"We are treating game openings like movie openings if they're cool," he told Kotaku. "Video games are interesting, I think it's something a lot of people do now.

"It's entertaining and it gets your mind off things like my life sucks, or I have to pay the bills. It's almost like meditation for me."

And Fallon's not just tapping into a hobby that he thinks he viewers might find interesting, he's a life-long gamer himself.

"I'm 34, so I think I grew up in that generation where video games were always a part of my life," he said. "Getting an Atari 2600 was a huge deal for me, I think I had that before I had cable."

The next big thing for Fallon was Nintendo and Super Mario Bros. an experience that made him a stalwart fan of Nintendo and their consoles. Nowadays he owns all of the gaming systems, including a modded PSP that he rarely touches and an iPhone, but rarely has the time to play on them.

He says that they have all of the consoles at the studio, but people rarely have the time to use them and when he's home he tends to spend his down time with his wife.

Fallon says he just landed a copy of Ghostbusters, but asked me how it was because he hadn't had a chance yet to check it out. (I haven't either.)

Growing up, Fallon said he never really stopped playing games. When he was at Saturday Night Live he was one of the people who helped get pieces on video gaming into the weekly show.

"I shared my office with Horatio (Sanz) and we had an Xbox," he said. "You're up so late at Saturday Night Live, it's kind of like a dorm vibe."

And out of that came several funny skits.

On Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the crew doesn't really have time to play games, but Fallon still thinks incorporating gaming into the show is important.

Fallon played Punch Out!!! on the Wii on his show earlier in the year, and last week sent a correspondent to E3, SNL's Jason Sudeikis. Tonight he will have Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda on to talk about Project Natal, something Fallon had heard about but hasn't seen.

He said he didn't want to know much about the system before tonight's show so that he could see what someone new to the idea can do with it.

And Fallon isn't gun shy about having game developers and producers on his show either. He recently invited Double Fine's Tim Schafer to come on the show with Jack Black to talk about their collaboration on Brutal Legend.

That flies in the face of the argument that game developers may not be as entertaining on a talk show as a musician or an actor.

"I think it's all about how interested you are in talking to these people," Fallon said. "There are some really famous celebrities out there that aren't that exciting.

Tsunoda says he happy to see video games getting so much time on Fallon's show.

"I am really excited to be able to show him the Project Natal technology and how it works," Tsunoda told Kotaku. "We have been working on this project for so long in secret, it's awesome to finally be able to show it off. Hopefully, we can bring that same spirit of fun we had during E3 to the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show."

And what about showing the people at home what the bottom of an avatar's shoe looks like?

"That was something totally improvised," Tsunoda said. "I'm not even sure what possessed me to do that at the time. I'm sure something just as fun will happen tonight on the show."

You can catch Fallon and Tsunoda on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC tonight.

After taking on La Bamba, Coolio was peer-pressured into taking a stab at Beat It and Gamer captured the whole thing on video. Wow, he really can't hit those Michael Jackson high notes. But he does trash talk the game after eeking by on medium.

FEATURE: Coolio vs Guitar Hero: Who will win?

So it was nice to hear the other day that DJ Hero, which certainly sounds to have potential, got an unofficial thumbs-up from celebrity DJ Paul Oakenfold who apparently loved the game.

While he isn't officially involved, I wouldn't be surprised if and when the game hits that he gets involved in some way, even if it's to just help promote it.

First DJ Hero Details Turntable Controller, Mash-Ups, Guitar Coop [Kotaku]

The annual GameStop eXpo has quickly become a great way for folks to leak tons of video game details to us each year.

This year around the retailer-only show will give folks their hands on time with Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2, Wii Music, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Spore, Call of Duty: World at War, Animal Crossing and, I'm told, a first ever chance to check out Halo Wars.

All of the big publishers will be on hand as well as a gaggle of GameStop execs and an impressive line-up of celebrities including Todd McFarlane, Ozzy Osbourne, Mark McGrath, Travis Barker, Shaun White and "other surprise guests."

If you're attending you know our email address, that's all I'm saying.

He has even lent his considerable vocal talent to Fable 2 — talk about renaissance man. Beat that, Leonardo, you big fraud.

Having recently begun an 87th career as a gadget blogger (via his Guardian newspaper column Dork Talk) the boy Fry has revealed his affection for the Nintendo DS and — true to form — offers a spot-on dissection of what is great about the handheld.

