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If I'm understanding the official King of Fighters website correctly, the series is up to 2,004 games now. That sounds about right -- over the past few years, hasn't a new edition come out every three days or so? And we old-timers used to make fun of Street Fighter....

Oh wait, "2003" was a year, not a chapter count. OK, so I admit, I'm not the world's biggest KOF expert. But even though the series isn't at 2000+ titles, 12 is still a big number by anyone's count. Big enough that seeing a demo of The King of Fighters 12, due out this July for the PS3 and 360, wasn't really that high on our priority list here on Bitmob.

That is, until we found out who was doing the demo.

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Editor's Note: Funny, I also can't beat Mike Tyson either. But unlike Michael, I gave up a long-ass time ago. I mean, he's just so hard to beat. It's like he's made of iron or something. Y'know what? They should call him that:"Iron" Mike Tyson. What's that? They do? It's official: I'm a genius. -Michael

I am nearly twenty six years old and have been playing videogames as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!; another is grabbing the lit end of a sparkler on the 4th of July. I have played Punch-Out!! on and off over the years and have always been thwarted by Super Macho Man.

I have never made it to the titular heavyweight champ in my life. I have never used a cheat to fight Tyson. To me, the game will end when I have beaten Super Macho Man. The closest to victory over him I've had was knocking him down twice a few years ago. He is always where my play session ends -- once I lose I throw in the towel. Even if I start playing an hour later, I start over at Glass Joe. I suspect I do this to reassure my ego that I don't suck at the game.

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Yay -- more peripherals. We always wanted to be a DJ, specifically one who is a hero, so we couldn't be more excited about scratching our way into the Justice League.

News Blips:

• DJ Hero oddly about DJing, not Full House. The newest issue of Game Informer has all the deets about Activision Blizzard's upcoming DJ-focused game. Get this: It's like Guitar Hero with a turntable. Or Beatmania, that other DJ game from a few years back that no one bought. This one will probably sell better, however. Because nowadays people love clogging their homes with plastic peripherals. If only the turntable was bigger, though -- we can totally fit that in our closet. [RagingGamer]

• Assassin's Creed 2 is so big, 450 people have to make it. That's a lot of people making the sequel to Ubisoft's newest franchise. Y'know, if you think about it, with that many folks working on the game, it should be out twice, if not, three times as fast as a normal game. So if this game isn't out by next week, we're totally not playing it. [1UP]

• Tomb Raider film reboot will explore more raider than tomb. The producer for the upcoming Terminator flick said the next Tomb Raider movie will be more character-driven. Sounds fine to us, because that Lara Croft is so interesting. Who cares about the tombs, anyway? They don't even have boobs. [1UP]

• The Secret of Monkey Island coming to 360 apparently isn't much of a secret. Gaming site GamerBytes noticed that a German rating board listed (but later pulled) what appears to be a special edition of the original PC adventure game. This means it could either be a retail release (not likely) or a Xbox Live Arcade title (more likely). Or it can all be a bunch of bananas (delicious!). [GamerBytes]

Click the jump for some video blips, including a Fat Princess developer diary, a top-heavy role-playing game, real life Punch-Out!!, and...more.

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Twitter's great for spreading incorrect rumors of Patrick Swayze's death, and also for stalking the game industry...which is what Game Twits is all about.

Bungie Technical Artist Seth Gibson was the butt of a programmer joke. We think.

2K Games Producer Jason Bergman fantasizes about exclusive George Broussard (3D Realms) video.

EA's Jeff Green, former editor-in-chief of GFW/CGW, is due for a mean case of E3 Shoulder -- a rank stench localized in the upper shoulder area, suffered by booth babes and Jeff Greens at E3 as a result of repeated arm-in-arm photos with the unwashed.

Polytron's Phil Fish confirms that Fez will not come with a trampoline peripheral.

Serial bather and Digg founder Kevin Rose lights candles, scores touchdown, ruins iPhone.

Eat Sleep Play's David Jaffe hates Scottish people.

Game designer and professor Brenda Brathwaite's iPhone texting is simultaneously more interesting and more nerdy than yours.

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Editor's Note: I'll admit, I used to be somewhat weary of casual games, but not anymore. Hell, I mostly play them nowadays: Plants vs. Zombies is my new favorite brain-teaser. And I've been playing Crossword DS for a good month or two. And don't get me started about how much I adore Cooking Mama and Order Up. To be honest, I think this petty "hardcore vs. casual" battle will eventually die via a Peggle ball to the head. Because, in the end, who the hell cares? More people playing games means more games for us. So why fight when we can all play along? -Michael

With the advent of the Wii and the "new" casual gaming market (most people, for whatever reason, don't seem to realize that casual gaming has existed since the ancient, black-and-white days of Spacewar!), there's been an ever-growing rift between the self-described "hardcore" gaming community and the outsiders: the old folks, "moms," non-gamers, and other dangerous folk who threaten our wonderful and exclusive hobby. If the History Channel has taught us anything, it's that you can't appease these people. If you do, bad things happen involving tiny mustaches.

