Throughout the week on Kotaku, you'll find posts that cover the biggest trends — good and bad — that happened in gaming this year. We'll take you through the highs and lows, the great achievements and the great scandals. In addition, we'll have featured interviews with three of the lead creators behind three of 2009's biggest games as well as a podcast featuring a fourth (more on that guest later today).

Look for the first big interview, featuring one of the individuals in the bottom row of this image, in just a couple of hours.

And speaking of this image, all credit goes to Luke Plunkett, a man with some fine Photoshopping skills.

Keep your eyes peeled for the 2009 Year In Review tag on posts appearing all this week. 2009: It wasn't that bad!

Gawker Media seeks a few brave interns to work in comments and serve our beloved communities. The interns will work on behind-the-scenes administrative tasks and quality oversight. Applicants should have several days per week to devote to these duties. Strong communication skills, familiarity with Gawker Media blogs and commenting communities, and excellent decision-making abilities a must. New York City-based is preferred, but remote applicants will be considered.

College internship credit available to those who qualify. Send email with bio, resume, commenter username and subject line 'Community Internship' to communityintern (at) gawker dot com.

E-mail the address above. Any other applications will not be considered. Good luck! You might have a chance to work in the same office as one of the members of Team Kotaku

It's not that we don't like 2009. It was a fine year of gaming, one that we'll get around to reviewing and ranking soon enough (probably when we're done impatiently looking ahead to next year).

But at the halfway point of December, 2009 just doesn't have the magic anymore. It's an old man of a year and we can't help but be distracted by the enthusiasm of that young cherub of 2010. We know some wonderful things to be true already about the coming year:

-2010 will include a lot of games we thought we'd play in 2009 (Blur! Bayonetta! Singularity! Gran Turismo 5?)
-2010 will include a January-March choked with promising games (Mass Effect 2! BioShock 2! Splinter Cell Conviction!)
-2010 is already being experienced favorably by people in Japan (See again Bayonetta and this week's — for them — Final Fantasy XIII)
-2010 will include more Halo, more Metroid, more Mario, more God of War, more Madden (educated guess), more Star Wars The Force Unleashed and even more Shantae
-2010 will be the most motion-controlled year of gaming yet

With information like that, you can surely understand why we at Kotaku believe that 2010 has a shot at being better than 2009.

But we could be wrong.

To test our theories and to provide you a look at the possible future, we will be publishing posts all week that detail the concrete plans for games coming to each of the major platforms. In addition we'll be previewing a handful of upcoming games that demonstrate the diversity of the 2010 line-up. And we'll be opening things up to you in a series of posts that explore the imaginative possibilities of gaming in 2010.

For all our 2010-week posts, look for the tag 2010preview. We're expecting a fantastic gaming year to come, and we're ready to start talking about it... now.

*Technically, Kotaku's look at 2010 started yesterday with our preview of Heavy Rain and R.U.S.E., but really, 2010 is such a futuristic year that a bit of out-of-order time manipulation seems ok by us.

Send us the commenter page to tipsATkotakuDOTcom for anyone who should get the axe, err, hammer. You can put in your request at tipsATkotakuDOTcom. Be sure to include the URL for your own commenter page.

No ban gloating. Gloating leads to Ban Hammer backfire, which could cause you to get the boot. And that would be very embarrassing.

For those who need a primer on who commenting works here, read our handy guide as well as how to get the most from your commenting account and more about starred commenting.

We'll be back to normal on Tuesday, lighter, faster and better. Hope to see you on the other side.

G4's Patrick Klepek inquired as to the future of the X-Wing, Tie Fighter, and X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter series during an interview with LucasArts president Darrel Rodriguez, who teased us like the teasing teaser that he so obviously is.

"We don't have any announcements now, but stay tuned," said Rodriguez. "We will soon….."

Dammit, another impending announcement announcement! Is it a re-release of the classic games, or an entirely new chapter in the series, bringing the awesome space dogfighting action up to speed with the current crop of hardware? Hell, at this point I'd be satisfied with an Xbox Live Arcade remake. Just let me shoot an X-Wing with a Tie Fighter, and vice versa, and I will be very, very pleased.

LucasArts Teasing X-Wing, Tie Fighter Announcement [G4's The Feed]

Got a list of things you think need fixin' on our sites? Well so do we, actually! And we're looking for a little help with it. Gawker Media is currently seeking a QA Analyst to join our Tech team. Job responsibilities include monitoring site performance, managing bug reporting and resolution, and conducting both manual and automated site testing.

Do those activities sound oddly satisfying to you? If so, please email techjobs@gawker.com with a brief description of yourself and your relevant work experience. This job is located in New York City.

That means you might be able to rub elbows/receive abuse from Kotaku's own Stephen Totilo! You don't know the thrill of performing QA until you've been verbally thrashed by a Kotaku editor because comments are malfunctioning. But we can make that happen! Best of luck!