At the moment his interests seem to lie in the casual end of the gaming spectrum. Other games writers beware, though — if someone gives him a stack of Square RPGs we will all be out of a job by Christmas.

Dork Talk [The Guardian]

Last night famously famous folks like Carmen Electra, Paris Hilton, Benjia Madden and Danny Masterson descended on the T-Mobile Sidekick Tone-Def After Party during the Coacehella Festival in Southern California to drink (a lot) and play SingStar on the Playstation 3 (a little). The place was, I'd bet, pressure washed afterwards with a mix of bleach and acid. Still won't do any good, but they do try.

[Photos by Amy Graves/Getty Images/WireImage]

Today's media scum don't write for newspapers, or magazines, or tabloids, they don't even write for blogs or websites, no they just create one-off, single page tablogs that feature a prominent Digg button and morbidly titillating content.

Take for instance this site: When Is Britney going to Die? Sure, they don't know how to use capitalization in a headline, and their design is essentially a picture, a graph and a form, but hey, they're giving away a Playstation 3 if you can predict the exact time of Britney Spears' death, down to the minute. Classy.

It's one thing to cheat at blogging, but quite another to cheat at Halo 3.

While we're not certain Gilbert Arenas is cheating to up his in-game stats, it certainly looks that way and a whole bunch of Bungie forum-goers agree.

Look at all his games that he gets 1st place in. He joins up with a friend and has his other account quit out so he gets 1st place every time. How can this be allowed?

Checking out his stat page you can see that he does play an awful lot of Social Doubles and always ends in first place. Oh and that the lifespan of many of his "matches" is under five seconds.

Hey Arenas, I hate to break it to you, but matching and dumping just pumps up your experience, it doesn't do a thing for your Rank. To boost that you're going to have to actually play a game. Hit me up at Gamertag Crecente anytime so I can show you what a teabag is.

NBA player Gilbert Arenas cheating at Halo 3 [Bungie Halo 3 Forums]

Update: The Washington Post got Arenas to fess up.

It's a glitch," he explained. "It's a glitch in the game. I seen some kids that were like 600s, they won 600 Halo games and we only had that game for two weeks. And all the kids go to school. So I'm like, 'What the hell you all doing?' And they said that's what they doing, two-on-two."

And Bungie has released this official statement to Kotaku:

"As Gilbert Arenas himself admitted, his EXP is suspect. What isn't suspect, however, is his skill level, a far better gauge of a player's ability than the grinding of EXP. He is a level 42, which is pretty exceptional, especially considering all of the time he's likely putting into grinding."

Skill level? One word Arenas: Teabag

One of the big draw backs of Games Convention is that it is virtually impossible to get a direct flight here. To get to the Leipzig airport you pretty much have to fly to either Munich or Frankfurt. I flew into Frankfurt and then had a leisurely seven hour lay-over that I killed by blowing ungodly amounts of money on robotic roulette, reading and posting on the site.

When I finally hopped over to the gate for my flight to Leipzig I discovered a virtual whose who of game developers waiting to catch the same flight. Standing in the line were folks from the Call of Duty 4 development team; Dave Doak, Free Radical's director; and Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi. They were all sort of milling about in front of the ticket counter waiting to board the plane. A few minutes later I spotted Hideo Kojima sitting off by himself in the business lounge waiting for the call to board. I wasn't able to quite grab a recognizable picture of him with my cell, though I got one later as he stood in line in front of me. He had on some very cool Ducati shoes.

I couldn't help but think that if the plane went down it would sort of be like The Day the Music Died for gaming... and I wouldn't be around to write about it.

I was only able to catch a chunk of it, but the audience seemed to love checking out the day's top videos while getting a chance to be on live MTV. At some point the host brought Tony Hawk up onto the stage to talk about video games and his propensity to injure himself. The segment was short, but in it we learned that Tony Hawk has four sons, that they love video games. They can kick Hawk's ass at Guitar Hero but not at his namesake video game. He also said that only one of his sons seem to display the same blatant disregard for self-preservation that helped propel Hawk's career to superstardom. That son, Hawk said, needs to have be watched closely.

Hawk ended the segment by hopping up on a skateboard and propelling himself off the stage and through the crowd, a small crowd of body guards running in his wake. About ten feet away from the stage Hawk popped off the board, talked to a fan and walked from the hall.

I thought there were an awful lot of really tall, really big guys playing during last night's Halo 3 premiere event in San Francisco's Foreign Cinema on Mission Street. Turns out they were a bunch of players from the 49ers football team.

