Henry Winkler Returns to Arrested Development

"Don't get too close to me. 'Cause I've got an itch you can't believe. I think something laid eggs on me."

Yes, THR is reporting that Henry Winkler will be back for a handful of episodes on the new season of Arrested Development - coming Spring 2013 on Netflix!

Winkler will be reprising his role as Barry Zuckerkorn, the insanely incompetent family lawyer for the Bluths. Winkler even recently tweeted: "I am supposed to be memorizing an Arrested Development scene with Maybe for today … don't tell anyone I was here OK?????"

Winkler also recently tweeted out a picture of himself with actor Scott Baio, who plays attorney Bob Loblaw (of Bob Loblaw's Law Blog), from the set!

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App Store Update: Labor Day Weekend

Every day hundreds of new apps make their debut on the App Store, and hundreds more are updated or reduced in price. We have sifted through the noise and highlighted those select few that might be worth your attention.

Game Debuts

WipeOut – ($1.99)

ABC's summertime game show is a guilty pleasure for sure, as countless hapless contestants get themselves beaten up and bounced off of big red balls in ridiculous obstacle courses. Its antics have now been adapted into a new game, so you can find out how high you can bounce off those same balls. (Without the accompanying embarrassment or physical pain.)

Total Recall - The Game - Episode 1 – ($1.99)

Though there's a new film with the same name currently running in theaters, this game kicks of a playable, episodic adaptation of the original movie starring good old Arnold in the lead role.

Final Fantasy Dimensions – (Free*)

Square Enix's homage to its classic era of 8- and 16-bit RPGs has finally gone live in the App Store, and though it shipped with a glitch that kept players from being able to access in-app purchases, that bug has now been fixed through a quick update push. Final Fantasy Dimensions Version 1.0.1 now works as intended, letting you download and play through the story's Prologue content for free and then only asking for cash if you want to progress further through Chapters 1 through 4. So give it a look, play the Prologue, and see for yourself whether you're up for the full experience.

The Walking Dead: Episode 2 - Starving for Help – ($4.99)

Telltale Games' adaptation of the popular zombiepocalypse comic/show continues with the App Store debut of Episode 2. This isn't a separate download from the first Walking Dead app, but rather an in-app purchase from that one central hub – you'll have to put down $4.99 to get into the action with Episode 1, then #2 is a second investment of a separate $4.99. Spoiler Warning! Don't watch this trailer if you haven't completed Episode 1 yet:

Price Drops

Dead Space for iPad – ($0.99)

Electronic Art's massive Labor Day sale is still going strong through this weekend, so make sure to check out anything published by EA – like, say, Dead Space for iPad – to take advantage of massive discounts down to $0.99.

Max Payne Mobile – ($0.99)

EA isn't the only company hoping to take advantage of this long weekend with some deep game discounts, though. Rockstar's getting in on the action too by knocking the app version of Max Payne down to that same price.

iBomber Defense Pacific – ($0.99)

And here's one of Chillingo's budget options going into your Labor Day, a tower defender inspired in part by World War II's Pacific Theater.

Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation – ($0.99)

And then we have Gameloft's offering, its homage to the Call of Duty series, Modern Combat 3. This one earned an 8.5 "Great" rating and an Editor's Choice Award in our review last fall.

Virtua Tennis Challenge – ($0.99)

If you'd prefer to spend your dollar bill on something a bit more sporty, Sega's got you covered there.

Tilt to Live – ($0.99)

The title of this one should do a pretty good job of describing its gameplay for you. Also 99 cents right now.

Avernum: Escape from the Pit HD – ($4.99)

Normally priced at $9.99, Spiderweb Software's retro dungeon crawler has had its price slashed in half.

Drawn: The Painted Tower HD (Full) – ($2.99)

This under-the-radar point-and-click might never have caught your attention before, but it's one of our App Store favorites – it scored a 9.0 rating of "Amazing" and its own Editor's Choice Award in its review in late 2010. Give it a look, especially since its full version has now dropped all the way to $2.99 from its $9.99 starting point.

Diner Dash Deluxe – ($0.99)

Lastly, PlayFirst's prolific Diner Dash franchise. This version's offering up a free new restaurant to play once you take the 99 cent plunge for the app itself.

Updates

Pizza Boy – ($1.99)

A couple of in-game Updates to highlight to round out our App Store Update, starting with ACNE Play's Pizza Boy. This 16-bit-ish platformer now has Game Center support and new achievements to earn, courtesy of the launch of Version 1.2.

Plague Inc. – ($0.99)

Finally, the game that lets you direct an outbreak of global disease has been updated with a new infectious option, the Neurax Worm. Unleash it upon the world's unsuspecting population and laugh as the worm burrows into their brains. (Good fun, right?)

