Quite frankly, we’re glad Tony Hawk took a year off from the videogame biz last year. The games that wore his name were starting to look a bit, shall we say, dated.

Who holds the power in Carol Bartz’s revamped Yahoo management structure? Here’s who reports to her after Wednesday’s reorganization.

source Tech news blog

Microsoft’s internal science fair shows employees (and press) what the company’s research teams are working on in their labs.

source Tech news blog

Harrah’s Entertainment has announced this day that, in conjunction with MTV Games, it will be installing fully-equipped Rock Band “entertainment stages” into their properties this March. Harrah’s owns a number of entertainment properties (read: casinos) worldwide, including Bally’s in Atlantic City and Harrah’s in Las Vegas.

The wild pairing of gambling, drinks, and Rock Band will kick off with a “Total Rock, Total Rewards” competition that runs throughout March and April. The Rock Band competition will take place across seventeen casinos throughout the United States, giving participants the opportunity to win crap like Rock Band apparel, cash, and the opportunity to open up for the B-52’s at the House of Blues in Atlantic City this Might. Because that’s exactly what you want to see before Fred Schneider hops around on stage to the beat of “Dance This Mess Around” — people playing plastic instruments.

Dale North and I had a opportunity to play some Rock Band at Harrah’s in Las Vegas when we were at CES a few months back. While it wasn’t one of these fancy new Rock Band stages they’re speaking about (Harmonix’s Jonh Drake and Alex Navarro just used electrical tape to hold down the drum kit), it was hosted by a dude dressed like Rod Stewart. Hell yeah.

I recently got the opportunity to catch up with Edmund McMillian and Tommy Refenes, two out of the three men on the development team working on the upcoming WiiWare title Super Meat Boy.

This isn’t the first time that Destructoid has gotten to speak with Edmund, but it is the first time that we’ve talked to him since he got absolutely rich and famous. Thanks for remembering us little guys Edmund, and please, next time you see Reggie, kiss him “hello” for me.

Oh, and before I forget, that up there is the “teaser trailer” for the game. It is supposed to make you feel “teased.” This right here’s the official site for the game. It is supposed to make you think about Super Meat Boy.

Now that? That down there is the jump that leads to the full interview with Tommy and Edmund. That’s the thing you want to hit if you want to find out how weird Tommy and Edmund really are.

Of course, by “evolution” I mean the painstaking process of taking the ogreish tough guy seen on the left, and transforming him into the ogreish tough guy seen here on the right. Incredible, isn’t it?

The dev diary also reveals the reasoning behind the game’s black and white look; to prevents players from feeling guilty about taking such pleasure in murdering so many strangers (something most Japanese developers get around by filling their games with unsightly zombies). From experience, I have the ability to state the black and white “trick” really works. While playing the game at the NY CC ‘09, I was immediately struck by how un-disturbing it was to see a man’s head shoved up his own ass.

Despite the fact that Japan will be enjoying Muramasa: The Demon Blade on April 9, Rising Star Games is continuing the Wii’s age-old tradition of making Europe wait by revealing that the game won’t hit the PAL region until 2010.

No firm release date for the United States has been given, although some retailers are expecting it to launch in the Summer. Europe was originally scheduled to get the game later this year, but now it seems that Spring of next year is most likely.

If you own a Nintendo DS and are looking for a good game to play, here’s a suggestion: Go pick up Robocalpyse. Developed by Vogster Entertainment, the handheld real-time strategy title was ridiculous solid, with clever writing, a one-of-a-kind style, and impressive touch-screen gameplay mechanics.

Why am I telling you this now? Well, it looks like there’s a sequel in the works for Nintendo’s other gaming system, the Wii. According to his LinkedIn profile, writer Micah Wright is currently with Vogster and he’s working on — you guessed it — Robocalypse II for the Wii since at least December of last year.

Mot