Joystiq Weekly: News, reviews and original content from January 27 - February 2

Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" recap of the week's most happening ... happenings. Yes. We'll summarize the biggest news, freshest reviews and original content from each week every Sunday, just in case you missed it while tending to your weekday grind. We'll also segue into each section with a reaction gif to the top story, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. Now that we've reached life's designated "timeout" known as the weekend, let's dive in to this week's biggest moments:

News

• Nintendo has outlined an unfavorable outcome for the Year of Luigi, predicting a loss of 25 billion yen ($242 million) for the fiscal year ending in March. They then dated Mario Kart 8 for May, announced plans to bring DS games to the Wii U Virtual Console, and teased future details about the company's venture into non-wearable health monitors.

• EA got a headstart on losing money in its third financial quarter, reporting a $308 million loss from October to December. Reports of layoffs at EA Salt Lake and at EA-owned Ghost Games followed the financial stumble, but one thing that EA says didn't impact sales are Battlefield 4's "quality issues."

• Sony's second take on its modern handheld, the Vita 2000, will reach Europe on February 7 for £180. The 2000 model swaps out an OLED screen with an LCD, resulting in a visual difference that Sony says is "relatively imperceptible."

Reviews

• Octodad: Dadliest Catch has stumbled its way to the PC. The game's purposefully difficult controls inspired "several genuine belly laughs," but we found the joke to have a "limited shelf life, even when the gag is this good."

• The first half of Kickstarter-darling Broken Age is now point-and-clicking its way around Steam. While our review thought the game's avoidance of Adventure Game Logic might "make it feel overly straightforward or simple to veterans," we were engrossed by the game's "truly new-feeling art and an irresistible optimism that simply can't be found elsewhere, today or yesterday."

• The 3DS got a new world to save this week - Square Enix added Bravely Default to the handheld's collection of RPGs. While our review's conclusion was that a short amount of time makes it "obvious the game is a Final Fantasy," the journey left us "excited to see how this new thread of Final Fantasy unravels."

Original Content

• Senior Reporter Jess Conditt explored the concept of transparent development, a process adopted by Vlambeer in its development live streams for Nuclear Throne. Dejobaan's public design document for Drop that Beat Like an Ugly Baby and Proletariat Inc.'s weekly meeting streams for World Zombination bring two additional perspectives to the conversation.

• Editor-in-Chief Ludwig Kietzmann shared his thoughts on the Thief reboot with Reviews Content Director Richard Mitchell in a recent video preview. Ludwig noted the game's slow, calculated pace as an exception in a landscape of cinematic action games.

• Readers joined the Joystiq team in kicking off this year's Four in February, a self-assigned challenge to beat four games in one month. Lucky for us, there's still plenty of time to join! You can share your progress with the group on the challenge's Facebook community page or by using #4iF on social media.

[Image: Nintendo]