Gaming isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions the term “Anime convention.” Put those two words together and they’ll likely conjure images of smelly otaku, swords fashioned from duct tape, hentai artbooks, and acne. Not to say that this isn’t the case, as these things can surely be found at such an event. Baltimore’s annualOtakon, however, is a bit different. Held every summer, America’s most attended anime event isn’t about ninjas and tentacle rape as much as it is a celebration of Japanese media and culture as a whole....

According toRolling Stone, tracks by “King of Soul” Otis Redding are headed toRock Bandnext week. Original master recordings of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of The Bay,” “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa Sad Song,” “I’m Sick Y’all,” “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember,” and “Love Man” are all said to be available. No details on pricing, but Rolling Stone says the songs will be in a pack or available as individual tracks, as expected. We should have more details tomorrow, when Harmonix and MTV Games makes its regularly scheduled weekly DLC announcements....

Panasonic has announced that itshandheld MMO console, the Jungle, has been canceled after only being announce five months ago. The company has not given a detailed reason for the system’s premature death, but the fact that it was “f*cking stupid” is a rather good unofficial cause, I reckon. I mean, seriously … it was like a Super N-Gage or something. “Panasonic decided to suspend further development due to changes in the market and in our own strategic direction,” is all the company would say....

Valve has released part two and three of theseven part E3 presentationforPortal 2. The video above highlights the Excursion Funnel, a beam of energy that makes you float. The other video, after the break, shows off the trampoline-like Aerial Faith Plates. Our E3“Game of the Show”is shaping up to be pretty amazing. Just these two new additions look to make puzzle solving incredibly hard. So long as there isn’t stupid meme inducing song about cake that everyone in the entire world makes way too big of a deal of, thenPortal 2is going to be pretty rad....

Not too long agowe told you about a SCEJ’s upcoming rhythm gamethat features marching, spear-wielding eyeballs. This title, calledPatapon, will be released in Japan this month, but we have yet to anything of release dates outside of Japan. Siliconera’ssharp and beady eyes noticed thatGameflyhas a listing for the title. Of course, this could end up being nothing, and there’s no release date listed, but it gives us hope. SCEJ did releasePiyotama(meh) andLocoRoco(bleh) in the US, so I see no reason why we shouldn’t see this title later on....

I am unsure of why we are seeing trailers for videogames come out of acandy apple tasting convention, but nonetheless, above you will find the trailer for Hothead’s upcoming PC title,Deathspank. My mother administered a deathspank once, when my younger brother was caught chewing the legs of our household furniture. It was a sad day. The video displays a young gentleman clad in armor, running about killing skeletons. There is no spanking that I can see, just axes and lightning attacks, which makes this trailer suitable for viewing in a work environment....

Hurray, a new Petroglyph game! The ex-Westwoodies andEmpire at Warstudio is going down the Free-to-play route with a their new “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena” gameRise of Immortals. Apparently MOBA is a genre now. It’s official: I’m old. Rise of Immortalsis set in the Graxia universe of their 2010 board/card gameGuardians of Graxia. What sets it apart from games likeLeague of Legends,DotA AllstarsandDemigodis a persistent character progression system. Rather than being stuck with an account-based leveling system, you can advance one of 12 Immortals through a persistent skill tree, and customize and upgrade your characters to unlock abilities that persist from match to match....

Jesus. Could you imagine winning a car from a videogame? Especially a 2009 Honda Insight EX. While some of my co-workers are all about 1 vs 100, I have yet to jump in. I’m in now! The massively multiplayer1 vs 100is free for all Xbox LIVE Gold members to play, and that should be good enough reason. But a free car? C’mon! Xbox has teamed up with Honda to kick off their interactive game show with their Play & Win sweepstakes....

As we told you yesterday, Epic Games has a massive expansion forUnreal Tournament IIIset to drop on March 5th for the PS3 and PC, called the Titan Pack. With lots of new maps, new game modes, new weapons and deployables, tons of technical upgrades, and the screen-filling beasts themselves, you’d expect to pay at leastsomethingfor all of this. But Epic is giving it away forfree. And anything free these days is greatly appreciated....

Remember a couple of years ago when we were all talking aboutInfamousandPrototype?Those were good times. Sadly, the pair of super-powered open world games couldn’t make their schedules come together for a rematch this time around. But Activision has confirmed today that the game is on target for release on April 24th, 2012. I’m down. I had fun withPrototypein a mindless bashing sort of way and got a real kick out of those infiltration missions....

Oh boy, this is such an amazing trailer. Why? Because Ubisoft seems to have done some quality work here, giving us some hilarious and imaginative gameplay moments to get our Wii juices flowing.[ViaGaygamer]

EA Sports has announced that Brazilian soccer star Kaká (pronouncedkuh-KA, not like “caca,” you immature dolts) will be on the cover of every copy ofFIFA 11. But he’s just one of 17 footballers who will appear on the box — the game will have territory-specific packaging, so players from teams in other countries will join Kaká on the box in those respective nations. (At this time, EA is not revealing the other cover athletes....

Normally reserved for Thursdays, Sony will be updating its PlayStation Store tomorrow. Why? Thanksgiving, of course. Yup, this is the week where you’ll be eating turkey and stuffing with your families and then settling down into a nasty food coma until you need to wake up to go shopping. Sony assumes you won’t be around to buy things, so you get the update tomorrow. Just wanted to remind you folks, especially those excited about the prospect ofdownloading a Kelly Clarkson song to play inRock Band....