The mystery party runs from noon until 2pm Saturday, after which parents can pretty much leave their children to wander about the Nintendo World Store unattended while they go grab a latte.

What else has changed? The increased details around the eye area seem to rule out the Death Knight...the shape of the nose piece is wrong and there are no etched runes there. In fact, the whole thing feels more biological than anything, despite the straight line to the right where the cheek would be. Leaning towards Protoss now more than ever, though I wouldn't put it past Blizzard making a new Diablo image that coincided with the traits of the other two, just to throw us off.

We'll know for sure in a few hours! Until then we can only ponder the secrets the new winking smiley-face rune holds within. It's almost over folks!

Hit the jump for comparison pictures and decide for yourself, and get a look at the full secret pic revealed!

The reason I am leaning Protoss mainly lies in the shape of the bit between the eyes, which in my opinion matches the Protoss much better than it does the Death Knight.

Then again, look at the frost emanating from the eyes. Seems to emulated the eyes of the Death Knight, and the glow even matches up.

Does this mean no Diablo III? Well, not exactly. It could very well mean that the splash page image has nothing to do with the new game being announced, lining up instead with the release date for Wrath of the Lich King or StarCraft 2. The more we see the less we seem to know. Fun, eh?

The secret images are indeed the Lost numbers, as I speculated yesterday. Now 8 joins the previously revealed 4, 15, 16, and 23, and 42.jpg is in there as well, though not commented out in the CSS file. Finally, the secret picture revealed: It's a purple penguin. Okay then. Great. I have no earthly clue. I'm just going to type Lost Vikings here because I like seeing it.

All of this, and a brand new snowflake rune for us to wonder over. Join us tomorrow when this whole damn thing actually makes some sort of sense.

And where did those Vikings get off to? I cannot seem to find them anywhere?

Then there is the question of the latest rune, which I cannot seem to place. It looks like a solar system, doesn't it? I've been pouring over Blizzard stuffs but cannot for the life of me place it. I checked out various Diablo-fan forums to see if anyone had a clue before the sheer number of people fooling themselves into seeing things that weren't there made me too frustrated to continue. When you want something so badly you start deluding yourself you just need to take a step back and relax a little before people start looking at you funny.

Finally, here is the secret picture as it stands now, with four images in place. It's quite obvious to me now that we're dealing with an eggplant with tiny feet, a tail, and a mohawk.

Two more days and we'll know for sure, and then I can finally get some sleep. Damn you Blizzard. Damn you to hell.

They've also uploaded another portion of the puzzle-piece picture, this time numbered 23. With 'W' being the 23rd letter of the alphabet, the popular theory that the picture numbers would end up spelling out Diablo 3 is also shot, unless they've got Barbara Walters announcing it. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with Diobwo 3!”

Here's what the hidden picture is looking like so far: If it's Barbara Walters in a purple fur hoodie the Diablo theorists are still on track to win this one!

(Well, pretty sure Blizzard does. Good for Blizzard.)

Ready At Dawn News

A few minutes later I received a reply: "At 3:30 a black car will arrive to your house to pick you up. The mission should take no longer than three hours." Three hours, eh? What the hell, I went ahead and cleared my schedule for the afternoon and got ready to embark.

At 3:30 on the dot I went outside and lo and behold, there was a black car with a card with my name on it in the window. Not only was the car out there at the assigned time, but they had managed to get a parking spot right in front of my house. If you know anything about parking in San Francisco, you'll know that this is no mean feat, especially in the Mission. My driver was waiting by the car and told me he would be taking me to my destination as he opened the door for me to get in. I looked and made sure the door locks hadn't been sawed of and got in.

We drove all the way across town and eventually ended up at Fort Mason Center out by the water. If you've ever seen the movie Copy Cat you'll have an idea of where this is. We drove over by the firehouse and the car stopped. The driver told me to go get the information case and return to the car. As I got out, I saw a large metal briefcase type deal sitting in the middle of the pavement. I got out and grabbed it and returned to the car. Inside was a postcard of Coit Tower and instructions to direct the driver to take me there.

Once we were on our way to Coit Tower, the driver received a phone call and then informed me that he had new orders and a new destination for us. What else could I do but say yes? Didn't seem like I had too much of a choice. So I sat and watched the city slide by the windows as we passed Pier 39 and wound our way through The Embarcadero. We finally arrived in a very warehouse-y area down by Third Street and Twentieth where the driver told me it was time to get out of the car. We had reached the final destination.

