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If you're near or in Downtown Disney this weekend you can attend the grand opening of The Wonderful World of Gaming, Disney's newest gaming destination. 

You can expect Nintendo game systems and Disney-made games, open for play. Wii and DS games can be played in this new attraction, which is located in Once Upon a Toy at WDW. They say to expect the most extensive collection of Disney Interactive videogames there as well.

For the launch, which goes down this Saturday, October 23rd, from 1 to 6 p.m., they will have special events and prizes. They'll also offer a $5 Disney Gift Card with any purchase of a Disney Interactive game. 

We've teamed up with the fine folks at LoveSac to giveaway some super rad prizes! The folks at LoveSac have been holding the second annual Speedrun Classic challenge this past month and the final leg of the tournament goes down on October 20. THAT'S TOMORROW! Gamers will have to compete in Contra, Battletoads, Mario Bros and Mega Man 2 to win prizes such as LoveSacs, gift cards and the badass PowerGlove Trophy. Chiptune artist Minusbaby will also be performing during the finals and will be backed by noteNdo with visuals. BONUS: If you're over 21-years-old and RSVP to the event, you'll score two free drink tickets. RSVP here.

For those of you who can't compete, no worries! We're giving away a Limited Edition PwnageSac, melting controller t-shirt and the PowerGlove Trophy to one lucky person. All you have to do is take a picture of your gaming setup. The crappiest, most pathetic looking setup will win themselves the LoveSac. Three runner-ups will win a melting controller t-shirt.

You have until October 24 at 11:59PM CDT to leave your entry in the comments below. Please make sure whatever photo you leave below is no bigger than 620 wide. Contest open to US residents only. Good luck!

They left the sweeping “Recover Etna’s stolen panties” narrative completely intact. Rock on, NIS America.

January is when we’ll be getting Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! for PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Network. For now, we just have a handful of screenshots and this website to work with, but we were teased promotional panties down the line. Send those to Hamza, guys.

It’s been just long enough since I last played (and felt the immense pain caused by) Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? that I’m sort of masochistically ready for this follow-up. Anyone else?

TRON: Evolution is hitting every console and each one will offer something different and unique. With Battle Grids, the n-Space and Propaganda Games developed title will see players competing in 15 Tron inspired games. Battle Grids is being targeted at younger audiences and will see players racing, capturing, battling and more.

Up to four players will be able to play with each other locally and you can expect a story mode too. In fact, all of the console Tron games have a story that bridges the gap between the first Tron movie and Legacy, which is hitting theaters next month.

Anyone looking forward to this one at all?

Red Dead Redemption’s John Marston has seen his fair share of cougar attacks and smarmy outlaws. But is he ready to take on a mysterious infection that is raising the dead across the game’s dusty, open world?

That’s the question Rockstar is asking this year when it releases “Undead Nightmare” as downloadable content for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Featuring all-new single player and multiplayer content, “Undead Nightmares” brings hordes of shambling ghouls to Rockstar’s open-world videogame take on the America’s Old Wild West?

While “Undead Nightmare” will bring hours of new content to Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar wasn’t willing to show its entire hand at New York Comic-Con this week. Instead, we were treated to a small section of gameplay, only one of the game’s story missions, but one that gave us a nice glimpse of what to expect when the downloadable content ships later this year.

On this particular demo mission, Marston is tasked with “cleansing” a graveyard, having heard that this baffling disease has spread to this particular area, raising undead ghouls from their graves. The goal is to burn up a series of coffins, marked on the mini-map as yellow dots. To do this, you’ll use one of the game’s new weapons, a flaming torch. While Marston will pull out the torch and burn the wooded caskets with a context sensitive press of a button, it can also be used to light zombies on fire. The catch, of course, is that the fire won’t necessarily slow them down, or even kill them. If your worst nightmares include being pursued by flaming ghouls, you might want to think twice before using the torch in a melee attack.

In the demo area Rockstar allowed me to play, the odds were stacked against me, with only 20 bullets in my pistol to start. The graveyard area in this particular mission was small, and the zombie to Marston ratio was overwhelming. Not at first, mind you — burning an initial casket triggered a few of the undead to attack. The more caskets you burn, however, the more creatures join in on the assault. Thanks to “Godfather of the Modern Zombie” George A. Romero, zombies in Red Dead Redemption are mostly bullet sponges. Feel free to fire off a slew of bullets in their general direction — sure, that might slow them down — but don’t expect them to drop quite so easily. A well-place bullet to the brain, however, results in a gratifying splatter (including a nice chunk of the skull flying through the air), the creature crumbling to the ground as a pile of undead meat.