[Image via Dork Yearbook]

Surprise! Welcome to Kotaku Japan.

About two years ago in Australia we launched Kotaku Australia. Today Kotaku Japan is a go!

Don't worry, Brian Ashcraft is still the master of Japan and all things Asia, but now we have the same tasty Kotaku writing translated into Japanese. Better still Kotaku Japan also has its own crew of top-shelf writers hard at work ferreting out the details of all things Japanese and gaming.

If you happen to be lucky enough to live in Japan and still want to surf the undiluted pages of Kotaku Original then just type in us.kotaku.com otherwise you're going to be automatically redirected to the Japanese site. Of course there's also a link down on the left side of the site well, but what fun is that.

Instead of just a single, lonely Kotaku editor roaming the halls, grazing the merch tables and listening attentively to panels, we're doubling our coverage. Expect reporting on anything and everything video game related at this year's Comic-Con thanks to a cross country traveling Mike Fahey. He'll be joining me at the show, ensuring that if you wanted a Comic-Con exclusive Transformer or Gleek action figure, your chances will decrease by one. Possibly two.

We'll be attending a long list of creator and producer panels covering everything from Halo to World of Warcraft to Bayonetta and beyond. We'll also be checking out the latest wares from EA, Capcom, Activision, Ubisoft, Konami, Sega, LucasArts and much, much more. We'll also be pestering game developers, comic book writers and whomever else we feel like pestering.

We'll find the time to socialize at sponsored parties in the evening, so expect the occasional rambling mess of a party wrap-up and someone singing drunken karaoke. If you'll be attending the show—passes are still available legitimately via eBay—let us know.

Excelsior!

You are Kotaku's lifeblood, the thing that drives us to inform and entertain. Your input is often invaluable. The ever-growing sense of community is really what makes Kotaku what it is today and continues to move it onward and upward.

That's why today we are launching a revised and much more robust commenting system. It is one that takes into account many of the solid requests and suggestions you have made of us. That means that now, yes, you can edit your comments.

More interesting, more importantly, we have also tiered commenting, meaning that if you are one of our star commenters your comments will now get much deserved top billing. These star commenters will also have some interesting new powers. Yes, POWERS!!!

Here's a quick guide to the new commenting system. I'll also be updating our official commenting FAQ.

The Key Changes
* Privileges for star commenters
* Image and video embedding in comments
* Comment threads will appear newest first. Comments in a thread, though, will remain in chronological order.
* Related stories show to the right of each post
* Comments can now be edited for 15 minutes after publishing

The new commenting system now has levels, four of them. Here's a run down of what they are and what they can do.

Stars
* A gold star next to the commenter's name.
* Comments given priority and published immediately after post
* A star commenter can see comments even before a moderator has approved them
* By replying to any comment, a star commenter can give it priority
* Promotion of another's comments to the featured section

Guest Stars
* Commenters whose thread is given priority by star commenter
* Automatically post their replies to the featured section within their thread

Commenters
*Can reply to threads.
* Become Guest Stars if a star promotes their thread

Pending Users
* Can reply in threads, though they won't be visible to others until approved
* Can have threads and replies approved by stars

How do I edit my comments?
You will have 15 minutes after a comment has been published to edit the text, though they will not be able to add an image or video. Once the edit is made, a message will appear below the comment indicating that it's been edited.

Can commenters upload images and/or post a video?
Yes, image upload, inserting an image URL and inserting a YouTube URL will be available in comments. Images and video will be displayed at 340-pixels wide.

Why don't I see all replies?
Comments are filtered such that only those comments made by starred commenters ("Stars") or selected to be featured by our Editors or starred commenters appear by default. You can view the unfiltered comments on any post by clicking the "Show all comments" link at the bottom of the page.

How can I become a starred commenter?
Starred commenters are designated by the Editors and Moderators. In the past, Stars were designated by virtue of their popularity among other commenters. That tended to favor the sociable rather than commenters who contributed information to a discussion. Now that Stars' comments are featured so heavily, we need to handpick them. And because we're also featuring the comments to which Stars respond, they must also show judgment in choosing discussions to engage in. Translation: don't respond to trolls.

I'm a Star but I can't see my comment
Even a Star can be off-topic sometimes. Moderators — rather than applying the rather extreme sanction of banning — can now demote an individual comment. So that's why you can't see it among featured comments. Try clicking on "Show all comments."

Designed with a mind toward more readership participation, this new system will allow us to do some pretty cool things like hosting liveblogs and live chats with developers directly in our comments. You will also, moving forward, have many more chances to participate not just in the conversation, but the substance of Kotaku's articles. Think reader-generated lists and photoshop and video contests.

