versus-one or five-versus-five matches with the best of the best, the pick-up game option will let you do so. For one-versus-one, two-versus-two, and three-versus-three games, the matches will have you play half court with street-ball rules. For the unfamiliar, that typically means all baskets are worth one point except for threes, which are worth two; you need to clear the three-point line if the ball hits the rim; and you need to win by two points. If you play a four-versus-four or five-versus-five game, then you revert back to the standard full-court play but still retain the rules of the street.

The greatest players aren't limited to simple pick up and play as there are two modes focused on ending the debate. The first is the Teammate Challenge where 15 of the best NBA teammate combos ever to grace the NBA face off against each other. You'll have pairings like Alonzo Morning and Larry Johnson of the Hornets; Shaq and Penny from the Magic; and even Pippen and Jordan. You pick the pairing that you like and then face off against the 14 others to claim the title of best duo.

The best players fighting for court supremacy.

For those who may want to see which era had the best players, the Era Challenge mode provides the answer. Here, teams of three consist of the best players from a given decade. If you're a fan of the '80s, then your team of Isiah Thomas, Patrick Ewing, and Larry Bird will face off against other teams. Here, there are 10 teams to choose from, with two from each decade up to the present.

While the teams and players in the Teammate Challenge aren't exactly balanced, in Era Challenge, the developers chose teams to that ensure one big man, one forward, and one guard is included in each. This balance means that each of the 10 teams available should be able to contend with the others.

The remaining two modes give you the opportunity to play games that are familiar to the street basketball scene. Game of 21 is the standard game that so many basketball players have been playing since their youth. Here, up to four NBA players can get into it with standard rules: shoot for first, sink winning shot or drop back to 11, and so forth. The last mode available will probably be the most competitive: Horse. This is the game of showing off: sink that difficult shot and try to see if your opponent can copy it. If he sinks it, you try the next challenging shot, but if he misses it, then he gets a letter; the first to spell horse loses. Here, you'll be able to attempt a number of different and crazy shots, and the environment in which you're in can alter the ease or difficulty of the shot. Feel like shooting a granny shot from the three-point line? Then do so. Want to sink a basket from 90 feet out? Good luck.

In Horse, you first pick your spot from where you want to attempt the shot. Upon picking your spot, you'll have a number of different shot choices to choose from; the closer you are to the basket, the more options you'll have available. Once the shot type has been chosen, it's time to set up the shot, which means the arc of your throw. Arc will be extremely important especially if you're throwing over an obstacle or from a far distance. Once that's done, then you attempt to sink that basket. Here, you are given a quick glance at the shot's "sweet spot." This marker will briefly appear and then disappear with a basketball that floats along the arc path of your shot. If you manage to stop the ball at the sweet spot, the likelihood of sinking the basket is almost ensured; if you miss it, the shot will be missed.

Of the modes, Horse should be the most interesting to play with others but also the most challenging. It takes a while to get used to the proper arc placement and timing required to sink the basket. But thankfully, the great number of secret spots to take your shot can lead to some really fun situations.

NBA 2K12's Legends Showcase will be a strictly offline affair but will allow for up to four players to take part in the festivities. While there is no online aspect, the DLC will include the ability to play the current NBA's Greatest teams from the game and play them in online quickplay, which is something a lot of fans want. Expect the Legends Showcase to be available this holiday season on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

If you've suspected that there's more to Final Fantasy XIII-2 than has been revealed so far, then you're correct, as Square Enix looks like it will be shoving the age-old time-travelling plot device into the sequel's design. Specifically, anything you do in a past timeline will affect interconnecting future timelines, be it an obstacle in the way or a story-related plot point. Our protagonists, Noel and Serah, will be jumping back and forth, correcting timelines and eliminating anomalies in the game's universe in order to proceed with the search for Serah's sister, Lightning (protagonist of the first game). Judging from what we have played so far, the developers have listened to the many pleas from fans about the prequel's approach to gameplay.

We checked out a variety of areas from different timelines during our nine-hour playthrough: Valhalla, New Bodhi, the Bresha Ruins, the Sunleth Waterscape in 300AF, and the Archylte Steppe. While the rest of the areas sound familiar to FFXIII fans, Valhalla is a brand-new location, as it's the place where Lightning starts off when fighting the eidolon Chaos Bahamut and the finally revealed villain Caius in active time battle and cinematic action glory. We can't reveal any more than that, except that he has the same sort of mission as Lightning and has special ties with the aforementioned eidolon.

Nice doggy…

At this part, we checked out New Bodhi, which was recently invaded by oncoming funky-looking bugs, and the Bresha Ruins bit, which we detailed and talked about to death in our past previews. Long story short, we entered the timeline, checked out the branching paths of each corridor of the dungeon, and beat down Atlas with ease after shutting off the nearby generator. When in towns, you can initiate conversations with anyone in tow, be it to open up side quests or just find out what interesting titbits they have to share.