Given the lack of ammo, looting the “really, for real this time” dead for bullets and other items is key, along with accurate firing. The latter is problematic to do, especially when you consider that being chased by reanimated corpses coming at you from all angles is (to put it mildly) a trying experience. Fortunately, you’ve got a few things in your arsenal that help turn the odds in your favor. First, the “Dead-Eye” targeting ability which slows down time and allows you to “paint” targets makes its return. Second, are the game’s new context-sensitive melee moves, which include fresh animations like propping the barrel of a gun under a zombies chin and pulling the trigger. The results are as expected, a Gallagher vs. Melon-like display of fractured cranium bits.

Also new to Marston’s arsenal is a blunderbuss, a shotgun style weapon that uses zombie parts as ammo. Yes, that’s right, I just said there’s a gun that uses parts of corpses as ammunition. Once you load the gun with the slabs of undead meat, you can fire the gun off for a satisfying zombie explosion. The upside here is that this is a one-shot, no more zombie situation that can come in handy in a pinch. The downfall, as if there could be any to raining zombie gore all over the place, is that the bodies are obliterated and can’t be searched for more ammo.

The zombies of Red Dead Redemption come in a number of varieties, four to be exact, and all of which I encountered in my short demo. There’s your normal, run of the mill lumbering creature that moves at a moderate pace, annoying but not particularly dangerous unless in large numbers. You’ll encounter faster creatures that also jump, as well as stronger and larger brutes. Finally, the now-classic spitter can bother you with dangerous green slime from a distance. (Were zombies spitting acid-like goo from their mouths before Left 4 Dead, really? Thanks a lot, Valve.)

Rockstar is promising a beefy single-player experience, complete with new cut-scenes and in-game dialogue, with players meeting both new and old faces throughout their journey. Throw in undead animals (none of which I encountered in my demo, but expect to run into a flesh-eating bear, at the very least), along with new multiplayer features (which Rockstar is keeping under wraps for now), and the $9.99 asking price sounds like a deal for fans of the cowboys and zombies.

Rockstar hasn’t committed to a release date for “Undead Nightmare,” but one could speculate that a release before Halloween would be fitting.

As gamers, many times the media and people like to portray us as lazy, self-absorbed kids who do nothing but play games in our parent’s basement. But then, we prove them wrong and that will happen this October 16 as Destructoid brings to you our Extra Life 24 hour Gaming Marathon!

Extra Life is a charity event started by the fine guys at Sarcastic Gamer in 2008 and with the help of over 100 websites and 12,000 donors, has since gone on raise $302,000 dollars in charity money for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals. Thats huge.

In the past, Destructoid has also helped out with this goal, from gaming at DtoidHQ in Florida, to SingSterling We do what we can to help out this wonderful cause. This year is no exception! We are proud to announce the details of this year of Dtoid’s 24 hour Gaming Marathon, streaming live from San Francisco!

In just ONE WEEK, on Oct 16th, we will be playing videogames for 24 hours straight and asking for your donations as we go along this awesome endeavor. There will be lots of fun things planned throughout the day/night, and below you can check out the schedule of things to come (subject to change)! 

Destructoid Presents: Extra Life 24 Hour Gaming Schedule Oct 16th (all times PST)

8:00 AM Alex’s Backlog: Dtoid Community member and co-organizer of the event Chroniclex has a couple of games he wants to play through, as we get settled in watch him play through a multitude of games!

10:00 AM Obscure/Retro Games: Fan of the NES, SNES, or crazy Japanese games? Wedgewu and Wired|GameLife’s Chris Kohler have given us the coolest and weirdest Obscure and Retro games to play during this leg of the marathon!

1:00 PM Music Games! Come sing along as we play music games, such as Rock Band and maybe even Pop’n Music!