I actually spent a good half hour or so playing with a player I suspect was Vernon Davis on a split-screen in some friendly Team Slayer without even realizing it. Had I known, I would have taken a picture of the guy. He was a friendly, kinda newb player, but really wasn't much worse at the game then I was.

Moments early, one of the split-screen spots on the same television was taken up by Justin Kan of Justin TV fame. Hopping on the game after him, I was rewarded with a flood of invites and messages from his legion of fans how had been watching him play the game live through his hat-mounted cam.

Last night was an interesting mix of hardcore gamers, game journalists, analysts, Msoft execs (Shane Kim was there) and other sorts of celebs.

I had a chance to sit down and speak with Brian Jarrard, community lead of Bungie.net, about the game (check back Monday for that feature) and what they expect to come from the beta. I was going to talk with Shane Kim (the handlers tell me Peter Moore reads Kotaku daily, so I think I was a shoe in), but he had an endless line of interviews to do and I decided to leave the event about 11 p.m.

As I walked out the party was still going strong, with nearly all of the screens still filled with gamers and two hours left before they started hustling people out of the restaurant. Brian Crecente

For a tech news site, this seems a little late in coming, but Cnet.com is currently hosting a gallery of celebrity Mii images culled from around the web. Some of these I had seen before, but others were new to me and the majority of them are dead on. Some celebrities of note include Chuck Norris, Laurel & Hardy, Jack Black, Peter Jackson and Woody Allen. Also featured is Dave Curry's prize winning Zach Braff Mii (pictured) which took the grand prize in Kottke.org's Celebrity Mii contest. Curry was awarded with a little statue of his winning Mii which is also featured in the gallery.

So, if you are one of those folks that only recently got their hands on a Wii and are still exploring the wonderful world of Mii's, this little gallery is a great guide for getting some celebs to brighten up your Mii Parade.

I'm still waiting for some Mii DLC so I can finally make one that actually looks like me. Unfortunately for me, they don't have a mutton chop sideburn feature and that's a damn shame. Flynn De Marco

Wii creates celebrity Mii's [Cnet]

Noisy and sometimes prone to overheating, Russell Crowe is the perfect actor to adorn the Xbox 360. Once you've seen either of them perform you can almost forgive them for the occasional punch in the face.

The auction is currently at AU $1,005 (roughly US $811), and it ends in just four short hours, so act quickly. Check out the seller's other auctions for 360s customized and signed by other famous Australians / New Zealanders, like Peter Jackson and several people I've never heard of. Michael Fahey

Russell Crowe autographed Xbox 360 console
[eBay Australia, via The Xbox Domain]

Be A Real Guitar Hero [GayGamer]

The only thing sadder than Britney Spears shaving her head in some misguided attempt at regaining, I don't know, something, are the hundreds of Sims created to gimmick the new, balder Britney.

Searching the Sims 2 returns more than 200 Sims created to look like Ms. Baldy, including this one. So, very, sad. And don't get me started on the Anna Nicole Sims.Brian Crecente

My sources tell me the company will be hanging at the AT&T PRO-Am Tournament closing night celebrity party tomorrow night getting celebrities, pro-golfers and other A-listers to check out Wii Golf. I'm told Nintendo will have two Wiis on site for gamers and non-gamers to check out Wii Sports.

I wonder if they can cajole Bill Murray to check it out... afterall, it doesn't have any gophers. Brian Crecente

Pebble Beach Golf

Color me jealous. Not only did N'Gai Croal get to hang with a Playboy Playmate but it appears he made his way into Sony's Playstation Oasis at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami's South Beach.

It was up there that the likes of Ludacris, Tom Brady, Gabrielle Union, Mario Williams, John Legend, Terrence Howard and Serena Williams hung and were gifted with some Sony Xtreme swag like thos nifty Sony kicks and personalized PS3s. They even laser etched stuff for them. Sweet, but why no Bedazzler? Brian Crecente

Double Life: Inside the Playstation Oasis, Where Sony Is Redefining the Gift Bag, Part I [Level Up]

Game Daily put together a silly little look at the woman of World of Warcraft. Specifically, they grabbed shots of all of the females from the game's different races and matched them up with lookalike celebrities.

Some of them are so close that you start to wonder if the developers may have done the same thing when they were in the design stages of the game. Of course, must celebrities ooze a sort of generic beauty that would make them look like any sort of pretty computer model. Brian Crecente

Women of WoW [Game Daily]