That's all for now! And I'd also like to apologize to you readers for the timing of this update – technical issues kept me from being able to get it delivered to you all on time yesterday. Rather than just skip a day and take it as a loss, though, I wanted to push through and make sure this Update got out to you – even if it's arriving on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. So once again, sorry for the delay. And I hope your long weekend is enhanced by a new app or two. :)

If you haven't already, remember to subscribe to the App Store Update via email for extra convenience:

Lucas M. Thomas is IGN Nintendo's longtime champion of downloadable titles across the Wii, DSi and 3DS. He's happy to now be helping Justin round up the best options for App Store shoppers. You can follow him on Twitter.

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Tricia Helfer Guest Starring on Community

Abed’s about to kind a kindred spirit via a Cylon. Which kind of sounds right, no?

TVLine's Meg Masters reports that Tricia Helfer is guest starring in an episode of Community this coming season. She’ll play Lauren, described as a "drop-dead gorgeous superfan" of Community’s oft-mentioned Doctor Who parody/substitute, Inspector Spacetime - a series oh-so beloved by Troy and Abed. At Comic-Con, Community’s new showrunners, David Guarascio and Moses Port, revealed there will be an episode involving an Inspector Spacetime convention.

Tricia Helfer during her Battlestar Galactica days

No doubt there's some fun tongue-in-cheek casting having Helfer, best known for Battlestar Galactica, playing someone obsessed with a science fiction series. It was preciously reported that Little Britain’s Matt Lucas will play another Spacetime uber-fan this season.

Community: Season 4 premieres October 19th. Also previously revealed as guest starring is Malcolm McDowell, who will play a Greendale professor.

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Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Announced

Square Enix has announced Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Set to arrive in 2013, Lightning Returns will incorporate “a brand-new story, world, characters and an enhanced gameplay system,” according to Square Enix. The game will feature Lightning as a solo playable character and allow her to freely roam a new world.

Other details regarding Lightning Returns are limited. We do know that the main story takes place hundreds of years after Final Fantasy XIII-2, set in a world called Novus Partus -- which is composed of four islands connected by monorail. The development team told IGN that three of the guiding pillars for the art direction in Lightning Returns are "gothic, mechanical and fantasy."

The most startling change to Lightning Returns comes in the form of the doomsday countdown. According to Square-Enix, the world will end after 13 days, and a massive clock will count down constantly in the corner of the screen to indicate this looming deadline. Any action players take, even taking the monorail from place to place, will spend time and hasten the end of days.

With Lightning as the only playable character, players will have unparalleled control over customizing her looks and combat style. The battle system itself, a greatly modified version of the previous two, will feature real-time elements including direct control of Lightning's movement and her attacks, as well as time-based moves that drain the doomsday counter. Lightning Returns will also include a real-time block system, designed to make battles much more active and time-based. Even dying mid-battle will activate a prompt to give players the choice to rewind their mistakes at the expense of the timer.

Lightning Returns was announced at today’s Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Event, which Square Enix has been teasing since last month. In early July, Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 director Motomu Toriyama hinted at the project, which entered production at the beginning of August, followed shortly by a teaser site.

Square Enix confirmed that Lightning Returns will be the final chapter of Lightning’s saga, which began in Final Fantasy XIII back in 2010. Lightning’s sister Serah was the focus of Final Fantasy XIII-2, which hit stores earlier this year and received downloadable content that continued Lightning’s story.

No other details have been announced, but be sure to check out Square Enix’s official Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII site for more updates as they’re revealed.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. He spent 100 hours playing Final Fantasy XIII-2. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.

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God of War: Ascension Bosses Revealed

At the conclusion of the God of War: Ascension panel at PAX this weekend, key members of the development team treated the audience to a world exclusive: the video reveal of the "big bosses" to appear in Kratos' next (bloody) quest. The iconic antihero will face three powerful beings known as the "Furies." Not to be confused, I should note, with the Furries, which would present a wholly different and -- perhaps --- more terrifying threat to Kratos.

While we know that three Furies will appear in Ascension, only one was revealed in the video: a woman of horrible power with spider-like appendages clawing out of her back. The God of War team also took note of her ability to infect her victims with parasites that emerge from her "upper chest area." This unnerving skill wasn't shown today, but I fear the day when it will.

God of War: Ascension launches next year on March 12th, and introduces multiplayer to the franchise. So prepare to bring a friend along for the limb-rending fun!

Ryan Clements writes for IGN. He saw an Ellie (The Last of Us) cosplayer today that was super adorable. Follow him on Twitter if you have nothing else to do.

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Command Prompt 10: DayZ Standalone Version Details

In an attempt to make sense of the chaos we call PC gaming, IGN's Anthony Gallegos and Charles Onyett put together a video show called Command Prompt. Barring any disastrous events or prolonged spells of acute laziness, new episodes will appear every week showing off three PC games.

