If you find yourself unable to wait until the Aug. 31 release of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, we may have the perfect soothing balm for you: Armor Games and EA's Mercenaries 2: World (Nearly) In Flames. It's exactly like the console versions of Mercenaries 2, except it's free! (And it's made in Flash. And it's two dimensional. But other than that? Exactly the same.)

OK, so maybe it's not as technically impressive, but we could think of many worse ways to kill some time until the real release than with this solid, old-school diversion. Enjoy.

The juicy "Gearbox is developing Halo 4 OMG" rumor continues to be at the top of fanboy debate lists, with Microsoft confirming to Kotaku that Corrinne Yu, director of technology at Gearbox and pictured in full Spartan armor, has been hired as principle engine architect (fancy!) for the Xbox manufacturer's internal Halo team. The official statement: "As the Halo franchise continues to flourish, Microsoft Game Studios is growing its internal team to develop future Halo projects."

And what could "future Halo projects" entail? Microsoft isn't blabbing, but suspicious men in trenchcoats posit that Yu will be working on the nebulous Peter Jackson project and putting her Unreal Engine 3 expertise to good use.

Good news, everybody*! Nintendo expects to make even more money during its 2009 fiscal year than it had previously anticipated. And it had previously anticipated quite a bit.

According to VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi and Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter, Nintendo has raised its financial forecast for the six months ending Sept. 30, 2008, as well as its expectations for the full fiscal year ending March 31, 2009. Thanks to phenomenal Wii and DS sales and improved foreign currency exchange rates, Nintendo now expects to shift 30.5 million DS units in the full fiscal year, along with 197 million DS games, 26.5 million Wiis and 186 million Wii games.

Projected fiscal 2009 revenue? Two thousand billion Yen. That doesn't even sound like a real number!

*Particularly those obsessed with the financial wellbeing of emotionally detached megacorporations.

Bethesda has dropped a ... wait for it ... megaton of Fallout 3 walkthrough footage on PAX, and, thankfully for those who can't attend, GameTrailers has upped it for your post-apocalyptic viewing pleasure. There are five (count 'em five) videos showcasing Megaton, the Wasteland, Super-Duper Mart, and more after the break.

Meet Robert, Craig, Preston and Aaron. Three of these four guys have waited since 10:30 p.m. last night in front of the convention center, just to be first in line for the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo. And no, we're not going to spoil who is less of a superfan. At 5:00 a.m. this morning they were let into the building, and at 8:00 a.m. they made their way into the line where you now see them. So after 15 and a half hours of waiting here, what exciting plans do they have for once they enter?

"I don't know," said Robert.

The renowned adventurer and acrobatic grave robber, Lara Croft, finds her lithe self on the wrong side of a PETA protest yet again in November's Tomb Raider: Underworld. Though her abhorrent antics, which include mowing down exotic panthers and posing akimbo on the perforated corpses of fuzzy bears, have been widely witnessed before, these latest anti-animal maneuvers still leave our jaws agape. Or dislocated, if you're a marauding tiger who's just been introduced to the leg-end of Lara Croft.

Activision has officially announced Tony Hawk's Motion for Nintendo DS, and, in doing so, also confirmed rumors that the game will be controlled using motion-sensing. The game will utilize an accelerometer-based "Motion Pack;" we're checking with Activision for more details on the tech (for instance, does it occupy the GBA slot?)

According to Activision, players will be able to "twist, tilt and turn through various skateboarding sessions." iPhone much? Also, as a first in the series, the game will introduce snowboarding – wait, what? Yes, "Tony Hawk," a name synonymous with ... snowboarding. Tony Hawk's Motion will come bundled with Hue Pixel Painter, an action-puzzle game that has players tilting the DS to "return color to a dull world." Both games are being handled by Creat (makers of the [ahem] superb Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-Am) and will hit in November. Check out the first screens below.

Update: Activision has confirmed with us that the Motion Pack is a proprietary add-on developed for it by Kionix, Inc. and fits into the DS' GBA slot.

