She couldn't stay hidden forever. Sooner or later she was going to get sloppy enough, or old enough, for someone to find her. Now somebody has. That's her, sitting in a train station, cover completely blown. Poor thing. Time has not been kind.

Carmen Sandiego has been found! [Sensible Erection, thanks Rito!]

Assassin's Creed's meant to be out in November. Supposedly. Our breath is baited, though, after seeing these comments from Ubisoft's Patrice Desilets:

Right now we have a big challenge on the 360 to make it fit on a DVD, to put five languages, to put all the data on eight gigs.

Well that didn't take long. The Mario-riffic Amanita muscaria mushroom, which we posted about not once but twice in the past week, has been banned in the Netherlands following a spate of "mishaps" involving the shrooms. And by mishaps I mean death (a French girl jumped off a balcony after eating one), serious injury (an Icelandic tourist doing likewise) and near-death (a Danish tourist driving his car at full speed through a packed camping ground). Italian plumbers unions may protest the ban, citing the mushroom's therapeutic benefits.

Netherlands bans magic mushrooms [BBC, via Boing-Boing]

Kuju's follow up to the Gamecube action strategy game Battalion Wars, virtually no relation to Advance Wars, hits in just a couple weeks, bringing Nintendo Wi-fi Connection multiplayer battles to your Wii. New naval units and Wii Remote controls will add or subtract from the gameplay, depending on your point of view. An octet of new Battalion Wars 2 screens in the gallery below.

That downpour of Wii Ware news? Good news for Wii owners. Japanese ones at least, since they were the only ones that got details and a launch timeframe. No such luck for the US, while Europe and Australia... oh don't make me laugh. But while North America didn't get a firm date, Perrin Kaplan did tell Game|Life that they're at least looking/hoping for a similar launch window:

I think we'll be looking at a somewhat similar time frame [to Japan], but we haven't announced anything yet.

Interview: Perrin Kaplan On Smash, Wii Ware, And Leaving Nintendo [Game|Life]

To: Ash
From: Crecente

So the Denver Press Club, which had offered up their usually vacant building to use the fundraiser I was thinking of doing in has unexpectedly, and with no notice, backed out. Apparently they can make more money renting the place for parties then donating it for a weekday night for charity. Go figure.

Anyway I hit up a new place tonight to see if I could sweet talk the price down. Even if I can't I might just rent the place out of pocket, wtf. The best part? If I can get the place its got an honest to god stage, one used by many a well known musician. How kick ass would it be to play Guitar Hero 3 or Rock Band up there?

What you missed:
Mystery Record (perhaps a charity item too)
Jack Black's first Brutal Legend Song, Sorta
Eye of Judgment Play
Super Smash Bros. Brawl Hands On Impressions
Super Mario Galaxy Power Ups Revealed

Nintendo has uploaded a handful of brief videos for the upcoming Mario platformer Super Mario Galaxy to its Japanese web site as part of the latest Creator's Voice article. The series of interviews sees company president Satoru Iwata chat up game developers to learn more about new releases. In the new volume, the Super Mario Galaxy team discusses various aspects of the design process, revealing new info about the game's power ups. We've already seen Super Mario Galaxy's new Bee Suit—giving Mario a limited hover ability—and Boo Suit—it allows him to pass through grates and walls— but brand new power ups, including nods to classic powers and totally new ones have been quietly announced.

We love Ray Maguire. PS3 problems may be old hat by now (ie booooooring), but we will never get tired of hearing Ray tell us all about them. Take today, for example. That 40GB PS3 isn't Sony flying by the seat of their pants. No, it's all part of their grand, master plan!

We've been considering this since launch - this is all part of a very carefully thought-out plan.

Having missed out on its Gamecube predecessor, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Wii iteration of the long-running Fire Emblem series at Nintendo's media day. How does it play? Are there any changes from the established formula? What improvements has Intelligent Systems made during the localisation process? Sorry, I can't answer any of those questions until Monday at 12 PM Pacific Time! Fire Emblem fans and wannabe fans should definitely tune in for hands-on impressions next week, as some welcome features might revitalise your interest in the series.

In the meantime, check out new screens and loads of gorgeous artwork for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

I'm a huge fan of Everyday Shooter, but if you read Kotaku you probably already know that. I first played it last year while judging for the Independent Games Festival and was blown away. I've since played through the entire game on my PS3 debug and remain blown away, mostly because the Sony folks were smart enough not to touch the game in any real way when it made the jump from PC to PS3.

