Here we go! A first look at Gears of War 2 gameplay, plus an intro and outro with CliffyB and his hair.

So...whaddaya think?
Gameplay [1Up]

I'm not entirely sold on Street Fighter IV yet, and I'm incredibly wary of the upcoming GI Joe movie, so it's nice to be able to take both franchises and go back in time to a simpler, happier time. Like these commercials for the short-lived line of Street Fighter II GI Joe figures, featuring some of the original title's more memorable heroes and all four of its bad guys. Capcom's blog call it a "study in fail", but really, we're going to butt heads on this. "What's a Dhalsim?" Genius. This weekend's goal is to use that as many times as possible. "Sir, today's specials are-" "WHAT'S A DHALSIM?"

[via Capcom]

Ready to bend our ear? 'Cause the Tell Us Dammit Giraffe is ready to listen. That's right, it's time for TUD. We've got a feature here on Kotaku called "Tell Us Dammit" or "TUD." How it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn't some marketing survey or whatever. It's an emotional investment in you. Yes, we're interesting in knowing you, Kotaku reader person. You probably know fucktons about us -- more than you even want to, we're sure. But, hey, we'd like to know about you. That way you won't be some faceless blob -- and we might feel a tinge of guilt when we ban your arse. Or not, because really we're incapable of human emotion. Today's question:

What game is TOO HARD for you?

With McWhertor playing through R-Type Command, that reminds me of a fit R-Type on the TurboGrafx 16 gave me as a lad. Man, that game was frustration city!

Yeah, that question will rule a lot of you out, but for those it doesn't this should be something of a rare delight. If you've got a copy of Vista Premium, and install the vmcNetflix plug-in, you'll be able to rent streaming movies from Netflix (currently only available to Windows PCs) and - with a little jiggering - beam them over to your 360. It's apparently a little buggy, but hey, in the absence of an official deal, it's as good as you're going to get it for the moment.

vmcNetFlix [vmcNetFlix, via Gizmodo AU]

LittleBigPlanet Killzone
Comment by: TitillatedOcelot
Nominated by: Mint

What's the point of this game? I don't get it...

totally joking, I can't WAIT for this title. I doubt I'll be able to peel my fiancee away from it once it's out. She squeals whenever she sees footage for this game. Why I can't get her to squeal like that saddens me.

LittleBigPlanet Killzone
Comment by: mrantimatter
Nominated by: liquid_kore

@TitillatedOcelot
have you considered dressing up in a burlap sack and putting stickers all over the bedroom? Might work.

Yup. BIG HANDS. But don't let them put you off this Sagat statue by SOTA. It's not his fault, is it? Indeed, he's become quite sensitive about it, so if you don't mind, quit your staring. Due in September, it's - as you can see - a highly detailed representation of Thailand's favourite one-eyed son, stands 12" and will cost you $US 120.

Sony makes a games machine. Heck, they make three of them that people are still buying. So they're in competition with Nintendo and Microsoft, who also makes games machines, right? Nope! Kaz Hirai told MCV at this week's SCEE event in Europe that Sony have bigger fish to fry than the world's #1-selling gaming company and the world's #1-selling software company:

Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer and Angela of Lesbian Gamers recently collaborated on a short essay aiming to address what they define as "the hostile climate that frequently arises within the gaming community." They tried isolating specific concerns about some gamer behaviour and raising questions about how to handle them, and just published what they've come up with.

Here's an excerpt:

Ironically, the medium we love that provides us with so much joy has also developed a fanbase with a reputation for anti-social, intolerant behaviour in both Australia and the United States where we live. We know it's a gross and unfair mischaracterization, but the broad set of cultural assumptions about games and gamers is largely negative, and we too often affirm those assumptions by our own behavior.

So Niko's got a ticket to San Andreas, does he? No wonder, at these crazy prices. Reader Timmy spotted this billboard while cruising around Bohan, advertising cheap flights to Los Santos for only $US 299. Now, this is most likely just some cute inter-series referencing, but hey, if any of you want to keep on speculating that San An will be the setting for the next instalment in this generation's series (I seem to remember Vice City travel ads in GTA III, for example), go right ahead.

Burnout Paradise Ultra Widescreen PC Footage [Criterion Games]

It won't come as any surprise that EA is planning Wii and Nintendo DS "spin off" versions of its skateboarding franchise skate—IGN spilled the beans accidentally in April—but you might be surprised at how good it looks. It might not be on par visually with the Xbox 360 and PS3 entries, but Skate It, at least based on the trio of screen shots IGN secured, looks pretty good.

