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WHA Entertainment's PlayStation Network-exclusive Kick Ass game is getting some improvements, and thank goodness… I sure didn't like it all that much. 

But Kick Ass New and Improved looks to add new features to the game, including new missions and enemies. The new mission, "Frank's Night Club," will have you fighting new enemies, which is a welcome addition — there were maybe four of them in the original game! Also added to the mix will be a new fight against Red Mist, where you'll be able to use new moves like a double hit spin attack and a toss attack team-based move. 

WHA is also promising updated AI, sound improvements, and "improved trophies," whatever that means. 

If you've already purchased Kick Ass, you'll get the upgrade to Kick Ass New and Improved for free on November 9. Everyone else can buy it for $9.99. 

Activision has revealed today that Sean Murray, the composer behind Treyarch's Call of Duty: World at War, will be returning to score Call of Duty: Black Ops. According to Wikipedia, Murray also provided music for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, and this makes him and this news awesome.   

The soundtrack will be available online for purchase and download from digital media retailers, including iTunes. Tracks will be $.99 a piece, or you can buy the whole shebang for $11.99. Alternately, you can just buy Black Ops and let it run in a constant loop in the background while you do dishes and stuff.   

Black Ops is out soon… oh, hey! It's out next week, on November 9, which is when the soundtrack will be available. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLz7WUThv-k

The independent studio behind Overgrowth, Wolfire Games, is about to do something it might regret. You may remember hearing about them if you paid any attention to the stellar Humble Indie Bundle, which they helped organize and also contributed to.

Their new promotion is sort of similar to that, if you substitute money for YouTube subscribers and games for on-camera embarrassment. The attached video explains it all, but the short story is that Wolfire's John Graham will either shave his beard, his head and facial hair, or let the community decide his new hairdo depending on how many followers the team's YouTube account can build up.

No matter which of the three it ends up being, the fun will be be shown via live stream. This is the kind of general silliness I expect from the games industry. Y'all have my support.

Oh boy! Blizzard is now offering one free name change for your character in StarCraft II. This can be done by logging into Account Management on Battle.net, selecting your game license, and hitting the "Character Name Change" button near the bottom.

From there, you simply need to start up StarCraft II as usual, and you'll be prompted to change your identity. Oh, and if you decide to eventually change your name a second time, it'll cost you. Pricing hasn't been announced yet, but there will for sure be a fee.

I imagine that would be somewhere in the ten-dollar range. What a strange time we live in.

Blizzard grants StarCraft II accounts one free name change [PC Gamer]

http://justin.tv/publicaccessdestructoid?embed

That's right, starting in a few minutes we'll be streaming live from Dtoid HQ for the second official Public Access Destructoid.

Hamza, Venom, and I will be discussing the Destructoid's top posts and I'll be getting drunk in typical Tara fashion. Come join us!

Update: Show's over! Come back tomorrow at 3PM Pacific/6PM Eastern for more.

http://justin.tv/publicaccessdestructoid?chat

Someone at Ubisoft must really enjoy putting unlockable skins of characters from other franchises into the company's games, because it's happened yet again. This time, it's none other than Raiden from the Metal Gear Solid series.

If you're going to have a cameo, might as well make it a badass one at that, right? A Joystiq tipster sent in the image above, plus instructions on how to unlock Raiden: simply complete the Animus' virtual training mode, and, that's it.

It would be strange to make a character like this be easily obtainable, so I'm sure it's not as simple as it sounds.

Guess who's joining the Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood? [Joystiq]

Capcom has today announced the North American launch day for its DS-bound sequel to the critically acclaimed Okami. Adorable wolf-em-up Okamiden is due to release on March 15, 2011. 

There will also be a preorder bonus available through GameStop, with a limited number of paintbrush-shaped touchscreen instrument and a custom screen cleaner featuring artwork of Chibiterasu and Kuni. 20,000 of these preorder packages are being made. 

In addition to this, Capcom has put a "Goblin Mask" App on Facebook which fans can use in order to win a 3DS, plushies, copies of the game and more. 

All in all, it's rather nice to see Capcom doing a little marketing for this game. 

As of yesterday, Microsoft's price hike for Xbox Live Gold membership went into effect in North America, Canada, Britain and Mexico. North American annual subscriptions jumped by ten bucks, while other countries had seemingly random subscription increases. Don't worry about it though, because Microsoft still thinks you're getting your money's worth.

"… if I'm playing Halo: Reach, Gears of War, Call of Duty, the consistency of the service and the experience needs to be there regardless of what that entertainment application is," says marketing thrall Craig Davison. "So that has been critical. As you can imagine, the costs associated with maintaining a service at that level and making sure all of those features are consistent … Infrastructure costs, of course. And we're continuing to bring more and more content."

Microsoft also added that Xbox Live users get such benefits as timed exclusives on Call of Duty map packs, exclusive games, and features like ESPN. Then of course, you have stuff like Twitter, which I believe you can only get through Xbox Live, and Facebook, which Microsoft invented. 

Interview: Microsoft's Davison On How Kinect Will Help Xbox Live Ramp Up [Gamasutra] [Image]

Sony is planning to release a number of tutorial videos on the PlayStation 3's XMB, helping its consumers to unlock the console's many dark secrets. It only does everything, and now you'll know how to do some of it too!

PSN director Susan Panico says that the company is "creating educational videos that will be a great welcome kit for people that are coming to the PS3 and the PlayStation Network." It will promote some features that new users may not know about, and answer questions such as "How do I make Netflix do its thing on my thing with the thing?"

This is a pretty good idea. The XMB is, let's fact it, rather arbitrary in its icon placement and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of users are intimidated by the rows and columns of meaningless shapes and words. Videogames sure have gotten complicated. Remember when it just a case of slamming a bit of plastic into a bigger plastic box?

How-to 'everything' videos coming to PS3 XMB [Joystiq]