One of those trucks was spotted by Kotaku reader Britt, who not only supplied us with photos and video of the four-wheeled Left 4 Dead 2 billboard, but did some research. Who’s ready for some L4D2 fuel efficiency stats?!

“There are two trucks in the Seattle area, one in Downtown Seattle around UW, and one in Bellevue,” writes Britt. “They started driving around yesterday, and are on the job for at least one month. The trucks are bio-diesel, but still only get about 13MPG.”

But wait, Britt got even more technical detail from driver Henry, who I’m sure is doing a bang up job of obeying speed limits and keeping an eye peeled for pedestrians.

“The trucks can hold a maximum of 10 shots, that cycle at six seconds. Though for L4D2, they just have two pictures at 10 seconds,” Britt says, a fact that can be backed up by windy mobile phone video, footage that’s about as exciting as using one’s scrollbar in the gallery below.

For the launch of Ninja Gaiden II, Tecmo released a series of viral-type ads. Here’s how they made them. Fascinating.

Stuff breaks. Duh. This clip is from the folks at Sony Australia.

PS3がBRAVIAの画面を叩き割るCM [オレ的ゲーム速報＠刃]

Poor Aaron Howe. The guy makes an honest living, tries hard to keep his kids happy, and what happens? Sony Computer Entertainment’s “Kevin Butler” goes and cuts Aaron’s grass. Creepy.

In the original ad, Sony’s fictional director of rumour confirmation stated, “You can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Otherwise, I’d be a Nigerian millionaire by now.”

According to reports citing a statement from Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Communication, Prof. Dora Akunyili, the African republic is up in arms over Sony’s latest PS3 ad campaign. Specifically, it appears one line from one of the commercials is an “unwarranted attack on the reputation and image of the country” according to Nigeria’s federal government. The government demanded an apology from Sony Computer Entertainment.

The official PlayStation web site ran this apology: “It has come to our attention that a recent TV advertisement for PlayStation may have offended some members of the Nigerian community. We never intended to create a situation that would upset anyone, and we have taken action to immediately remove the advertisement from the air. We apologise to anyone this may have offended.”

The newly reworked ad features no mention of Nigeria, but instead features this line: “You can’t believe everything you read on the internet. That’s how World War I got started.” Wait until World War I hears about this, Sony. It’s gonna be so pissed.

Thanks, Max!

[Pic]

The Transport Accident Commission of Victoria, a state in Australia’s south-east, have signed a contract with Massive—the Microsoft-owned in-game advertising provider—courtesy of which they’ll beam their creepy anti-speeding commercials into the homes of the TAC’s target audience: young Australian males.

The ads will appear in Guitar Hero 5 but, more importantly, in Forza 3 as well.

The TAC are famous not just in Australia, but throughout the world, for their insistence on promoting road safety via graphic, violent TV commercials and billboards. So it’ll be interesting to see how the ads go down in Forza, a game about… driving really, really fast.

Below is one of the TAC’s more notable efforts, from a few years back. Be warned; it’s a little rough.

Video games to get local road safety ads [The Australian]

Expect to see this television commercial for The Beatles: Rock Band more frequently than the insides of your eyelids this fall. Thank goodness it’s both interesting and technically impressive.

While that close-up shot of John may border on slightly creepy, the blend of footage of the band and the people who could conceivably play The Beatles: Rock Band is well done. Charming maybe. Classy definitely. And the transition from Abbey Road to Rock Band note highway? Someone’s clever!

Wonder how the competition will respond, TV commercial-wise…

As we mentioned yesterday, Sony is on the cusp of launching a brand new ad campaign for their brand new, slimmer, less expensive PlayStation 3.

What we didn’t mention is how funny they are. Could this be a return to commercials from Sony that not only make sense, but are fun to watch?

Check out two examples of the “It Only Does Everything” themed commercials weigh in on your favourite Playstation ads through history.

Originals can be found here. Can’t seem to get those embeds to work for some reason: It Only Does Everything [Playstation Blog]

Reader Chris writes that his sister snapped a photo of what she described as a huge 8-bit Mario display Pepsi built out of cases of their drinks at the Safeway in Rohnert Park, California.

Keep in mind this isn’t something Nintendo paid for, it’s just two bitter, talented soda employees vying for the hearts and throats of the thirsty public.

Coke, we’re told, recently built an elaborate Olympics-themed display. I think Pepsi wins…this round.

Pimple-removal, romance novels and liquor get advertised inside New York City subway cars. This morning, I walked into a car of the F train and, for the first time, saw a video game getting big-time promotion.

Despite video games being played constantly on the train—there’s always someone playing on an iPhone, DS or PSP—game ads on the train are oddly rare.

Not today.

To clarify what you’re seeing: This is an entire interior side of a New York City subway coated with ads for the DS game Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. The ads appear across the top of the wall, next to the windows and at the far ends of the car. The ads only feature women.

In the 19 years I’ve been a rider of the New York City subway, I’ve only seen one other ad for a game. That ad, for Monster Hunter Freedom PSP, was posted once per car, nothing like this wallpapering that the Layton game got. I ride the subway at least twice a day and saw those Monster Hunter ads maybe five times.

Sorry for the shakiness of the video. I’m leery of taking photos and shooting movies in the subway. Only tourists do that. And I don’t want people getting freaked out that they’re in my photos. So I shot the video in haste and snapped the stills in angles that I hoped wouldn’t get me assaulted by my fellow New Yorkers.