So I ran into a bit of a snag with my PlayStation 3 last week when I went to pick up Iron Man only to discover my system would not play Blu-ray games or movies any longer. PlayStation 2 games and DVDs run just fine, but Blu-ray just poops out without even trying to read the disc. I had put off calling support in the same way I generally put off calling the doctor, hoping that whatever is wrong will just fix itself (Mike, your arm's fallen off - It'll get better!), but after wistfully browsing the Blu-ray movie aisle at a local retail establishment it was time to make the call.

After navigating the PlayStation support line's various menus and advertisements, I got on the line with a support specialist I will call Denise, mainly because I completely forgot to write down her real name. Denise had never encountered this particular issue before, so she put me on hold to research a bit in between restoring the system's default setting and performing a hard reset. The verdict? My poor little PS3 is dead.

The Year of the Video Game Shoe continues, this time courtesy of Puma who have inflicted two additional Tetris themed kicks on the footwear buying public. While these two are certainly not as horrendous as the Disc Blaze re-issues already released—if only for the fact that that particular shoe is an eyesore by design—the RS100 and First Round EX entries in the Tetris pack are going to more than likely attract the wrong kind of attention.

I'll stick my Nike SB 720s thank you very much, Mr. Puma! In fact, I'm off to Brooklyn Projects to acquire! Have a good weekend.

Puma S/S '08 Tetris Pack [High Snobiety]

How cute! We love it when furniture has delusions of gaming hardware. Well, the joke's on us, because this particular coffee table does triple duty, storage gobs of video game paraphernalia and functioning as a working NES controller in addition to its coffee tabling duties. Creator Kyle tipped us off today to let us know the whole thing is finished, with helpful how-to posts and video of the thing in action embedded within the celebratory completion post. He even got a girl to go near it and she doesn't look scared. Nice goin, Kyle!

NES coffee table FINAL POST!! RAH!!!! [Ultra-Awesome]

Late Night with Conan O'Brien is certainly getting some mileage out of its "Gentler Side of Grand Theft Auto IV" shtick. This one's more of a B-sides than a Best Of—his earlier effort was much much better—but that doesn't mean it's not worth watching. (Glad someone else noticed that Niko is partial to checking out his arse in jeans.) We're just thrilled Conan and crew are educating the public about the nice things one can do while in Liberty City.

To: Ash
From: Crecente
Re: Wife Back Home (What Fetuses Wear)

Tonight I'm meeting up with a slew of local developers for round two of our monthly poker night. If you don't recall, I managed to lose $US 60 at a $US 20 poker game last time round. This time, I plan on at least not buying in three times. Big talk, I know, but a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do.

What you missed:
Bad Company Demo Coming June 5th
New SOCOM Confrontation Screens
Call of Duty 5 To Feature "New Military Theatre"
New Wrath Of The Lich King Details Galore
Will Verbinski Make BioShock The First Great Game Flick?
BioWare Backs Down From Draconian Mass Effect Authentication
Spore To Use Online Authentication
echochrome Review: Poppin', Lockin' and Thinkin'
MGS4 Character Spoiler

Last night we had a bit of a gaming bender at Kotaku Towers West, a night filled with Wii Fit, We Ski, and Rock Band. The highlight, of course, was a two hour Cruis'n session—the Wii shitware title that was finally freed from its shrinkwrap confines last night to much amusement. It's absolutely the most unintentionally hilarious game I've ever played, with some of the sloppiest game design ever... even for a Cruis'n title. Rarely has a game brought me to tears with laughter, so Cruis'n should at least be lauded for that. Highly recommended for your next game night, especially if booze is available.

This weekend I'll be ditching the Cruis'n as I get back to R-Type Command and continue my Rock Band duties, now with added Boston. How about you? Weekend plans?

SEC filings have revealed that Electronic Arts borrowed $US 1 billion from Morgan Stanley and other lenders to help finance a possible acquisition of Take-Two.

"There's no news here," said EA VP of communications Jeff Brown. "This is just a process point on something we announced in February."

With $US 2.3 billion on hand in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, EA already has the funds available to do the deal as it currently stands. With the deal not contingent on financing, why borrow more money?

"It helps us maintain maximum flexibility for any opportunities," said Brown.