3:00 PM Halo: Reach Tourney + Exhibition *Prize competition* The first of our scheduled events, the Extra Life gamer team will hold an internal tournament for prizes. Come watch as we battle each other in 2 v 2 matches (or just single death matches) to find out who the best Halo person is! Once the tournament is over, you can join in with us to play some exhibition matches online!

5:00 PM Speed Run Challenge This block is dedicated to SPEED RUNS! Watch as our Dtoid crew speed runs through as many games as they can in two hours, and even has a mini speed run competition! Want to be awesome and donate a dollar for each game we clear in that time?

8:00 PM Super Street Fighter IV online tourney + Fighting game exhibition This tournament is open to people watching on the stream! Donate at least $15 dollars and enter the tournament mode hosted by Destructoid, with the winner getting a sweet prize pack! After the tournament we will spend the rest of this block of time showing an exhibition of fighting games. Blazblue, MvC2, SSFHD Remix and maybe other crazy awesome fighting games!

11:00 PM Just Dance 2 Tourney Bringing this back from Wedgecon, we have our second Just Dance marathon, but this time, with Just Dance 2! This marathon will pit our crew against each other at Just Dance 2 to win a prize! Songs will be chosen by the audience, with preference given to those who donate!

1:00 AM SCAAAARY GAMES The sun has gone down, so the late night crew will get together, turn the lights low, and play through a couple of scary games! Alan Wake, Resident Evil, and other stuff that makes us go bump in the night.

3:00 AM Viewer’s Choice! Near the end of the marathon, we are tired of picking the games…what do you want to see being played? There will be a list of games available and donations get to choose the game to be played for 30 min!

6:00 AM DEADLY PREMONITION! It wouldnt be a gaming marathon without Deadly Premonition! Whistle along as we watch this amazing game, drink our “FK”‘d coffee and we act out the scenes from the game!

We plan to give prizes to people watching the stream every hour or so! It will be a donate to enter sort of giveaway where donating an amount of money enters you into the random drawing to win the prize of that hour. So that means you will definitely want to tune in to donate and win some sweet stuff! Sega, Ubisoft, Astro, Capcom, and other gaming companies have agreed to give us some cool stuff to pass on to you!

As we get prizes confirmed, I plan on updating my C Blog with posts showing the wonderful thing we are giving away on the stream, so keep your eyes peeled for that as it shows up!

So set your calendars for Oct 16th to join Destructoid as we prove the naysayers wrong and raise money for a great cause! And if you’d like to go ahead and donate now, check out our donation page below!

Destructoid Extra Life Donation Page

As people who cover games, it’s easy to get complacent in the roles of question-asker, judgement-maker, and opinion-haver. It’s nice to have the tables turned and see how the people we talk about all the time feel about the work we’re doing as gaming writers. So, when I got the chance to spend some time with Monaco’s Andy Schatz, I made sure to ask him for some feedback on how he’d like to see the gaming press cover the indie scene differently. The answer surprised me.

“I think it’s easy to criticize the press, but the press has actually gotten pretty good about covering indie stuff, especially the Destructoids and Joystiqs and Kotakus and Rock Paper Shotguns and the other sort of mid-level blogging sites. I’d like to see more mainstream coverage of indie games, because typically the biggest outlets always talk about the same one or two things.”

Other than more coverage for indies, it seems that Schatz’s biggest beef is not with how indie games are covered, but how mainstream games aren’t covered with the same level of detail, scrutiny, and analysis that indies are.

“I think that press that’s interested in indie games thinks about games in general in interesting ways. The change that I would like to see is in how they cover mainstream games, because I don’t think that they’re critical enough of mainstream games.”

Schatz qualified his concerns by discussing the criteria he sees games media use for AAA titles, and finishes his analysis of the situation with a hilariously appropriate metaphor.

“I think that generally the gaming press doesn’t look at games abstractly or independently. They tend to look at games relative too much to what they’re comparing them to. Rather than looking really critically at Red Dead Redemption, about whether or not it really is a good game, they’re discussing whether or not it’s good compared to Grand Theft Auto IV. Most mainstream games are given a pass because they’re only looked at in relation to one another, partly because 99% of mainstream games are exactly like another mainstream game, so it’s hard not to compare.

