In January they named the greatest horse of videogamedom, Epona, from the Legend of Zelda series. This month they selected the best dog, PaRappa the Rapper, of course.

The judges this time around were Leigh Alexander, of Gamasutra and Sexy Videogameland, Tofuburger of I Can Has Cheezburger, Evan Wells of Naughty Dog, and myself.... of here.

Hit up the site to read everyone's reasoning and their number two and three spots. I picked the dog in Duck Hunt and the zombie dogs of Resident Evil as my runners-up.

And The Award For Greatest Video Game Canine Goes To... [MTV Multiplayer]

While I honestly believe that dressing up your dog in a costume is just two steps away from tying them up in a burlap sack and tossing them in a river on the dog cruelty scale, I have to admit that this gathering of pugs dressed up as Pac-Man characters is kind of entertaining. If I had a dog and wished to dress him up in a costume for Halloween, these would be the designs they found on my drawing table next to my dead body, my brain having exploded to save me from the embarrassment of actually dressing up my pet. Everyone knows I am a cat person anyway, and cats are just begging to be fitted with samurai armor. Thanks, Long Le, for the vid!

Now that our favorite canine epicure CliffyB is finished making Gears of War, he's all ready to talk up a storm about it. And namely, how it's different from the competition. Cliff, like us (and "us" being Mike McWhertor), is a lurker. He confesses, "I'd be a liar if I didn't say I was searching through forums on occasion and you know looking at what the other companies are up to." And what are other companies up to? Gears will be going against the PS3's shooter Resistance. Is there room for both? CliffyB thinks so:

I played Resistance at Digital Life last week but looking at the way the game is played with your backpedaling shooting at lots of these little spider guys and you're, you know, you're running around all crazy and rushing right up to these guys and going through these kind of concrete pike filled tunnels; that's it's own game.

Gears is just not that game. Gears is much more about hide and go kill and flanking your foe and dealing with the scenario that we've proposed of enemies bursting forth from beneath you all the time, and they really feel like drastically different games. So, I mean, to play fair and be honest, I think that there's plenty of room for both products.

Note to aspiring game designers: As Cliffy demonstrates, it's perfectly acceptable to talk about the competitor's title with out slamming it. Eating puppies, though, not cool. Brian Ashcraft

Cliffy Talks Gears [Next-Gen]

Our brothers over at the Consumerist spend so much time whining about boring companies like Comcast and AOL that the entire network has practically disowned them. No one likes a Negative Nelly. Losers... see you at Gawker Lay-Off Party 2006!

Nonetheless, they did call our attention to some excellent customer service... from Nintendo! Jacob Kaplan-Moss came home to find that his dog has done the unthinkable... devoured his DS Lite. He thought he'd have to buy a whole new one. Amazingly, a quick call to Nintendo and the luck of getting a kind CSR led him to be able to pay for a 'repair' for only $50.

I can't even imagine a company like Sony or Microsoft doing this for a customer. Kudos! Florian Eckhardt

Bad Dog! [Jacobian.org]