He’s about to blow your mind Every Nintendo fan knows ofHAL Laboratory. The guys that are primarily responsible for theKirbyseries, with the cute logo? Until now, peoplepretty much had an ideaof where they got the name, but that’s about to change. Iwata has even gone on record as saying that HAL 9000 is “very cool,” so everyone just assumed it was named after the aforementioned psychotic AI from2001: A Space Odyssey....

Don’t wanna dance on Maggie’s farm One more blonde mess ofPersona 4: Dancing All Nightnews. The Velvet Room’s Margaret will cut a velvet rug inDancing All Nightaccording to a recentFamitsupreview. Margaret can be unlocked for use in the game’s Free Dance mode, which lets you pick character and costume, but not the track, which will be specific to each character, according to Siliconera. Apparently you’re able to pick a support character for additional choreography decisions as well....

Dark Horse set to publish ongoing series At this weekend’s Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle, Dark Horse Comics announced that they will be publishing a new ongoing series set in theMass Effectuniverse. The title,Mass Effect: Foundationwill be written by Mac Walters, who provided writing onMass Effect 2and had the lead writing role onMass Effect 3. I’ll let you guys judge for yourselves whether or not that bodes well. The comics will be including characters tied to the upcomingMass Effect 3single-player DLC,Citadel, due out next week....

Jack the Ripper-Offer-Of-Clothes Oh hey look another Nendoroid whoa this one is naked. Yep, that’s right, theKahotan’s Good Smile bloghas revealed a new figure, and it’s going to be Raiden from theMetal Gear Solidseries. He can sport his classic look, fully clothed and with his sword (and two other weapons), or his iconic “Naked Raiden” birthday suit. As the blog puts it, “This way you’re able to enjoy his amazing body even closer than before!...

Now it’s personal Another week,another storyon the slow, inevitable car crash that is MoviePass. Any moviegoer who was looking to use their MoviePass last night were frustrated to find that “technical issues” were preventing them from utilizing the service. It turns out that this outage happened because the companyliterally ran out of money. Per Business Insider, owner Helios and Matheson had to borrow more than $5 million from Hudson Bay Capital Management in an attempt to get the service up and running again....

Waterslides! The thing aboutplayingHaroldwhich made the largest impression on me, more so than its cute premise and challenging stage design, was its sheer beauty. This is further evidenced by this new set of screenshots we have received, showing elements of a beach environment players will prod Harold through. Haroldlooks just as crisp and beautiful in motion as it does in these stills, hard as that might be to imagine. Hopefully we’ll get a new trailer soon to better appreciate that aspect of these environments....

PopCap’s plan to bring the utterly delightfulPeggleto every conceivable platform is coming to fruition. This week, thePlayStation 3 versioncomes out of hiding. On Thursday, PlayStation Network users will find the game alongsidePeggle Nightsas a paid add-on. Last we heard, this downlodable content had aplanned fall releasefor Xbox LIVE Arcade, which leads me to believe Xbox 360 owners will get the new content relatively soon too. As an added bonus for bothPeggleandPeggle Nightson PS3, a new feature allows players to upload their replays to YouTube directly from the game....

[Crosses fingers] No tricks, just treats As the seasons change,Oobletsis changing too. Err, growing actually. It’s nearing a major update that will add the first new region since the game launched in Early Access in July. This new area is called Nullwhere, and it’s Halloween-themed. You’ll need to overcome your fear of the fearsome because this is where you’ll need to activate the next satellite to get the Oobnet up and running....

Robot Entertainment wants it to feel more like the other titles I lovedOrcs Must Die!and itssequel. I haven’t playedOrcs Must Die! Unchained, the third game in the trap-laying, crossbow-firing tower defense series, and I get the sense that I’m hardly alone. The player-versus-player focus combined with the free-to-play model kept me from ever giving it a chance. Robot Entertainment has been “thinking really hard” about the game as of late, and the studio has determined that Survival, “by far the most popular element ofOMDU,” is the way forward — not Siege, the aforementioned PvP mode....

The Xbox One closed beta runs from Feb. 7–8 Phantasy Star Online 2has beensuch a long time comingoutside of Japan, but this is it. This is the year. We’re getting the tantalizing online RPG in spring 2020 on Xbox One, and before then, there’s a beta to play. If you haven’tregistered yet, now’s the time–the closed beta starts February 7 at 5:00pm Pacific. That start time is important because your window of opportunity won’t last long at all....

I’m deeply conflicted onSTALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. From one point of view, it’s a phenomenal celebration of everything I’ve ever loved about the franchise. On the flip side,its single most important feature is either broken or deliberately left out, and it’s unclear what might happen next. Squaring off withSTALKER 2is a complicated thing for me, and I suspect many franchise veterans feel something similar about it. There’s absolutely no question about two of its launch-day features:...

How early is too early to start thinking about what’s next for PlayStation VR on PS5? Not that I’m looking forward to dropping hundreds more on a new headset so soon after buying a PlayStation 5, but Iamexcited by the potential leap forward for console-based VR. We’ve seen such great strides in the PC VR space, and as an avid PSVR supporter, I’m waiting for it to catch up. While PlayStation VR is supported on PS5, things have been fairly muted so far, all things considered....

This week’s PlayStation Network update is quite a bit better thanlast week’s “mehtastic”(Hamza’s word, not mine) offering. Just asNick told us earlier,Everyday Shooterwas released on the PlayStation Store. A download and $9.99 US later, and you’ll be playing the indie game that everyone’s buzzing about. Be sure to grab the hipEveryday ShooterPS3 wallpaper while you’re waiting for the game to download. Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destructionis no small matter either, and even though this is only a downloadable demo, it’s still a good preview of one of the better PS3 games coming up....