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Microsoft has released a brood of brand new TV ads in preparation for Kinect’s release, and they are about as cloying, desperate, arrogant and pathetic as you might imagine. In fact, they might be the most embarrassing commercials this industry has seen in years. 

There are three of them, advertising Kinectimals, Joy Ride and Kinect Sports, although you’ll be forgiven for not knowing which advert is which, due to the fact that barely any gameplay footage is shown. This is all part of Microsoft’s MO — don’t focus on any of the games, because if we look at the software too closely, we might catch on that it’s all bullshit. 

Some people like to pretend that it’s the guts and sexism that brings down this industry, but it’s stuff like this that truly makes me feel ashamed. If I had to show my mother these ads or Rumble Roses, I’d pick the half-naked girl wrestling over these mawkish, pandering, intellectually insulting nonsense every time. 

Still, Microsoft’s doing a great job of making PlayStation Move look even more tempting!

I honestly hadn’t heard of lawn darts until a few years ago, when it was introduced to me as “lawn jarts.” Yes, “jarts,” with a “J.” I don’t even think that’s a word. 

In any case, there’s a lawn darts game out for WiiWare this week and it supports up to 16 players. That’s either a lot of Wii Remotes lying around your living room, or a hell of a lot of passing around of the controllers.

DSiWare

• ZENONIA (Gameevil USA, 1 player, 800 DSi Points)
• Fizz (DK-GAMES, 1 player, 200 DSi Points)

WiiWare

• Target Toss Pro: Lawn Darts (Incredible Technologies, 1-16 players, 700 Wii Points)
• Astro Bugz Revenge (Sudden Games, 1-2 players, 700 Wii Points)

No seriously… 16 players? I don’t even think I could convince 16 people that we should play a videogame version of lawn darts. Do you think you’d have better luck?

Looks like the combatants in 3DS fighter Dead or Alive Dimensions will be getting a makeover, with new costumes revealed for veteran fighers Ayane and Kasumi. If your idea of a good time is fourteen-year-old girls in hotpants, then these renders are for you!

These new threads are already upsetting fans, with Ayane’s costume in particular causing distress among her creepy admirers. Considering most of these characters have always looked at least faintly ridiculous, I don’t see what the big problem is, but maybe some of you long-term fans can illuminate me. 

What do you think? Looking sharp, or do we need to call in the fashion police?

New TECMO Websites & New Costumes [deadoralivegame.net]

Last Friday, a retail listing for FlingSmash made mention of a new peripheral for the Wii, the Wii Remote Plus. Despite the listing being pulled and Nintendo scrunching up its mouth to refuse comment, the publisher has decided to now come clean and admit that the Wii Remote Plus is a real thing. 

The Wii Remote Plus is exactly what it sounds like — a Wiimote with the Motion Plus accessory built in. I’m surprised it actually took this long to be made, but there you are. Looks like it’ll come packed with FlingSmash, and will look all sexy and black. 

Nintendo has declined to give any more details at the moment, simply saying that it “is real.” If it could at least give us more games that justify the Motion Plus’ existence, that would be nice!

The Just Add Water development blog has updated with a look at how much prettier (or uglier, depending on your standards for beauty) Stranger is going to be looking in the upcoming re-release of Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath on PS3. As you can see from the above image, Stranger now has 20,000 polygons making up his imposing form, an increase of more than six times what he was rocking in the original Xbox release.

Stranger’s Wrath is the only Oddworld game I haven’t played and all of the love I see it getting has really made me regret that decision. It seemed so reasonable back in 2002 to say that I was never going to buy another Oddworld game after what happened to Munch’s Oddysee. I may have been hasty, but at least I’ll be getting an opportunity to set right what once went wrong.

Stranger PS3 Update [Just Add Water via Game Informer]

It’s seemingly impossible to find a version of Carol King’s “It’s Too Late” in a 16:9 ratio. Someone should get on that. It’s so rare that I get to say Stevie Wonder is my second choice in anything, but here it is.

Destructoid played games this week. Lots of them. So many, that I simply couldn’t get this to you on schedule. Read on to find out what they were and how we felt about them.

Chester: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock; Plants vs. Zombies on Xbox Live Arcade… and PC/Mac… and iPad; NBA Jam Wii; and Wii Party!

Holmes: Other than TGS stuff, mostly Pokemon White. An official impressions post is coming, but for now, I’ll say that it’s my favorite Pokemon game ever.

Also picked up a bunch of other Japanese exclusives, like the new Chibi Robo and Tingle games on the DS, the Club Nintendo-only DS game where that you only control with your voice, some Simple Series game where you plus oldies like Ouendan 2. Oh yeah, and I also bought the sequel to Radio Allergy for the Wii, and Tare Panda on the Wonderswan. 

Too bad I forgot to buy a Wonderswan. 

Ross: Civilization V and nothing else.