That would be the big thing, because it pisses me off when, you know, the press is really intellectually interesting when they start covering indie games, but then they just throw all that shit out the window when they go and cover Dante’s Inferno, or whatever it is. They just talk about how big this game’s dick is, that’s all they’re interested in at that point. It’s like the girl who claims she wants someone intellectual, but then ends up going home with the guy with the big dick. She seems really smart when she talks to the nerd!”

EEDAR and the Guildhall at Southern Methodist University recently conducted a study to measure how professional game critic review affect game purchase behavior. As you’d expect, there’s a strong connection between what we say about games and how many copies gamers buy.

I read the entire study. [I loved that a mock Mass Effect 2 box featured a Destructoid quote on the box in the study data.]  While I wasn’t surprised at any of the results, there were some pretty interesting findings. Participants were divided into three groups, and each were given an informational packet about PopCap game Plants vs. Zombies to read before playing 20 minutes of the game. One group’s packet contained high review scores and write-ups for the game, another had low scores, and a third control packet featured no reviews at all.

Participants that read the “good” packet before playing rated the game highly, giving PVZ an overall score of 85. The low score people gave it a 71/100. The control group gave it a score right in the middle: 79.

To measure purchase intent, those in the survey were asked to pick between $10 cash or a copy of Plants vs. Zombies. The group exposed to the high review scores were more than twice as likely to take a copy of the game over the money. The low review score guys? Over 80 percent of them took their ten bucks and ran.

Jesse Divnich, vice president of analyst services for EEDAR: “The study findings clearly indicate that properly leveraging game reviews to form a positive anchoring effect can dramatically increase consumer’s perception, adoption and willingness to recommend a game title.”

Some days I can almost feel the influence that we and other game reviewers have. It’s like holding a dangerous weapon. Even as someone who writes about and reviews games for a living, I hope that gamers will still seek out these games to judge for themselves if they’re worthy of purchase.

_{[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware that it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]}

Before you continue reading, list five of the best games from 2009. Are games like Uncharted 2, Assassin’s Creed II, or Batman: Arkham Asylum amongst your faves? Your individual lists may vary, but I guarantee that most or all of your picks will be titles widely considered to carry AAA status.

It’s understandable. As informed as we may be, we are every bit as susceptible to hype and advertising as John Q. Public. Additionally, our time and finances are limited, so we can’t be expected to pony up for every piece of software that tickles our curiosity. We buy the landmark games because we’ve convinced ourselves that they are more deserving of our investment.

This time, list five of your most anticipated 2010 releases. If we consider games that have already come out, your lists might include Final Fantasy XIII, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, or Red Dead Redemption. Over the next few months, we can look forward to StarCraft II, Dead Space 2, or a number of bombshell E3 reveals. Yep, expect some big names just around the corner.

This generation has been marked by one major title after another at regular intervals. That may be satisfactory to you, but it’s disappointing to me. The small yet ambitious titles that thrived in previous generations are subconsciously ignored because our scope of awareness no longer registers them. We only pick up the “go big or go home” bogeys on our radar. 

For many of us, the number of AAA titles is the only statistic that matters.

But what exactly is a “AAA” game? Publishers like to showcase a portfolio of AAA content, while message board warriors trump a hardware platform’s raw count of AAA games as a measure of console superiority. These are the projects that dev teams wish would fall in their laps, the ones that fill rabid gamers’ hearts with anticipation. Yet few can agree on a solid definition.

Does it refer to Metacritic rankings? I’m certain there have been several high-profile bombs as well as a generous helping of critically acclaimed downloadable games that don’t fall under the AAA umbrella. No, AAA games can’t simply be “good games.” They are the games that garner the most exposure, command the greatest mind share; they are the games that companies bank entire fortunes on. Their release dates are observed as though they are national holidays.

In this 1998 article from software developer Stardock, “AAA game means games that have almost unlimited budgets and are media events.” All the hype and fanfare surrounding these games’ developments and releases would not be possible without large sums of cash money changing hands. The greater the investment, the greater the potential gains.

The massive productions, when they push just the right buttons, are nothing short of phenomenal. Since gamers ideally should only care about the end result and not the business hurdles along the dev path, why wouldn’t we want all games to be as high-end as they can be? A little extra time, money, and polish can only make good games so much better. Regrettably, that is not a realistic scenario, but it makes me wonder.

When did we start caring about how much games cost to make?

