Visigoths Down on the Farm and Other Odd Video Game Stories of the Week

Kinect will make your kids hate you! A sandwich will unlock secret levels! Visigoths want to be your friends! It all happened in video games this week:

• A game for the Kinect that will make your kids hate you: Tell them they're going to get to explore Disneyland, pop in Kinect: Disneyland Adventures and press play. As Kotaku's Mike Fahey puts it: "Families can explore to their hearts' content, experience the attractions like never before, meet the characters without fear of getting groped, and basically enjoy the Disneyland experience without ever having to set foot in the place." Just remember who will get to pick which old folks home you wind up in.
• Do you want chips with your mystery adventure? Oddest co-branding of the week has to go to Subway and the upcoming Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. Players who purchase certain items from Subway will get to play all of the competitive multiplayer maps and modes a month before the game is released. "Did you say extra cheese? You get an RPG with that!" (And here's hoping this Uncharted is half as much fun as #2, which was great.)
• Visigoths Overrun FarmVille: Second oddest co-branding of the week is credit card company Capital One (COF) and Zynga. As a result players can get a free statue of a Visigoth (Capital One's mascot du jour) to place among FarmVille's oh, so cute animals and crops. If you would like to provide more free advertising you can also dress up your avatar in Capital One Visigoth costumes. I am told the branded clothing is a FarmVille first, and having never played the game, I'll take their word for it. If all that isn't enough you can earn "Farm Cash" by interacting with Capital One TV ads featuring the Visigoths. I so wish they'd release ROI numbers for this. They won't. And with good reason, I suspect. Oh, and by the way, The Ostrogoths want equal time.
• Advertising in Team Fortress 2 is a lot smarter than using Second Life ever was: A Danish advertising firm called Uncle Grey is paying TF2 players to help it get some new hires. The players change their names to company's and then put up posters advertising vacant positions. Take that, Craigslist! Medic!
• The battle over virtual war games gets hotter: First Activision (ATVI) announced it would release Call of Duty: Elite -- a subscription-based sort of social networking thing with feeds, stats, friend lists and etc. Then bloggers (like me) said, "Shouldn't this be a free add-on?" Then, in a totally coincidental development, competitor Electronic Arts (ERTS) announced it would release Battlelog along with Battlefield 3. You will not believe what it includes: Social tools, feeds, detailed player stats, friend lists and etc. One difference: It's free.
• "Payday: The Heist Will Bring Team-Based Bank Robbery to the PSN." That is the headline of the week from a Kotaku story that is sadly NOT about making hacking PSN a team sport. Oh, wait. Someone's already done that. Never mind.