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#feature Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption sells itself as a Western. But did you know it's not really a Western at all? More »

It's a proven fact that absolutely everyone likes Avatar Awards. Unlike the goodies in the Avatar Marketplace, Avatar Awards are free and, in many cases, provide a highly visible way to show off your gaming prowess. Several titles have offered Avatar Awards thus far -- including Left 4 Dead 2, 'Splosion Man, Halo Waypoint -- and now we have one more to add to the list: After Burner Climax.

The game packs two Avatar Awards. The first is a T-shirt, awarded simply for unlocking all the game's EX options, which Sega notes "anybody" should be able to do with continued play. The second, the sweet pilot's helmet you see above, is a little trickier to unlock and requires players to complete their medal collections in the score attack mode, which "takes some serious skill," according to Sega.

Unfortunately, it looks like Sega missed a golden opportunity here. Where's our remote control jet?

Cracking the Origami Killer case isn't for the weak of heart.

There's been some dispute as to whether Modern Warfare 2 had the biggest first-day sales presence in the entire entertainment industry. Sure, its $401 million launch day revenue topped literally every other piece of entertainment media ever released, but in terms of units sold, it was surpassed by the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book and ticket sales for The Dark Knight.

However, in an attempt to clear up any obscurity, the Guinness Book of World Records proclaimed that the game had the "Most Successful Entertainment Launch of All-Time." Though we shudder to think that we live in a world where success is measured in the amount of money earned, and not the number of lives a book, movie or game touches, we suppose congratulations are in order. So, congratulations, Modern Warfare 2! Guinness says you did it.

Calling all kart racers,

Last year at E3, we unveiled our next installment of the “Play, Create, Share” movement which has been a runaway success since LittleBigPlanet branded a new standard for user-generated gaming. This time we’ve taken the genre-creating formula to the race tracks. We’re putting the power of creation back into your hands to redefine kart racing as we know it today.

Launching on May 25th for the PS3 and PSP, ModNation Racers will fill millions of living rooms with next gen kart racing with crazy obstacles, weapons, and a whole host of new characters to race along with you. You’ll be able to play single player or challenge your friends to compete on race tracks that come built in with the game. But imagine being able to customize your characters, your karts, and your very own tracks with your personal flare. We know our users are extremely creative as we already have more than 2 million user generated levels for LittleBigPlanet. Imagine what we’ll see when you all start making amazing race tracks.

We know something very special happens when you provide the right tools, a sophisticated technology platform and combine them with incredibly imaginative people like yourselves. And the industry seems to agree. Destructoid is calling ModNation Racers the “last kart racing game you’d ever need to own” while PlayStation The Official Magazine touts it’ll be “your next great PS3 obsession.” Even our own esteemed developers such as David Jaffe and Ted Price are singing its praises. We’re confident ModNation Racers will produce an entirely new community of gaming fans and will showcase just how creative PlayStation fans are.

With a game as special as ModNation Racers, you can be sure we’ll be behind it in a big way. Our “Dear PlayStation” spot will premiere during South Park’s Season Finale on April 28th and you can catch it on Kevin’s YouTube channel starting this afternoon. Kevin Butler realizes he’s going to have to go “old school” to get through to an anxious gamer who wonders if he and his self created track have the right stuff. It’s become one of my all time favorites.

We look forward to your thoughts on Kevin’s new look. But more importantly, we can’t wait to see (and race) what you all will create once you get your hands on this ground breaking new game. There’s no audience of gamers more passionate, creative and plugged in than PlayStation Nation. And “Only on PlayStation” will you find experiences like ModNation Racers.

#pc Items in Team Fortress 2 will drop more frequently under changes Valve just rolled out, ones that the publisher hopes will discourage standing around idly in the game waiting for them to happen. More »

The Wii's Mega Man arsenal has grown once again, adding Mega Man 4 to the collection of games that can be chosen from a menu and loaded up -- you know, like weapons on Mega Man's arm, except acquired through commerce and not robot murder. They'd be very different games if you had access to a charge card instead of a Charge Shot.