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We never thought gamers would care so much about the weight of consoles. But apparently this is a big deal. Well, we think it's insulting -- consoles are people, too. Wait. Err, nevermind...

News Blips:

• PS3 weight rumors continue; many say bulimia is believable. Even though some Sony skeptics are finding the slimmed-down PS3 rumors a little hard to swallow, a kernel of truth may have just popped up. It seems tech site Engadget has been sent a cease and desist letter for hosting the leaked shots of the seemingly smaller PS3. The weird part? The letter wasn't sent by Sony, but by a Chinese company. Hmm. So is it true or not? Our gut says yes, but then again, he's just hungry after all these food puns. [Engadget]

• Robot Chicken lay mechanical egg; tastes like Spore DLC. The funny men behind Adult Swim's Robot Chicken series have helped create downloadable content for the Spore: Galactic Adventures expansion. If this news makes you say, "WTF," then you'll probably want to go visit the appropriately-named official website. Then OMG at the LOLs or something. [Kotaku]

• Randomly littered medkit gives 3D Realms small amount of health. So everyone thought Duke Nukem Forever developer 3D Realms died a pitiful death. We did, too. But we were all wrong, apparently. The studio confirmed it is still alive, albeit without the DNF team. Not sure how the studio will survive indefinitely, considering Duke Nukem doesn't own fancy dancy rechargeable armor like Master Chief. And, well, medkits aren't exactly easy to come by nowadays. [1UP]

• Japanese Capcom staff may miss E3 due to piggy pukers. Well, this is ironic: The company responsible for the Resident Evil series may be quarantined in their own country due to swine flu. We're sure they'll probably end up attending the State's biggest videogame trade show, but the news is still kinda funny. Except for the part about pigs giving us flu. Barf. [Kotaku]

• New Dynasty Warriors game is coming...hey, where are you going? Let me finish, thank you! Ahem -- like I was saying, Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires is coming to both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 next month. For those of you who care. Which is, sadly, no one. Sigh... [Joystiq]

Hit the jump for some video blips, including a bunch of Japanese Wii MotionPlus commercials, a Star Wars: The Old Republic story trailer, Half-Life 2 in block form, and...more.

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We just discovered that Gears of War 2 and Unreal Designer Cliff Bleszinski is twice the geek we are, which is pretty incredible because we're pretty damn geeky.

How did we find out? He told us, in the latest round of 21 Random Qs. We're not referring to his love for Iron Man (see No. 1) or George Jetson's car (see No. 3). We're referring to...well, see for yourself (see No. 15).

1. Who's your favorite comic-book superhero?

Cliff Bleszinski: Iron Man. Because I love flawed heroes, and he's such a lush and a womanizer.

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Editor's note: GameSetWatch first uncovered the strange story (and alternate reality game) behind not-actually-real blogger Rachael Webster, AKA PixelVixen707, but this update is well worth checking out. Read Webster's interview with Robert Ashley here (her initial contact email to Robert included a link to the GameSetWatch article, but he didn't click it and was none the wiser). -Demian

Genuinely thoughtful commentary on videogames doesn’t come by all the time, and how much the rarer is the emergence of a truly worthy and unique voice. So when Rachael Webster, an aspiring writer stagnating at a menial job at a small and mostly unknown city newspaper, first took up the pen for her blog in the fall of last year, she quickly found herself amongst enthusiastic supporters and a welcoming community. PixelVixen707, as she called herself, brought a sharp-tongued but winsome pluck to the conversation about games, along with unusual, sometimes genuinely surprising, insights. Rounding out the program was an occasional note about her personal life— and that is where things fell off the rails a little bit.

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We all love videogames, sure. But some folks out there love them a wee bit more than us. Don't be jealous, though -- these superfans show their adoration by creating tons of cool, cultural things for our own amusement. That's why we've starting the Cultural Corner -- each week we'll showcase a fan whose talents extend far beyond pushing a bunch of buttons.

First up: Grub-time doodler Derek and his personalized lunch bag art. Every day he makes some cool art for his kiddos and posts them on his website. It's here you can check out his near-perfect renditions of videogame characters, Pixar-inspired Batman rides, and even KHAAAAANNNNN! We recently chatted with the talented food-cover scribbler to find out more about his hungry hobby.

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