A record week for the Smash Bros. Dojo, with nine action packed updates, including one that confirms months of speculation and should finally settle ages old Genesis versus Super Nintendo debates. On top of that, the number of pictures of Zero Suit Samus added to the Dojo requires your busy hand to count. Having spent a few hours with Super Smash Bros. Brawl in San Francisco over the past two days, I realized wrapping up the weekly Dojo updates has taught me a lot about the game.

The Dojo Dump is right after this.

The first publicly playable version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii was available to sample during Nintendo's media event in San Francisco, giving those on hand a chance to check out the next evolution of the franchise. While some headline characters were unavailable for hands-on play—Snake from Metal Gear Solid, for example—many newcomers to the series were featured, including the recently announced Sonic the Hedgehog. Limited to only two minute time battles, up to four players, we didn't get to experience portions of the game that hardcore fans are surely looking forward to, but did have enough time to become familiar with the varied control options. Plus, we saw some new, unannounced aspects.

Today Sierra Online announced another XBLA (and PC) space shooter, following their horrid rendition of Battlestar Galactica (which, admittedly, is not out yet for final review but looked bad at E3). It's called Aces of the Galaxy and it's a third person, behind the ship shooter that looks at least nominally better than their first two attempts at blowing things up in space. A co-op mode will allow you to play the game with a friend. And yeah, we'd pay a few bucks for the experience when it hits this winter. They announced some other stuff too that we just had no interest in, so we'll put the press release after the jump.

I spent the last 36 hours soaking in Nintendo DS and Wii games, controlling various plumbers in space, in Olympic sport, and in vicious hand-to-hand combat. This weekend, I'll be focusing on gaming of a different sort, as I immerse myself in The Orange Box. I've had a busy week, nary a moment to enjoy my recent Steam purchase and having come dangerously close to Portal spoilers during my stint at Nintendo's media event, I realised I need to buckle down and force feed myself some first-person shooting fun.

Other than that, I've got Metroid Prime 3: Corruption wondering where the hell I've been and some must-play time with Dementium: The Ward.

So what is it, dear readers? What are you playing this weekend?

According to a round of national research by Solutions Research Group, the Wii is a woman's eighth most wanted "digital lifestyle product", (with 9% of participants wanting one). Men, on the other hand, preferred the PS3 as their top console (which came in sixth on their list after 10% of respondents wanted one). The 360 and Wii came in ninth and tenth place on man lists.

We'll ignore the fact that decent sales of Wiis and 360s mean more people own them and thereby mean less people want them, and instead stoke the fires on the console fanboy wars.

Women Prefer Wii, Men Prefer PlayStation 3 [via wiiwii]

OK, the video of the mystery record ended up being super rambly, and at one point is interrupted by the UPS lady dropping off a package on my doorstep, but I suck at video editing, so sorry. :)

This cracks us up. What do you think, Crecente? It looks like the perfect location for our next Kotaku get together. If there's a game conference in Oshawa, ON, Canada, consider it booked.

Church Uses Halo 3 to Advertise [flickr] Thanks TedHead!

OK boys and girls prepare to watch me have my ass handed to... me.. by a Sony guy. Stay tuned to watch it live and comment. OK it's working again.

It's a simple question: is Microsoft poised to win the console wars? Microsoft Senior Regional Director of entertainment Neil Thompson had something not so simple to say in response:

I don't think it's as binary now as it was with the previous generation. It really depends on your criteria of 'winning'. Some people say it's how many boxes you ship, some say it's the amount of profit you make, some might judge it on how broad your offering is...I think when people look back on this in the future they will see this as a very successful stepping stone in Microsoft's broader entertainment vision.

We're tough on filmmaker Uwe Boll, mostly because his movies are really, really bad. But he's not a dumb guy: he's been very successful in getting money from a lot of very successful people. So every once in a while, he actually says something worth a quote.

MTV: What would you do to if you remade the "Super Mario Bros." movie?

Wendy's is a restaurant I hardly ever visit unless it is the only thing on a long stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere, but as soon as I read the press release regarding the new Spyro the Dragon toys in the fast food chain's Kid's Meals, I immediately hopped into the Faheymobile and set off on a grand adventure. The toys include the Sparx Flyer, Flapping Spyro, a Spyro Keychain, Spyro Checkers and Ruby Reveal, all released as part of a four week promotion for The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night for the Wii, DS, GBA, and PS2.

The bag even includes a $US 5 coupon off any version of the game at GameStop! I was so excited could barely contain myself as I pulled up to the drive-thru, ordering myself a chicken nugget kid's meal with a boyish giggle in my voice. Once money had changed hands I drove off, reaching into the bag to reveal...a stuffed giraffe. Okay, so maybe not all stores have the promotion yet, but they will, and I'll get sick of Wendy's food all over again!

