It's been a long, long time since there was a single-player game in the MechWarrior series -- 2002's MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries has been your only option if you didn't want to play online. Thankfully, a new wave of gamers is about to see what all the fuss was about years ago. Piranha Games (which runs MechWarrior Online) has unveiled MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, a single-player focused title that has you pursuing a career as a private robot pilot serving on behalf of the houses of the Inner Sphere. The game isn't due until 2018, so there isn't much to say about the exact game mechanics or storyline. Will the invading Clans make an appearance, we wonder?

The plot of director Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic, "Seven Samurai," can be summed up in one sentence: Mercenaries are hired to protect a farming village from marauding bandits. Yet within that simple framework is a rich tale involving self-sacrifice, honor, male bonding and sympathy for the underdog. And that's why Kurosawa's masterpiece continues to inspire filmmakers and other artists. "It's classic mythology, it's the hero's journey, and it's about the best of us coming together for one cause, to do the right thing," says Antoine Fuqua, director of the recently opened "The Magnificent Seven," the latest screen version of the "Samurai" tale. Fuqua's film stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt as gunmen leading a gang of mercenaries -- a multiracial group that includes a Mexican, Asian and Native American -- against a rapacious mine owner (Peter Sarsgaard) terrorizing a Western town.