Apparently paying double most families’ yearly income for an hour of “performing” isn’t enough to get perpetually stoned rapper Snoop Dogg to represent at achildren’s charity event. I was going to write my version of what happened, but somehow ended up ranting about how rappers and professional athletes should swap their salaries with teachers and police officers, so here’s the scoop direct from the New York Post: If you want Snoop Dogg to play at an event, not only will you have to pay his $150,000 fee, you’ll have to accommodate his unusual tastes and enormous entourage....

Microsoft and Rare thought they had it all figured out withViva Piñata. Here was a game that was not only sickly adorable, but was also supposed to appeal to the same gene that controls a child’s frenziedPokémoncollecting addiction. Coupled with its own animated television show and a solid marketing campaign, the game was set to be quite the success. Well … oops! While the game didn’t necessarily bomb (Microsoft publicly maintains that the game was a success), it certainly didn’t reach the audience Microsoft had intended....

Hey! Stop withthose dirty thoughts! What I’m talking about here is theSuper Mario 64editorthat Aaron posted about. So, let’s take a quick break fromall the E3 newsthat’s going on right now to enjoy this edit ofSuper Mario 64to try and make it look likeSuper Paper Mario. This video definitely falls into the “A for effort” category, as they can’t edit everything in order to make it look like the original. I haven’t gotten to play around with the editor, but I’d definitely suggest (to whomever made this), to at least try and change the look of the ground along cliffs to make it morePaper Mario-esque....

Wha…what is going on here?! The twins from the Disney Channel’s The Suite Life on Deck, and their older show, The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, are filming a Pokemon commercial forHeartGoldandSoulSilver. The commercial will air on the Cartoon Network, Disney XD, Nicelodeon and Nicktoons starting on August 16th. I know you’re shuddering with excitement. They shot a day on the beach in Santa Monica, going head-to-head to rack up steps in their Pokewalkers, working hard to maintain their patented hair swoop in the summer beachside wind, surely....

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Preyis another World War II game by way of 1C Company. This one, however, is flight combat game and looks beautiful. I got to play the game developed by Gaijin Entertainment last Friday, but I’m holding off on doing a preview until I see the game again next Monday. The ten or so minute I got to play with it definitely wasn’t enough for a decent preview....

I donotlikeTale of Tales’ work, but they so fervently attempt to push against the grain of conventional game design (at least in part by not making actualgames) that I feel compelled to buy every new sort-of-game they release. In this case, the story bits revolve around a reinterpretation of the story of Salome. I have literally no idea what to make of the game, thematically (the plot, loosely summarized: you die, you put out candles, you quit the game, you come back and watch a naked chick dance for a while), which I will blame on my complete ignorance of the story of Salome....

Numblastis a game we’ve explored beforewhen it was announced a few nights evenings ago. Developed by Japan Studios, it’s an odd puzzle game with a focus on numbers. The core goal is to twist and rotate like-numbered blocks into 2 x 2 squares, thereby creating a match. Once a match is complete, the now-glowing blocks leave the screen after counting upwards by one digit. The latter is an important bit of information — the key to clearing the entire screen and winning big is twisting the higher-numbered blocks to go along with the initial clearing....

I was pretty surprised to hear about Tecmo and Koei’s merger plans. Seems like everyone wants to merge these days. I wonder what the new name would have been. SquareEnixTecmo? Squenixmo? HAWP is back, Tecmo and Koei merge,Dead Space’srelease date gets pushed forward,Kefka and Sephiroth have returned, and plenty more happened on Thursday. Thursday regulars:RetroforceGO! records episode 58 tonight: Post-PAX 2008Scraps: Science must be stopped at all costs (23-06-2025)...

We’re half way through the year so we thought it would be a good idea to look at the best videogames of 2009 so far. There were a lot of great games this year so take a look at our list and see what you think of it. Topher looked at videogame characters he would hump like crazy, Dale reviewedTiger Woods PGA Tour 10, ScrewAttack Gaming Convention is this weekend, the Pirate Bay goes legit and plenty more happened on 06/30/09....

Another Community Vibes went down in Miami recently and it was totally fisheye-tastic! Colette gave us another An RPG Draws Near, Ashley did a Monthly Musing on her Pretendo Entertainment System, DMV reviewed theStreet Fightermovie, Nick previewedGTA: Chinatown Warsand plenty more happened on 02/27/09. Destructoid Originals:Gamestop’s friendly Killzone 2 reminder may cause internal bleedingIs Capcom going to make itself a much bigger presence in the film industry?Booze, Music & Video Games, it’s Community Vibes 4!...

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles finally figure out what their weapons are really intended for. Of course Raphael is the first to figure it out. Anthony didn’t likeGod of War IIIas much, winDeadly Premonition, theSplinter Cell: Convictiondemo is now out, a lot of videogame trailers have been released this past week and more happened on 03/18/10. Destructoid Originals:New Vtoid Channel: Girls play videogames, confirmedCounterpoint: God of War III is too long, boringKane & Lynch 2: Texture resolution isn’t everything!...

The Last Storyis now officially brilliant. Why? Because TIGER! The latestdeveloper blogfor Mistwalker’s upcoming Wii RPG has revealed the game’s principal characters with a closer look at its main hero, heroine, and a God damned tiger. Whether the tiger will have a big role or not is currently unknown, but obviously the only thing we can think about now is whether we’ll be able to use it in battle. As far as the main characters go, Mistwalker says that there is a “wall” between them, and the main plot revolves around how they are being kept apart....

All this week, we’ve brought you our most wanted games of 2011 for theXbox 360,PlayStation 3and thePC. Our latest look at the upcoming games of 2011 is the PlayStation Portable. While many companies have seemingly abandoned PlayStation’s handheld, there’s still a ravenous fanbase around it and companies like Capcom, Square Enix and NIS are still keeping the thing alive. So join myself along with Josh Tolentino as we look at some of the best that the PSP has to offer for 2011 and be sure to tell use what you’re looking forward to too!...