Razak: I’ve been playing a game called Launching Flixist. You play it in Gmail and it’s all text based. Only a few people are playing right now, but once it goes out of beta on Oct. 11 I’m hoping it really opens up to have a great community.

Also, Darksiders and a little Bowser’s Inside Story. I will defeat the latter at some point… one day.

Devore: MineCraft. So much MineCraft. My kingdom in the sky is coming along nicely.

Bennett C.: Oh yeah, I played a little bit of that Flixist thing. It’s pretty good.

While trying to update my PSP this weekend I discovered that PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe and PixelJunk Encore are two different things. And that I had never bought Encore. So now I am playing 15 new levels of PixelJunk bliss on my PS3. I’m as happy as a pig in shit.

Aziz: Messed with Dead Rising 2 for a bit, spent a good hour with Comic Jumper, touched the DJ Hero 2 turntable (but did not actually play it) and played various Move games at the Sony Move store in San Francisco. The store is very lame.

Carey: Got my strategy finally lined out for Civilization V, so I can consistently win on Prince setting. I’m scared to bump up the difficulty another notch!

Also got my hands on Monaco, Hydrophobia, Comic Jumper, Super Meat Boy, World of Keflings, Feist, Ulitsa Dimitrova, and Sword and Sworcery EP (yes, that’s the intended spelling of Sworcery) at the Fantastic Arcade.

Concelmo: At the very end of Final Fantasy IX. I will say it once again: I LOVE THIS GAME!

Kuja is a dickhead.

Sterling: Final Fantasy IX is my favorite one. Kuja is awesome. The first anime asshole to basically admit he’s just an anime asshole.

Anyway, I’ve mostly played Move All My Shit To A House I Just FUCKING Bought, It was a game fraught with peril but I beat it and didn’t even break my Darksiders sword!

Otherwise, I’ve been locked in a bitter struggle with the first Fallout, trying to wrestle it to submission and force it to entertain me. It’s resisting every step of the way. Almost done utterly with Fallout 3, and I’ve just started playing Hydrophobia for review. 

Hydrophobia *sucks air through teeth* Yeeeeeah.

Concelmo: I agree, Jim, Final Fantasy IX is one of my favorite games in the series. Replaying it again is making me realize how amazing it is.

Kuja is awesome. A dickhead, but an awesome dickhead.

Morris: Final Fantasy XIV. All day, every day!

Aziz: Couple of games to add to my list. Just played through the Enslaved and Vanquish demos. Enslaved is going to be one of my favorite games of the year. The game is just stunning. Vanquish is also a lot of fun. Got stuck on the boss fight (where the hell can you refill ammo at?) I also now understand why I’ve never been into Gears of War. It’s too slow whereas Vanquish seems like a pure adrenaline rush. 

Sarkar: I finally got around to playing NHL 11 online, and I also tried out the demo for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. It was fun, and I like the narrative conceit. Hopefully the full game rocks, too!

Zimmerman: I played through the upcoming Borderlands DLC, Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution and I’ll have plenty to say about that in the review. Plenty.

Beyond that, I played through the Enslaved demo multiple times and, in the event you were wondering why this post is going up so late, I spent my Sunday on the couch playing straight through Alan Wake with the woman. I wanted to re-experience the story in anticipation of the next chapter coming out in a couple of weeks and she was only vaguely familiar with the tale it tells. God damn, that game gets better every time I play it.

It’s seemingly impossible to find a version of Carol King’s “It’s Too Late” in a 16:9 ratio. Someone should get on that. It’s so rare that I get to say Stevie Wonder is my second choice in anything, but here it is.

Destructoid played games this week. Lots of them. So many, that I simply couldn’t get this to you on schedule. Read on to find out what they were and how we felt about them.

Chester: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock; Plants vs. Zombies on Xbox Live Arcade… and PC/Mac… and iPad; NBA Jam Wii; and Wii Party!

Holmes: Other than TGS stuff, mostly Pokemon White. An official impressions post is coming, but for now, I’ll say that it’s my favorite Pokemon game ever.

Also picked up a bunch of other Japanese exclusives, like the new Chibi Robo and Tingle games on the DS, the Club Nintendo-only DS game where that you only control with your voice, some Simple Series game where you plus oldies like Ouendan 2. Oh yeah, and I also bought the sequel to Radio Allergy for the Wii, and Tare Panda on the Wonderswan. 

Too bad I forgot to buy a Wonderswan. 

Ross: Civilization V and nothing else.

Razak: I’ve been playing a game called Launching Flixist. You play it in Gmail and it’s all text based. Only a few people are playing right now, but once it goes out of beta on Oct. 11 I’m hoping it really opens up to have a great community.

Also, Darksiders and a little Bowser’s Inside Story. I will defeat the latter at some point… one day.

Devore: MineCraft. So much MineCraft. My kingdom in the sky is coming along nicely.

Bennett C.: Oh yeah, I played a little bit of that Flixist thing. It’s pretty good.