Speaking of growing collections, DSiWare is now home to three more downloadable Game & Watch simulators, putting us all well on the way to understanding Mr. Game & Watch's attacks in Super Smash Bros. (Hint: You'll want to use the sausages.) See all the available downloads after the break.

One of the Alpha Dogs of DSiWare.

“We were THIS close to a Marvel LEGO a few years ago but Megabloks did an exclusive deal for Spider-man so that was that…” - Jon Burton, Director of TT Games I’ve been feeling the LEGO game overload for awhile now, and I think having a LEGO Marvel game would have pushed my disinterest into overdrive. [...]

#xbox360 A day after making Halo 3 available to Xbox 360 owners as a downloadable game, Microsoft let Kotaku know that while loading times may be impacted in this version, gameplay should run as well as it always did. More »

Final Fight: Double Impact may be a collection of retro games, but some owners of the PS3 version have discovered that it is, at heart, a little too modern. The game will not run unless the user is signed into an online PSN account. If you try to load up Double Impact while not signed in, you'll just get a curt "Sign into PlayStation Network. (80029516)" message on the screen. (The Xbox 360 version launches without issue, even when not signed into Xbox Live.)

While it may not be a big deal to most of us who are signed into PSN whenever we use our PS3s, it does make us wonder why Capcom or Sony don't allow people to play the game, even in single-player or local multiplayer, without an Internet connection. We've contacted both parties about the issue. Anyone else appreciating the irony of having to be connected to the internet to play games made before most of us knew what an internet was?

[Thanks, Miguel]

Buy your way into the beta.

We've got two wildly disparate games on Xbox Live Arcade this week. For the puzzle game / RPG hybrid fans, there's Puzzle Chronicles, essentially a different take on Puzzle Quest (which makes sense, as both were developed by Infinite Interactive). If you're more of an action bent, then After Burner Climax will be right up your alley. So, what's it going to be, saving the kingdom one rotating gem at a time or blasting bogeys from the sky? Watch the latest XBLA in Brief and see if either 800 ($10) title deserves a spot on your radar.

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Xbox.com: Add Puzzle Chronicles trial version to your Xbox 360 download queue (FREE)
Xbox.com: Add After Burner Climax trial version to your Xbox 360 download queue (FREE)

#preorderbonus Bizarre Creations' combat-racer Blur is coming May 25, and your choice of preorder locations determines which ride you'll get early access to in online multiplayer, because everyone loves retailer-exclusive preorder bonuses, right? More »

#clips By now you've heard all about Dead Rising 2's ability to drop into a friend's game and slaughter zombies shoulder-to-shoulder, but here's your first chance to see the mayhem in action. More »

This image comes from the official site… Looks like you’re going to make a trip down to Degobah. Perhaps we’ll be paying Yoda a visit? It doesn’t seem like a friendly meeting to me.

Click image to take a tour of the new Steam. For the last two months, Valve has been testing a UI overhaul of its Steam client through a beta release. Come Monday, April 26, the beta phase will end, and the update will go live for all users. Following the official release of the new client, users will be prompted to download the update upon launching Steam and be introduced to a plethora of new features for the platform, including cross-game achievement tracking with friends, among other things.

If you want to get acclimated to the new digs before the mandatory update on Monday, you still have a few days to get in on the beta, right here.

Wow, that’s one hell of a funky looking Mega Man! This bit of print comes from an issue of GameFan magazine, back when Mega Man X was still in development. I always love getting to see just how much things change with games before they hit retail.

#religion Exactly how many bullets can kill a person? How many apples can one man carry? In real life, the answers vary. In a video game, real life must be explained in numbers. That includes religion: how it spreads, who believes. More »

#demo Join me and countless Japanese players online today, with the wide-release of the latest Lost Planet 2 multiplayer demo. More »