This week we had DayZ creator Dean Hall in the office to talk about the upcoming standalone version of his popular zombie mod as well as potential console versions. It was supposed to be a single segment, but we wound up talking for a while. Like, an hour. So it sort of became the whole show this week, preceded by a very brief look at Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet's MMO is finally live, and so far it's pretty amazing. We take a quick look at it here, but if you want to know more, check out the review in progress.

DayZ

We play DayZ with Dean Hall and cover pretty much everything that's going on with the standalone version and console versions.

Charles Onyett is an Executive Editor at IGN, leads PC game coverage and used to think Pugna was his favorite Dota 2 hero, but recently decided it was Disruptor. You can follow him on Twitter and My IGN.

Anthony Gallegos is an Editor on IGN's PC team. He enjoys scaring the crap out of himself with horror games and then releasing some steam in shooters like Blacklight and Tribes. You can follow him on Twitter and on IGN.

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Halo 4: New Capture the Flag Tweaks Send Wargames Into Exile

Popcorn and soda, French fries and ketchup, binge drinking and chain smoking – Capture the Flag (CTF) and Halo multiplayer go as inseparably together as Master Chief and Cortana, and we just played 343 Industries' new take on the series' beloved objective-based War Games variant at Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).

Playing on the just announced map, Exile, the too-and-fro of vehicle control, flag management (the game type was set to 3-Flag captures to win), route closing and pew-pew strategery felt familiar enough, but featured some changes that make as much sense as they make the mode feel – dare I say – fresh again.

More notably are the tweaks made to the flag runner. Specifically, the ability to actually run is great; no one liked being slowed down while bearing the banner. Second, flag carriers can now brandish a weapon (in this case, the Magnum) instead of relying solely on the flag as a means of defense (which typically resulted in manic drop-shoot-recapture attempts). For those who prefer the patented Halo CQC of flag melee, 343 has added a comical skull-skewering kill animation, dubbed the "Flagssassination," which I admit I have no idea how to spell.

The heads-up display improves the on-screen flag prompts of yore to keep you apprised of where both flags are at all times, and in what state they're in (defend, escort, capture, etc). 343 says the more obvious prompts were intentionally implemented to help communicate clear cues to players (largely motivated by lowering the learning curve for newcomers), especially when respawning.

You've been "Flagsassinated."

Anyone who plays CTF knows that the gametype is only as good as the map you play it on, and 343 choose to debut its CTF mode on a new battleground called Exile.

An almost all outdoor, symmetrical mid-size map, Exile features two bases on opposite sides of a donut-like course that plays like an all outdoor version of Halo 3’s Rat Race. It’s vehicle-heavy – we saw a Banshee, Ghosts, Gauss Warthogs, and even a Scorpion tank – so most matches require quick teamwork to establish a vehicular foothold, or suffer the blastacular consequences. Caves and in-base halls abound, too, to duck in and out of when hunkering down to defend or wind through in the chase.

In play were also a number of Halo 4’s custom loadouts, weapons, armor abilities, and tactical packages. Two that stood out were the Thruster Pack and the Regeneration Field armor abilities. Both feel like improved versions of older abilities/equipment. Thruster works like a horizontal jet pack; engaging it jumps you quickly in bursts in a third-person view, yanking you out of splash damage range, making you a tough moving target, or quickly closing the gap for a melee kill. Regeneration Field works more defensively, like an updated Regenerator from Halo 3 but with a twist: upon use, it deploys a force wave that pushes opponents off your immediate six, followed by a shield regenerating health buff of sorts.

"I'm a bad, bad man."

Considering all of this, CTF plays like you’d expect it to -- and even a bit better. At its core, it’s the same CTF you’ve been playing since those LAN parties you hosted in your parents living rooms, racing across Blood Gulch in Warthogs, trying to reach the center of the map to grab rockets first. It’s still fun, there’s still a palpable cooperate-or-die sensibility to it, but the additions and improvements to the flag carrier work really well, make sense, and don’t overtly jeopardize the balance of gameplay.

Exile is also fun on the Halo map continuum. Aesthetically, it's decidedly spartan and falls somewhere between the bright, warm, mid-day look of Halo 3’s High Ground and Halo CE: Anniversary’s Firefight map, Installation 04.

For more on all things Halo 4, check out and contribute to our Halo 4 wiki. And dig a bunch of new screenshots from Exile below.

"Have a nice TRIP. See you next FALL."

Psst...don't turn around.

"Keeeee-ya!"

A look at the "Exile" map. Quaint!

Another area of "Exile."

Casey Lynch is Editor-in-Chief of IGN.com. Follow his non-sequitur ramblings about video games, '80s films and Protest the Hero on IGN and Twitter.

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