Life at Joystiq HQ used to feel a lot like Mount Crumpit. It was cold and lonely and it just seemed like our hearts were, in the words of Dr. Seuss, "two sizes too small." (That, and Ludwig refused to take his damned antler ears off.) But then LittleBigPlanet rolled along and slapped the cynical smirk clean off our faces. And -- wouldn't you know it? -- our hearts grew three sizes that day.

Straight out of the mouths of Tycho and Gabe (Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins) to Joystiq: The first East Coast PAX is coming to Boston in 2010. Check back later for our full interview with the Penny Arcade duo!

We've finally harnessed the power of our combined snacking knowledge to create a regular, completely non-game related segment on it. Oh, sure we're still talking about video games like Force Unleashed, Too Human and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but snacks (S.N.A.X.?) really steal the show.

Thanks to Evan Minto, Jordan Wasilka and Max Varenik of the JPAG for the trifecta of photochopping greatness.

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THQ has revealed to Europe the Saint's Row 2 Collector's Edition bundle, which appears to come with the game, some posters, a 1GB USB stick in the shape of a bullet and some kind of ... gun. Eurogamer explains that "the box is shaped like a gun," but we can't tell from the picture above if the gun comes out of its casing, or if it's molded to the box. The publisher also tells the site this special edition is only for Xbox 360.

We're not exactly sure about the SR2 Collector's Edition for North America, so we'll have to wait and see if THQ announces this same bundle for the region. Sadly, nothing involving porn star and "special producer" Tera Patrick will be included in the box. The boys and girls of Saints Row 2 are expected to shoot up the streets of Stilwater in October.

The get-kids-voting people behind Rock the Vote recently spread out beyond the limitations of MTV's core demographic and decided to enlist the Xbox Live community, long known to be an e-bastion of enlightened political discourse. So, being the politically (and mathematically!) astute bloggers we are, we took a look at the live poll results, as presented by MyGamerCard.net.

As of press time, Democratic-nom Barack Obama had a commanding lead over Republican oppollnent John McCain, with 4,623 gamerpics in circulation versus just 2,076 – a nearly insurmountable lead of 2,547 gamerpics. That's fine, but what's the real story here? How the pundits and the pollsters – clouded by the corruption and cynicism of a two-party election system – have ignored the dark horse in this election: Gears of War skull face guy, who right now controls a most impressive 87,626 of The People's votes. Ignore the political machine and vote your conscience!

[Via Cheap Ass Gamer]

Now ... now we're afraid. EA announced today that its sci-fi survival-horror game Dead Space is hitting retail a week before its originally scheduled Halloween release in Europe. Doesn't EA understand what it's doing?! The natural order of this industry is being torn apart by such shifts in the timeline. Games are meant to be delayed, not ... um, what's the word for "undelayed"? See, we don't even know because we never use it!

The game will release in Europe on Oct. 24 for PS3 and Xbox 360, while the PC will still receive it on Halloween (Oct. 31). We're still waiting on an official release from EA in North America The game will release in North America on Oct. 21.

Update: Looks like the NA date change was announced during a trailer last month.

It seems Dead Fantasy might just becomes a living reality after all. Square Enix has announced its intention to purchase a majority stake in Tecmo, the Japanese company which recently bid farewell to both its president and most recognizable rockstar developer. As detailed in a press release issued this morning (via IGN), the house that built Final Fantasy (and vice versa) is offering Tecmo shareholders a 30% premium over the company's closing price on August 28th. If successful, the deal would see Tecmo fall under Square Enix Holdings, while retaining its brand and corporate structure.

Yoichi Wada, president of Square Enix, expressed hope that both developers would benefit from the deal, with the RPG maker gaining some inspiration from Tecmo's expertise in the action genre. Presumably, the folks at Tecmo would gain some pointers on in-game cameras in return.

We'll let you know what happens as soon as the suits are done talking.

It's been three months since we've seen any moving pictures from Golden Axe: In Name Only, but is that enough time to prepare yourself for a new trailer? Have you had enough time to get ready for footage of a title that's so clearly not a Golden Axe game that it's almost kind of adorable? Are you ready for "Not this day!" sure to be one of the classic video game lines of all time? Most importantly (and prominently), are you braced for the most gratuitous digital ass shot of this or any other decade?

Feel free to watch above, just don't say we didn't warn you.