This is, we at Kotaku hope, the start of a brand new day in commenting. A step toward finally giving some much deserved readers and commenters the spotlight they so richly deserve.

A word of warning: This is a substantial tech change for Kotaku and Gawker and it's bound to have its hiccups and bugs. Please email us when you see them so we can get to smoothing out the rough edges. And please, as we strive to work out the kinks and go over our list of starred users and those who deserve to be starred users, be patient.

Thanks!

This will be going live over multiple servers so it may take a few before you see it on Kotaku.

Yes, the Kotaku crew is once again heading to the lovely and historic Golden Gopher in downtown Los Angeles for a night of drinks, chit chat, and hangover research on Sunday, May 31st, the night before a slew of E3 press conferences and appointments kick off.

This year, we'll be doing things a little different, adding some musical accompaniment, giveaways and more. Of course, we'll have an open bar (for a limited time!), all sponsored by your good friends at Meat Bun. That's right. Me and my cohorts are going to buy you a drink. And you'll even get first crack at our new stuff!

The bar opens at 8 PM, so make sure you're on time and of drinking age if you'd like to spend Sunday night happy hour with us. Yes, that means this is a 21 and over event. So age with a vengeance!

The Kotaku crew is once again heading to the lovely and historic Golden Gopher in downtown Los Angeles for a night of drinks, chit chat, and hangover research on Sunday, May 31st, the night before a slew of E3 press conferences and appointments kick off.

This year, we'll be doing things a little different, adding some soon to be confirmed entertainment and giveaways to the refreshment and socializing. Of course, we'll have an open bar (for a limited time!), all sponsored by your good friends at Meat Bun. That's right. Me and my cohorts are going to buy you a drink.

The bar opens at 8 PM, so make sure you're on time and of age if you'd like to spend Sunday night happy hour with us. Yes, that means this is a 21 and over event.

Our goal with previews was to make them easy to read, to the point, and complementary to our review system. They are designed to be welcoming to readers unfamiliar with a particular title, but also have worthwhile information for hardcore fans of a series, genre, or developer. We also wanted to be transparent about what we played — as our previews would be limited to hands-on experiences only — giving potential players a clear look at how a game is shaping up.

Finally, we want previews to be honest. While games in development often deserve the benefit of the doubt, we're not going to overlook a game's flaws.

Previews are broken down into several sub-sections.

What It Is
We'll tell you what the game is, providing as much information about its story, gameplay, and development pedigree in the most efficient way possible. We won't bore you with the details you can glean from a press release or fact sheet; we'll just write up what you need to know to quickly become familiar with the game being previewed.

What We Saw
Sometimes we may play three hours of an in-development game, sometimes we may play just five minutes. We'll let you know exactly what we played, on which platform and under what circumstances. Did we play it at a noisy convention? Did we play it on the comfort of our couch? Was there a producer or PR handler guiding us through the experience as we played? Our goal is to provide the most accurate representation of the conditions under what we played, so you don't have to question it.

How Far Along It Is
As games can be in development for years, we may see and play a title that's not due to be released for another 18 months. In general we'd expect a title that's still a year off to be rougher around the edges than one that's hitting store shelves in six weeks. In some cases, we may have to trust the publisher or developer to let us know when it will be done or how complete the game is percentage-wise.

What Needs Improvement
Our previews will focus on not just the positives, but the negatives of in-development games as well. If something stinks, we'll say it stinks. Our goal is to revisit titles more than once so that we can keep track of what's simply not working for us and let you know if those aspects have improved or not. Yes, we know that a game's frame rate can be polished up at the end, but we're still going to call a bad frame rate out.

What Should Stay The Same
These are our favorites aspects of a game being previewed. If you're looking for the good news, you'll find it here. We'll not only explain what we liked, but why you should care about the title, what separates it from the competition. If a developer mucks with any of these aspects, they're in big trouble. If a game has addressed the faults we noticed during a previous preview, we'll laud those changes here.

Final Thoughts
We summarize the game, essentially judging, based on what we saw, what we liked and what we didn't like, whether we'd recommend the game to someone as it currently is.

That's the apparent philosophy of Sam Van Tilburgh over at Lionhead's Fable II development blog, who promises some sort of announcement and new content to arrive on the morrow.

I'm picking up through the grapevine that tomorrow there is going to be some news announcement and also new can't-miss content so make sure to visit our site tomorrow! No further details are available. Did I tell you it's sunny here in Guildford?

Let's just hope this isn't like the last time they promised an announcement, only to announce that said announcement wasn't announceable yet.

Kotaku officially announces that you should stay tuned for tomorrow's announcement announcement.

Check it out, tomorrow. [Fable II Development Blog]

That's why I'm so pleased to announce that Totilo's departure from MTV doesn't mean he's landed himself a gig as a developer. Instead, beginning in May, Totilo will be joining Kotaku as the site's deputy managing editor.

