Baldur’s Gate is back, and getting an enhanced edition from Beamdog and Overhaul Games. Both games in the series will get remakes that run on modern computers (and iPads), and the RPG nerd in me couldn’t be more excited. I spoke with Cameron Tofer, a developer at Overhaul Games (and Bioware alumnus) about the new versions of the game. The full interview is below, but first some bullet points if you’re in a tl;dr mood.

• Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2 will include both expansions.
• The emphasis is “keep what made the games great.”
• New/previously unused content will be in the games, including a new character.
• They’re still 2D isometric.
• They use the same art and sound, but remastered where possible.
• They will probably come out in the summer.
• No big boxes or cloth maps (Awww).

I’m loath to talk about mobile gaming because I don’t think the smartphone and tablet platforms are “real” gaming platforms. Yeah, I’m a snob. That said, there have been enough retro games released on the iPad to make me rethink my position, and Wizards of the Coast isn’t helping. WotC, Atari, and Overhaul Games are working on Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, and they’re planning an iPad version.

Honestly, I think this could not only work, but maybe be the best game ever released on the iPad. My big problem with mobile devices is the controls when dealing with any action. For genres like RPGs and RTSes, a big touch screen actually is better than a gamepad, and as good as a mouse. As a nerd who remembers clicking through Baldur’s Gate on the PC, I can see the isometric view and tactical gameplay translate to the iPad really well.

The game is coming out for the iPad in the summer, and it will include all the content from Baldur’s Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast, plus a new adventure and a new party member. Don’t worry that it’ll be only for the iPad, though; this is just a version of the game that’s officially announced, and Atari hasn’t stated what other platforms it will be on. PC is a safe bet.

My snobbish anti-mobile gaming words, I am eating them. While crying softly and clinging to my 3DS and Vita.

The Humble Bundle is back, and it once again has some Android goodness. There’s a new set of games you can get for your Android smartphone or tablet, and they all come with Windows, Mac, and Linux versions, too.

This bundle includes Cogs, Zen Bound 2, Canabalt, Avadon: The Black Fortress, and Swords & Soldiers (the last one if you spend more than the average), and gives you Steam keys for all the games and soundtracks for Canabalt, Zen Bound 2, and Swords & Soldiers, too. As always, the games are DRM-free and you can pay whatever you want for them. You can also decide how much money goes tot he developers, how much goes to the bundle, and how much goes to the Child’s Play and EFF charities.

If you’re sick of the brony phenomenon, the Humble Bundle gives you a great chance to get back at them. For the third bundle in a row, the Humble Brony Bundle people have topped the donation charts. You want to beat those pony-lovers? Get ready to pay more. And if you want to join them, visit their site and make a donation.

Diablo 3 is finally coming out. Blizzard just announced the release date of the game, which will be hitting stores May 15. That’s two months away.

That’s it. Diablo 3 has a release date. The entire news.

I’ve seen incentives for coming back to MMOs before, but this is just obscene. And it’s almost enough to make me tempted to ask around to friends, since I haven’t played World of Warcraft since Burning Crusade. Current players can send friends who don’t play anymore the Scroll of Resurrection through the social pane, which gives them 7 days of free gametime.

And a character boosted to level 80.

And an optional character move and faction change.

And all of the expansions including Cataclysm.

It’s not bad for the player, either, because if the ex-player returns for more than 30 days (coincidentally, the amount of time that would require them to spend money on at least one full billing cycle), the player who gave the scroll of resurrection gets a spectral gryphon if they’re an Alliance character or a spectral windrider if they’re a Horde character.

This is a brilliant way for Blizzard to get former WoW players back, because the biggest concerns for former players beyond “this will destroy my life” are “I’ll have to get my character up to 80 just to keep up” and “I’ll have to buy every expansion.” Problem solved.

It’s great to see a publisher learn from its mistakes. After XCOM got such a negative reception, the 50′s-style first-person shooter sequel/reboot of X-Com was pushed back to 2013 while X-Com: Enemy Unknown came to the top of 2K’s to-do list of X-Com games. I previewed the game last week, and while I only saw an early build for a few minutes, I can safely say that this will be the X-Com you know and love, at least in design and concept.

The Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter has raised $2,359,000 (currently) with 10 days to go. For reference, the goal was $400,000. People love Double Fine and Tim Schafer (even if Brutal Legend was disappointing because of its weird RTS gameplay). Sunday, Tim’s going to return that love with an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. It will be held at 4:00 p.m. EST or 1:00 p.m. PST, so get ready for a Sunday afternoon game thread.

Among the top questions asked will be “Will you make a Psychonauts 2?,” “What’s Rob Halford like?,” and “Tell us about this movie you’re working on. Rampart, is it?”

It’s official: gamers love Tim Schafer. Only 12 hours after Double Fine Productions started its Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter, it raised $800,000 from 21,000 contributors. That’s a lot of money. It also means the game is fully funded, whatever it may be. It will be a point-and-click adventure, which means more goodness from the mind that brought us Day 0f the Tentacle and Full Throttle.

You can still get in on the game, and a donation of $15 will get you the game when it comes out. If you want to spend more, $250 gets you a poster signed by Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, and $5,000 will get you an original painting of the art in the game and a portrait of you by the game’s artists.

Great, it’s another Humble Bundle. These are going to be the death of me. This time, it’s indie games for your Android phone, or tablet, or Kindle Fire if you don’t think it counts as a tablet (it totally counts as a tablet). These are games that ahve been on the Humble Bundle site before, but the Android versions are new, or at least new for the Humble Bundle.

You know the deal. Spend as much money as you want and distribute it to the developers and Child’s Play and EFF charities (and the Humble Bundle folks, because they have costs, too) as you see fit. If you spend more than the average, you get a bonus game. This time, the games are Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, and EDGE, and if you spend more than the average of currently $5.73, you get World of Goo, too. You don’t just get the Android versions of the games, though. You also get the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions, including Steam keys. They’re not available on iOS through the bundle, because Apple is terrible at making software actually accessible outside of its own store. There’s a good chance the Humble Bundle will add more games to the group before the deal runs out, so keep checking the Humble Bundle site over the next two weeks.

I spent 40 minutes in an elevator in a video game last Tuesday. No, I wasn’t playing through Mass Effect again. This was all in one go, and while I was in the elevator I saw aliens, dinosaurs, cats, war zones, storms, fire, and demons. Now, thanks to the magic of video and the idea of a longplay, you can, too.

The game, or rather, add-on to a mod of a game, is Elevator for Garry’s Mod for Half-Life 2. It takes everyone’s favorite machinima playground and turns it into an elevator ride through different worlds. The floors are random, and can be beautiful, nightmarish, mundane, or utterly bizarre. It’s a simple and safe ride that is still freakier than going on Disneyworld’s Tower of Terror ride after chugging a liter of Dimetapp. It’s utterly mesmerizing, and worth at least one playthrough by anyone.