While trying to update my PSP this weekend I discovered that PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe and PixelJunk Encore are two different things. And that I had never bought Encore. So now I am playing 15 new levels of PixelJunk bliss on my PS3. I’m as happy as a pig in shit.

Aziz: Messed with Dead Rising 2 for a bit, spent a good hour with Comic Jumper, touched the DJ Hero 2 turntable (but did not actually play it) and played various Move games at the Sony Move store in San Francisco. The store is very lame.

Carey: Got my strategy finally lined out for Civilization V, so I can consistently win on Prince setting. I’m scared to bump up the difficulty another notch!

Also got my hands on Monaco, Hydrophobia, Comic Jumper, Super Meat Boy, World of Keflings, Feist, Ulitsa Dimitrova, and Sword and Sworcery EP (yes, that’s the intended spelling of Sworcery) at the Fantastic Arcade.

Concelmo: At the very end of Final Fantasy IX. I will say it once again: I LOVE THIS GAME!

Kuja is a dickhead.

Sterling: Final Fantasy IX is my favorite one. Kuja is awesome. The first anime asshole to basically admit he’s just an anime asshole.

Anyway, I’ve mostly played Move All My Shit To A House I Just FUCKING Bought, It was a game fraught with peril but I beat it and didn’t even break my Darksiders sword!

Otherwise, I’ve been locked in a bitter struggle with the first Fallout, trying to wrestle it to submission and force it to entertain me. It’s resisting every step of the way. Almost done utterly with Fallout 3, and I’ve just started playing Hydrophobia for review. 

Hydrophobia *sucks air through teeth* Yeeeeeah.

Concelmo: I agree, Jim, Final Fantasy IX is one of my favorite games in the series. Replaying it again is making me realize how amazing it is.

Kuja is awesome. A dickhead, but an awesome dickhead.

Morris: Final Fantasy XIV. All day, every day!

Aziz: Couple of games to add to my list. Just played through the Enslaved and Vanquish demos. Enslaved is going to be one of my favorite games of the year. The game is just stunning. Vanquish is also a lot of fun. Got stuck on the boss fight (where the hell can you refill ammo at?) I also now understand why I’ve never been into Gears of War. It’s too slow whereas Vanquish seems like a pure adrenaline rush. 

Sarkar: I finally got around to playing NHL 11 online, and I also tried out the demo for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. It was fun, and I like the narrative conceit. Hopefully the full game rocks, too!

Zimmerman: I played through the upcoming Borderlands DLC, Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution and I’ll have plenty to say about that in the review. Plenty.

Beyond that, I played through the Enslaved demo multiple times and, in the event you were wondering why this post is going up so late, I spent my Sunday on the couch playing straight through Alan Wake with the woman. I wanted to re-experience the story in anticipation of the next chapter coming out in a couple of weeks and she was only vaguely familiar with the tale it tells. God damn, that game gets better every time I play it.

This is just an awesome fan-made opening sequence for The Walking Dead series.

The entire Destructoid LIVE panel is up, zombies may be coming to Black Ops, The 3rd Birthday website is pretty rad, Activision takes over Nascar publishing and more happened over the weekend.

Destructoid Originals:
Destructoid LIVE: The whole damn show

Community:
Community blogs of 09/25 & 09/26

Contests:
Win Serious Sam HD: Second Encounter for XBLA

News:
THQ: Lower prices, more DLC for console games
EA offering some compensation to APB customers
Borderlands now a Greatest/Platinum Hit
Taco Bell offers MySims with kid’s meal
More hints that zombies will be in CoD: Black Ops
Activision to publish NASCAR games, EA is out
New The 3rd Birthday site is cool, has trailer
More details on Shantae: Risky’s Revenge release emerge
Respawn Entertainment’s game will be multiplatform
PixelJunk Monsters sequel being considered, no more 2D
PDC World Championship Darts: Pro Tour has a long name
EA: PS3/360 console war is good for business

Offbeat:
Next up in the realistic character figures: Pac-Man

Media:
Dead Rising 2 High Stakes Edition gets unboxed
Deca Sports Freedom brings sports and freedom to Kinect
Aardman Animation making a Rabbids TV show

_{(In honor of the upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity/March to Keep Fear Alive I shall deliver all the news this weekend twice: First the sane way, and then the fear way. It’s the weekend, I get to do stuff like this (I hope… please don’t fire me).}

Sane: Jamie “Kalapusa” Margary is pretty much the most awesome person I have never met. Don’t believe me? Go here, here and here and then watch the video above.

Margary is the guy who makes incredibly realistic statues of videogame characters, items and enemies. Latest on the list is Pac-Man, or as Margary dubs him Pakku Rotundus. He sent over the video for us to check out with only the simple words that it was the depiction of a realistic Pac-Man in its final days. You can check out more images on his Deviant Art page.

Is anyone else a little perturbed by what appears to be an anus on the back of the Pakku Rotundus?

Fear: Look at that thing. As far as threats to our livelihood go Pakku Rotundus is right up there with bears.