I blame the need for full disclosure. The industry today is a lot more transparent concerning business proceedings than they were just 15 years ago. Spokespersons and project leads are more than willing to share financial data when it benefits their company. It’s another way in which gaming tries to emulate the film industry — consider how freely data like movie budgets and ticket sales are available to anyone who wants it. The game industry still holds a few cards to its chest (e.g. the NPD Group stopped providing raw numbers for games past the top five starting just last month), but you can clearly see the push towards transparency.

Remember how we were kept in the dark just two decades ago? The Internet was not in wide use, so all our ancillary information came from print media like Nintendo Power. While NP was tops in dropping gaming strategies and building anticipation for upcoming releases, very rarely did it offer insight into how the cogs meshed together; the rare developer interviews carefully avoided sensitive topics.

There have always been expensive high-profile games and moderate efforts, but budget concerns never crossed our minds because the gulf between the top and bottom wasn’t as wide as it is today. Graphically, the difference between high and low-budget games wasn’t quite as stark. Most games were given a fair shake at the market — aside from Nintendo’s own stable of marquee titles, NP did a decent job of giving all games equal exposure.

In fact, other than the company name on the game packaging, we were clueless as to the individuals responsible for our favorite titles. This was an era in which dev teams did not receive proper recognition in the credits. Staff members were instead identified by cryptic nicknames (e.g. Kinuyo Yamashita, female composer for the original Castlevania, was given the handle “James Banana”).

When did production values and grand budgets become major selling points? I’d wager it was near the start of the 3D movement, specifically with titles like Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid. The way they were marketed as more than simple videogames drew in the summer film-loving consumers who would have otherwise continued to hang out on the fringes of interactive entertainment. That kind of exposure does not come cheap.

From there, it wasn’t much of a leap for publishers to get in their heads that consumers were attracted to ostentatious displays of wealth. I liken it to what runs through the mind of a smooth-talking barfly. Looking to score with that lovely young thing by the counter, he offers to buy her and her friends several rounds, deliberately flashing the crisp Benjamins lining his wallet as he pays the barkeep. It’s the mistaken notion that your average consumers are so shallow that money is their prime motivator.

Now we arrive at the present. Companies freely express their desire to hit the AAA track hard. Publishers have gotten into the habit of flaunting their running tab for all to see (e.g. the budget for Gran Turismo 5 jumped from $60 million to $80 million over the past couple of years). Essentially, budget is no longer a piece of private investor data but an advertisement for the game itself.

Meanwhile, consumers have grown accustomed to these escalating expenditures to the point where they gauge quality according to how “significant” a release is. And when I say “consumer,” I’m actually referring to us, the enthusiast gamer minority — we are not free from the influence of the marketing machine. The AAA moniker is the new quality seal, and those without it are relegated to “maybe if I get around to it someday” status.

The big-budget outliers have painted our perception of value, leading us to believe that anything that doesn’t meet those lofty requirements is somehow low-class or of lesser importance. Big blockbuster X has bells and whistles and a prime-time ad campaign, so I’d gladly pay $60 for it! Under-the-radar release Y looks enjoyable, but I’d prefer if it was discounted. Uh oh! Side-scroller Z is in 2D, and I refuse to pay more than 20 bucks for a 2D game in this day and age!

We measure the impact of a console generation by how well we enjoy the AAA titles while skimming over the lesser releases. Even if we admit that the smaller games are strong standalone products, we face difficulty in weighing their influence against the top dogs that everyone seems to talk about. It’s a habit of undervaluing perfectly legitimate games because their budgets didn’t allow for cross promotions with 7-11.

I don’t think we mean to do this. I think we recognize this problem in ourselves and champion the efforts within the industry to turn off this high-stakes highway. Nonetheless, the effort should come first and foremost from ourselves — we are the ones who ultimately dictate our entertainment choices.

We need to train ourselves to be a little more receptive to small-scale projects and reduce the unhealthy amount of attention we award blockbusters that may or may not deliver on their promises. We have to realize that the AAA titles are neither the be-all-end-all of gaming evolution nor are they what all developers should strive for. If we can agree that not every game has to or should be a global event, perhaps we can also agree that the ones we overlook can in fact be the higher quality products.

Quality is subjective, but we can’t make fair assessments if the big games have a leg up before we even pop in the disc.