I just received a package today. Inside was a portable record player, a riddle and a red record from the "Riggs Records" label. The record is a single by Tainted Coil called Corpse of Hope.

Growing up in the 80s I knew immediatly there had to be a message hidden on the record if I played it backwards, I didn't even have to read the riddle. But while I've found the message I can't quite make it out. It seems to repeat three or four times something about Legends or Legend. And no, I don't think I hear the words Guitar Hero.

Hit the jump for the riddle and then help me figure it out.

We've gotten sick of the 'historically accurate' sales pitch that's come standard in every WWII shooter released over the last fifteen years. We get it already, that European street with the impossible to find snipers is just like the real thing. It's neat, but often does little for larger gameplay. But in Akella's upcoming Hitler assassination adventure A Stroke of Fate (PC we believe), this historical accuracy will have huge impacts on gameplay.

We pay a lot of attention to the historical authenticity in the project. We involved a historical consultant to keep an eye on the authenticity of events and various features of the game. Thus we're specific to many interesting facts relevant to that epoch: Hitler's security system that applied multiple gadgets - sensitive microphones to detect timing devices and a great number of impersonators, as well as schemes and layouts of Hitler's private bunker.

Quite honestly I have no idea why I picked up Bleach: Shattered Blade for the Wii on Wednesday. I am not familiar with the manga or anime series at all, having been turned off after working Anime Weekend Atlanta last year and being up to my ass in Bleach cosplayers. I suppose I was just hopeful after Dragon Ball Z's excellent Wii debut and my love of the Naruto fighter series for the Gamecube. As you might be able to tell from the video above, I was in for a bit of a let down. The Wii controls for the sequel to Japan's Bleach GC: Tasogare ni Mamieru Shinigami make the game ridiculously easy. Mind you i was playing on normal mode...in hard mode the enemy AI actually fights back. I suppose in easy mode they simply surrender before the fight begins.

In the middle of the night while unsuspecting Americans were sleeping the sleep of the sleepy, Sega slipped quietly onto Xbox Live Marketplace and tucked the Virtua Fighter 5 demo under our pillows, pausing to reflect on how much we've grow and caressing our cheek only to disappear into the darkness at the first sign of our stirring. The demo features four playable characters - Akira, Sarah, El Blaze and Eileen - and three stages, which players able to battle in Versus mode and Arcade mode. Sadly the demo doesn't feature online battles, but with only a few short weeks to release we'll get our hands on some of that action soon enough.

I first saw Beowulf months before E3, in a backroom at an Ubi event. At the time my first, my only concern, was whether the game would be true to the epic poem or just a game that borrowed the tale's veneer. I was surprised to find that the team was as jazzed about Beowulf as I happen to be. In fact, they spent some of the time bemoaning the fact that no other journalists seemed to want to hear about the authenticity. I think this video might open a few eyes to why authenticity is important. Man, I can't wait for this game.

As reported yesterday, America's hottest VP of marketing Perrin Kaplan is leaving Nintendo, which is very sad for me because I never got a chance to flirt with her shamelessly in the course of an interview - one of the reasons I took this gig in the first place. That lucky bastard Dean Takahashi of The Mercury News conducted an exit interview of sorts with Kaplan, reflecting on her 15 years at Nintendo. Together they touch on the company's success, her respect for Miyamoto, mud wrestling, and each other.

She noted how she used to try to give me hugs over the years and I would always be stiff about that. (I have always thought it awkward to hug the people I write about). But Perrin gave me a hug as I walked out and I pretended to be stiff.

Exit interview: Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan to bow out at year end: That's All Folks [The Mercury News A+E Interactive]

Remember three days ago when Mark Rein said the Unreal Tournament 3 Beta would be out within two weeks? Sucker pulled a Scotty on us apparently, as it is only a mere three days later and we've received word that it's being released today. Right now over at FilePlanet, subscribers can preload the beta on their system to have it ready once everything goes live. I'm downloading it as I type this...like I need another shooter to take up my time between practicing Halo 3 and enjoying Team Fortress 2. I've never been a big shooter fan in the first place, but lately I've developed a blood lust that has me shouting obscenities and calling everyone bitches... bitches.

Download the Unreal Tournament 3 Beta Demo on FilePlanet [FilePlanet, Duh]

We liveblogged yesterday's conference call with Electronic Arts about their buyout of BioWare and Pandemic studios, but that was really just about grabbing some of the highlights. Hit the jump if you want to read the entire script of their pitch and delivery which includes confirmation that BioWare, not Microsoft, owns the Mass Effect IP, that Pandemic is working on several unannounced titles and that BioWare's MMO is several years out.