As we took a trip through time, we ended up on the Sunleth Waterscape in 300AF, where we met a bandanna-less Snow. We can't divulge the nature of his appearance, but we can tell you what he was up against: a goliath-sized Flan made up of other Flans appearing from some unknown time-warp portal. Fighting the giant wasn't that hard, but we still had to search for a means to stop it from being big and obstructing our path.

We also checked out the Archylte Steppe, where we had to wander around the giant sandstorm-filled field to help fix a time anomaly. After doing a few quests to fetch and "kill a specific number of monsters" here and there for a nearby hunter's settlement, we were finally given permission to fiddle around with the settlement's weather-changing machine. Not only did this determine the type of encounters we'd be facing, but it also helped reveal the culprit behind the aforementioned anomaly: a giant Feryl sucking in Flans through its mouth. As we set the weather to a clear blue sky, an Adamantoise stood in the way. Killing it at our current level was akin to committing suicide, so we had to change up the weather patterns to make it go away.

After that was settled, we fought the Feryl. While it possessed the Great Roar skill, which buffed itself while debuffing our party members, we took it down with the usual paradigm shift, job-changing mechanics. We let Serah take a backseat in buffing and ranged attack duties, while Noel and our beast of choice, the Flan, took the offensive. Killing off the beast will alter a particular timeline, but, for spoiler's sake, we won't reveal anything specific. We did get to take down a weakened version of the aforementioned giant Flan, though.

We do hope that this version of Hope is less of a whiner.

Speaking of combat, the game introduces a new concept called Blood Damage. Sometimes you lose a sliver of your maximum health as you keep getting damaged during battle. While a healer can help solve the problem temporarily, you are encouraged to end battles as soon as possible, unless you would rather have your character still fighting a tough enemy with just a quarter of his health left. During our playthrough, we didn't feel hampered by its effects, but we would wager that future boss fights will be challenging with this system in place.

Gamers can also toss the moogle to grab far-to-reach items. This handy feature was introduced during the Sunleth Waterscape stage, while our party had to ride a behemoth through an inaccessible path. The catch is that since the moogle is in the midst of procuring items, you are left vulnerable against enemy ambushes, because there's no access to the moogle clock.

Even with all of its popularity, a large number of gamers have not had the opportunity to sample Minecraft. Despite that fact, the developers behind the game have found ways of introducing it to more people. The game is soon to be released via Xbox Live Arcade, and we managed to be among the first to sit down to finally learn how to properly play the game.

The first noticeable difference between this version and other versions has to do with the controller. Upon grabbing an Xbox 360 controller, we noticed the difference in how one version played when compared to using a mouse and keyboard. To accommodate the change, the controls are set up as you'd expect a first-person shooter to be: Your right trigger performs key actions, such as swinging an axe; the A button is used to jump; bumpers are used to change items on the fly; and so forth. If you've played any FPS during the past decade, you will automatically adjust to the controls in Minecraft on XBLA.

The other difference has to do with the introduction of a nifty tutorial mode. The PC version of the game has thrived on a community of people that has uploaded videos and written numerous tutorials on how to do everything. But a lot of times, some people start playing, don't know what is required, get frustrated, and stop playing. To help those who still want to experience what Minecraft has to offer and not get discouraged, the tutorial will get you going in the right direction.

There is a lot to explore in Minecraft

The tutorial gives you the basics and leads you at a nice gradual pace. As you walk around your world for the first time, it will teach you the basic controls, as well as what you need to create your first crafting table and your first weapon/collecting tool. You'll also learn about what you need to collect to build a house and to be safe inside when night falls. As you build specific weapons and tools, you'll learn how to best use each item. This way, you're not using a shovel to chop down a tree. Thankfully, for those who do have previous knowledge of Minecraft, this mode is completely optional.

This version of Minecraft also introduces an improved and easier to navigate crafting system. Going back to the issue of players not knowing what is required to make certain items, here, everything is placed in a nice menu that details every bit of information you'll need to make any specific item. Navigating through the menus is easy and helpful. With all required ingredients shown to you in advance, you can focus on what you need to collect and be well equipped when you decide to explore the deeper regions of your world.

With the inclusion of an optional tutorial mode, simpler crafting system, and easy-to-grasp controls, the Xbox Live Arcade edition of Minecraft looks poised to be the most approachable version of the game. We managed to spend a solid 30 minutes with it, and in that time, we learned the basics, killed some enemies, and managed to build a fairly decent house. We didn't get a chance to start decorating the place, but if we had more time, we would have been able to do so.

The easy to navigate crafting menu makes building so much easier.

There is still a lot that hasn't been revealed in regard to what we can expect once the game hits Xbox Live Arcade in 2012. We know there will be both Kinect support and multiplayer, but how those two aspects are implemented will be talked about sometime down the road. It will also be interesting to see how different this version ends up being from the PC and mobile versions, especially in regard to how much freedom Microsoft allows for making changes post launch. Expect to see and read more about Minecraft on XBLA during the next few months.