Take-Two had no comment as of press time.

Sources tell us that the upcoming Call of Duty 5 game in development is already playable, and currently going through quality assurance.

Treyarch is also said to be the developer, and the title, we're told, is set in a WWII Pacific environment and will be using Call of Duty 4's engine, the same engine on which the upcoming James Bond: Quantum of Solace movie game is being built.

Yesterday, on the company's call to investors, Activision publishing CEO Mike Griffith said CoD5 would be coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and DS, in addition to a return for the franchise to PS2 and Wii for the first time in two years.

Inasmuch as the Japanese software story stays largely the same, as does weekly hardware sales. The PSP continues to sit pretty atop the Media Create sales charts, but regular "Simple 2000: The Japanese Hardware Chart" watchers will notice that the big black slice is starting to thin. A big Wii sales boost has plenty to do with that, but Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G sales trending down—holiday boost notwithstanding—is likely accountable. Numbers were up across the board, but Nintendo benefited the most.

Reader Tony writes it to show off this Metal Gear Solid 4 Old Snake action figure he made by heavily customising a Dark Knight movie Batman figure. Pretty cool, though it does look a little Thunderbirds are Go! to me. More shots on the jump.

We've seen a teaser that suggests that Metal Gear Solid 4 will feature significant flashbacks to the story's early days, so it's possible that everyone's favourite tragic soldier-turned-despot will show up alongside the other blasts from the past. But Big Boss is dead for good, right?

Right?

Possible spoilers follow the jump, so if you'd rather not speculate on anything MGS 4-related, steer clear.

Sony touted it's minimalist PlayStation Network puzzler Echochrome at E3 2007 as a game inspired by the classic, simple-but-deep rule sets of traditional brain teasers like the Chinese board game Go and the Rubik's Cube. Pitched as the PlayStation 3 game with "the least graphics and the most gameplay," Echochrome lets players guide an animated artist mannequin through a blocky construct, picking up "echoes" via Escher-esque perspective bending.

Echochrome, with its simple black and white line-work aesthetic is certainly lacking in the expected visual fireworks common in most modern games, as promised. But does it feature the proportionate gameplay of its inspiration?

Despite some hand-wringing by fans, EA today announced that their hugely anticipated Will Wright game Spore will not make use of SecuROM's 10-day periodic re-authetication and instead use a modified version to require online authentication.

The announcement comes on the heels of news that Mass Effect will also be ditching the ten day re-authentication.

When Mass Effect comes to the computer it will not use SecuROM's 10-day periodic re-authentication and instead will instead use a modification to do only a one-time online authentication, Bioware announced today.

The developer said the decision came after listening "very closely" to its fans and that the new system will also allow gamers to play the game without the DVD in the drive.

The system will allow gamers to authenticate their game on just three computers, but EA does have the ability to give additional authorisations if they are warranted.

Hit up the jump for the official FAQ and to let us know what you think about this change of heart.

Japanese RPG fans, rejoice. Japan-based publisher Marvelous Entertainment announced a co-publishing partnership with L.A.-based XSeed, who's best known for Shadow Hearts: From The New World and Wild Arms 4 and 5. Through the deal, Marvelous, who among other titles publishes Natsume's Harvest Moon series, gains more North American presence, while XSeed gets to publish some of Marvelous' upcoming games in the U.S.

Slated for a Spring 2008 US launch, the first title they'll co-publish is Valhalla Knights 2 for PSP, a sequel to the April 2007 RPG that the two companies also co-published.

So, by now you've heard a BioShock flick is in the works, news that excites many fans - while leaving some others wary, thanks to the less-than-encouraging track record of films made from games.

Significant about the BioShock film news is the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski's been tapped for the directorial role. This is interesting, because you may recall that just a couple months ago, Verbinski was the keynote speaker at the 2008 DICE summit.

Lots of gamers may have wondered what a film director was doing at DICE, but now that he's directing our next big game flick, you may want to take a second look at what he said there.

Say what you will about Bungie's Halo 3 from a gameplay or plot standpoint, there is one aspect of the game that was excellent from start to finish - the ad campaign. Created by the McCann Worldgroup and T.A.G., the Halo 3 "Believe" ad campaign featured no gameplay footage, instead creating a mood using strong imagery that stirred the audience in a way simply looking at a video game could not. Last night the campaign received best in show at The One Show, an annual worldwide advertising awards show that celebrates great ideas in marketing.