By now you’ve surely read our hot review ofHalo 3: ODSTand are either thinking, “Man I want to buy that,” or “Pfft,Uncharted 2will be better because BIAS!” If you’re thinking the former, then you might want to make your purchase at Toys R Us, where a free action figure and $20 gift cardis being offeredto each customer. This isn’t pre-order based, so you can just hot-tail it to your local Giraffe emporium on Tuesday and walk away with some neat swag....

We all know that computers are more powerful than consoles, but id Software’s John Carmack is sick of it. Citing the struggle to getRAGErunning on PS3 and Xbox 360, Carmack has admitted to being “extremely frustrated” by hardware discrepancies. “It is extremely frustrating knowing that the hardware we’ve got on the PC is often ten times as powerful as the consoles but it has honestly been a struggle in many cases to get the game running at 60 frames per second on the PC like it does on a 360,” he said during his QuakeCon keynote....

The most impactful, game-changing design distinction betweenStreet Fighter IVand its super follow-up isn’t the addition of fresh rival battle scenes, characters or even the pyrotechnic new Ultra Combos. It’s easily mecha-Zangief. As you’ll observe above, mecha-Zangief fights like old Zangiefbut don’t let that fool you.This guy is different from his fleshyboringbrother. This metal man is Russian colossus who eats babies andcrapsglass shards. He’s a man who travels often and enjoys the subtle beauty of nature....

[We’re all done for tonight, but be sure to tune in to our future live broadcasts Monday through Friday at 10pm Pacific!] Look, I buy games. I buy lots of them and I’m utterly incapable of resisting what appears in my mind to be “a good deal.” So, I wind up with all of these games that I have purchased at cheap prices but never get around to playing them. My shelves are stuffed with broken promises and shattered dreams....

I have a feeling this is only the beginning of manyDark Voidposts to come. Today, Capcom unveiled the game’sofficial Web site. It’s black, purple, has silly flash animations and music that will boom through your speakers if you’re not careful. Capcom also released a spectacular teaser trailer that you can view post-jump. I write “spectacular” because the teasing is heavy and the gameplay is non-existent. But never you worry about its lack of substance....

PC strategy/puzzle/weird gameDarwiniahas been teetering on the brink of an XBLA release for over a year. Now, finally, the game has finally pass certification and is now confirmed for an XBLA release. Phew! Darwinia+will bundle the four-year-old PC title with its multiplayer counterpartMultiwinia, and although no release date has been set, Introversion states it will appear “in the coming months.” It was originally due to launch in 2008, but the developer assures fans that the delay was well spent....

Following Marvel Comics’ early lead, DC Comics has finally decided to bring its titles to the PlayStation Network for use with the PlayStation Portable digital comic reader. A bit more than 80 titles are now available on the store, ranging from $0.99 to $2.99 per issue. Included in the initial offering are titles like the excellentBatman: Hush,Green Lantern: Rebirth, and more. Additionally, there will be a handful of exclusive comics available on the PSN store that gamers should be specifically interested in:God of War,Resistance,Free Realms, and a jointSuperman/Batmantitle....

Dead Rising 2is getting its first traditional add-on content: stat-boosting outfits. Capcom didn’t mention specific prices yet, but this seems like the type of content you’d be asked to pay a few dollars for. Note: the first date is for Xbox 360, and the second is for PlayStation 3. I’m a little torn. These were previously pre-order bonuses, so that’s kind of annoying, but wouldn’t it be even worse if you never had the opportunity to get this stuff without reserving multiple copies ofDead Rising 2?...

Electronic Arts has released a smattering ofDead Space 2screens today, which you can now look at with your eyes in our gallery below. They don’t really show you anything you haven’t seen before, but if you’re looking forward to the game as much as we are, you’ll want to gawp at them anyway. Dead Space 2is looking super hot, and much more engaging than the first one, which is nice. I’m definitely excited for it, but what do you lot reckon?...

A few months back, I dida piece onMass Effectwherein I discussed the fact that, though the game had an epic, branching, nonlinear storyline, it frequently chose making the player “happy” over creating a suspenseful, tragic, dramatic storyline. If you liked a character, the gamewouldnotkill him under any circumstances, and if you hated one, the game acknowledged that it’d be okay to gank that person without the player getting upset. Having just beatenGrand Theft Auto IV, I noticed Rockstar vastly improved upon many of the same structural ideas and narrative mechanicsMass Effectimplemented a few months back....

Early this morning it came to light that website Destructoid.com has been accepting kickbacks from all manner of companies. Some companies, such as Ubisoft and Vivendi had been plying Destructoid’s supposedly hardcore writers with cash, gifts and sexy asian women, while other organizations — most notoriously Purina Pet Food — had been offering reviewers free samples of various flavors of dry and wet dog chow in exchange for complementary reviews....

In a turn of events that feels rather sad, Sony Japan has officially cancelled a Japanese release of the PS3 racing gameMotorstorm: Apocalypse, which had earlier been placed on indefinite suspension. Sony gave no specific reason as to the cause of the cancellation, but the motivations are fairly obvious. After all, the game features players racing through a city as it is being actively destroyed by a devastating earthquake and tsunami....

It would seem that Nintendo’s platforms have become the official home forDragon Quest, unwilling as the series is to yet grace the Xbox 360 and PS3. Punctuating that, ourcommunityblogshave revealed thatDragon Quest Xhas been announced, and is heading to the Wii. DQ IXis due to launch on the Wii on March 28 in Japan, where it will retail for 5,980 yen. This is good news for Wii fans who enjoy videogames, rather than the stuff Nintendo of America tries to push, as theDragon Questseries is one of the best examples of hardcore JRPG gameplay out there....