Totilo has been covering video games full time since May of 2005, when MTV made him the first beat reporter for games at MTV News for their website and to work on on-air stories.

He's run the influential gaming blog MTV Multiplayer, which Kotaku and most other gaming sites have linked to a ton of times, for the past two years. He's also written about games for Slate, The New York Times, and even done a one-week stint as guest-editor here (Who could forget the Kotaku Aptitude Test?).

He tells me that his first games reporting anywhere dates back to the late 90s when he freelanced for IGN and snuck some gaming stories into Newsweek and other outlets. He has a master's in journalism from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. And we can't let him ever forget that, yes, he co-created "Hogan Knows Best."

Not only does this latest addition give us heaps of Hogan cachet, it also gives us a writer in New York to help keep an eye on all things video game related in the Big Apple.

I mean, mean it enough to provide video evidence of said love? Down with it and live in New York? Video king Richard Blakeley is putting together a video of unabashed Kotaku lovin.. the platonic kind, so if you're interested you should email him straight away.

Or could it be something completely different? Rumors have been doing little twirly things all over the internet over the past few weeks regarding a potential PlayStation 3 price cut, and while our first thought was "Why would they announce it several days after GDC?", apparently they are indeed announcing something several days after GDC. Go figure.

We're leaning towards a price cut, but we've got a sneaking suspicion that it's the PlayStation 2 dropping to $99, and not a cut for the PlayStation 3.

All we know so far is that they're announcing something. There's only one thing to do now. Let the wild speculation begin! What do you think/hope/dream Sony is announcing?

You can check out the interview live over on the site and even chime in with your own questions. It should start in about 10 minutes or so. See you there... or not!

UfragTV

Whether today is your first day reading the site or you've been reading it since the day I stepped foot in Kotaku tower, you don't have the right to troll, to name call, to get off topic or, the worst offense, to bore.

We take commenting very seriously on Kotaku because we believe strongly that what we write is only half the story, the other half, often the more important half, is how you react and the discussion that ensues.

That is why we ban, without warning, people whose comments are pointless like: "First" or "Not news" or "Slow news day."

It's not because we think you're being petty or insulting (both are true), but because of the larger offense, you're off topic. When you comment on Kotaku we expect you to be commenting about the story at hand. Agree, disagree, we don't really care, just do so intelligently and civilly.

And when the topic is something sensitive or heated don't use that as an excuse to incite or stop thinking. I would rather ban the entire community than steer away from topics that may make someone angry. Believe me.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here's a quick break down of how to comment, with thanks from Lifehacker:

Move the discussion forward: It's fine if you want to agree with what is already being said, but you don't really need to. You won't get banned for it, but if you're hoping to become a star commenter, try to contribute new information to the discussion.

You don't have to comment: Again, it's not necessary. Feel free to, but don't feel obligated to.

Keep private private: If you want to say something to someone on a personal level, or what to discuss something off topic try using our private messaging function. You can access it by clicking on a person's name.

Think before you type: Remember that's quite a soap box you're standing on when you prepare to comment. We have millions of readers, many of which will read what you have to say. That's fantastic, but make sure you make it worth their time. Stop and reread what you're going to say before you click on comment. Maybe give yourself a bit of time to cool down before responding.

Be courteous: No one respects a loud mouth or a name caller. No matter how right you are, if you deliver your intelligent discourse punctuated with name calling and four-letter words no one is going to take you seriously.

Don't tease the trolls: They exist, we will try to stay on top of the issue and ban them when we find them, but don't make the problem worse by responding or even acknowledging their existence, that just empowers them.

Heed the Disemvowel: I take banning people very seriously. I know how important comment access is and I hate to remove it, but sometimes it's necessary for the health of the commenting community. When someone has stepped over the line or maybe uncharacteristically broken a commenting rule we disemvowel them. But remember, that's a warning shot, the second time is a ban.

Promote Smart Comments: Every week we post a round-up of the most intelligent comments on the site. We also are always on the look out for people who should be promoted to Star Commenters. That's a worthy goal to reach for.

Believe it or not, we don't like banning people. And we certainly don't ban people because they disagree with us. What fun would that be. I love to hear intelligent discussions about how wrong I am. But break the rules, get off topic, start calling names, and you're going to get banned.

Now have fun.

Some reading on topic:
Geek to Live: Lifehacker's guide to weblog comments
A Call to Ban

They get to hang out in the tower, maybe write a few posts and appear in one of our podcasts. And now for the winner.

It was a close vote, but Elvis Ain't Dead Pulled it out with an extra percentage or so of votes. If you are Elvis, and you're not dead make sure to contact us so we can get you those freebies and figure out when next month we're going to let you into the tower.