I took my case, got out of the are and was greeted by a fellow who welcomed me to the assignment and asked if i had any idea what this was all about. I admitted that I didn't but that I had some ideas. We walked into a nearby warehouse and started making our way up the service elevator and through the halls towards the final reveal.

We arrived in front of a door which was opened for me and I entered wondering what I would find. As some of you speculated in the comments of my previous articles, the whole thing turned out to be for... the new Bourne Conspiracy game. Three of the developers from High Moon Studios were there to discuss the project with me and show me a little bit of what it was all about. Unfortunately I can't say much about what I saw as the information is under embargo until the 28th. But I can tell you that I liked what I saw and that The Bourne Conspiracy isn't your run of the mill action game. I saw four different areas covering the various game mechanics including a driving level.

Once my talk with the guys form High Moon was finished, I was escorted back to the front of the place where my driver was waiting for me. I was giving a digital voice recorder that contained my entire interview with the developers (had I known I wouldn't have taken all those notes!) and the case was given back to me although it was slightly heavier than before.

As we drove away, I opened the case to find a ton of swag including a mini-backpack (you can never have too many bags) a flashlight, a 2gig USB drive hidden in a black rubber bracelet, a Sony MP3 player containing some of the music from the game, a game fact sheet/booklet and of course the case itself which looks like it would comfortably fit an Xbox 360. Also included was what I thought to be the most clever addition, a dossier on me that included my name, known associates and habits. It was odd some of the things they knew about me, but then again, on the internet your life is an open book. Attached to the dossier was four large black and whit photos, two of me coming out of my house to meet the car and another two of me picking up the case at Fort Mason Center. It was really quite the clever and ingenious marketing ploy and I must admit that I, like many of you, was completely sucked in.

All in all it was not a terrible way to spend a Tuesday afternoon and I was told that even more would be revealed to me today at Sierra's Editor's Day here in SF. Again, everything I see will be embargoed until the 28th, but judging from the line-up, there will be plenty to talk about when that day finally rolls around.

I hope you've enjoyed unraveling this little mystery with along me. Agent De Marco over and out.

A driver has been assigned to escort you to dead drop point. Confirm pick up name for driver. Standby on April 8 at 1700 for pick up.

A driver? At 5pm on April 8? Hmmm. I'm not really one to just get into car sent by a stranger, but I am dedicated to finding out what this is all about. Seeing as I have documented this entire experience for all to see, if I end up dead in a gutter it shouldn't be too hard to figure out who did it. Please just have "He took one for the team" engraved on my tombstone.

"Accommodation address secured. Mission Accepted. Standby on March 24 for further instructions. Date of final mission: April 8."

Seeing as none of the other staff members got one, I'm hoping this isn't some sort of bomb sent by a rival blog to take me out, but I must say I'm rather intrigued. Chances are it's for a cell phone game, but I'm crossing my fingers that it's going to be something really cool. Anyone care to speculate?

The existence of so many things hidden in the game that don't have to be found lends the game a certain quality, one best described as verisimilitude. Verisimilitude is a useful word to use in describing video games .... Properly used, the word means that there seems like there is a world outside the borders of the screen, happening regardless of what the player does. It implies the existence of a fully-fleshed world, one that's more than a mere collection of polygons or tiles that might as well be sealed in Plexiglas. It allows a game to better enable the player to forget that it is, really, just a game.

An interesting trip down memory lane and has some interesting connections to current and future game design.

Game Design Essentials: 20 Mysterious Games [Gamasutra]

Outside of japan, and hardcore game importers, the name Koichi Nakamura probably doesn't ring a bell.

The unassuming Nakamura hit the limelight in the early 80s when as a high schooler he won Enix's national programming contest with Door Door. In 1984 he founded Chunsoft. While probably best known for the Fushigi no Dungeon series and their work on the first five installments of the Dragon Quest series, the company also worked on Pokemon games.

Now for the first time since the creation of the Fushigi no Dungeon series, one of the titles is coming to North America, published by Sega.

I had a chance to sit down with Nakamura recently to talk about it. He told me that if Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer does well in the U.S. when it hits next year, they will start looking into making a Wii version of the game. They may also start digging through their 13-year-old library of Mysterious Dungeon games looking for other titles worth updating and bringing over.

I asked Nakamura if it concerned him that he was brining a hardcore role-playing game to a platform that has famously attracted a more casual gamer. He said he wasn't.

"Personally, I think RPG games are for people who play games more often, but there is quite a bit of difference between the U.S. and Japan in the gaming market. We don't have a lot of PS3 and 360 owners here so a lot of hardcore gamers play on the Wii and DS consoles."

"One of the reasons Wii games are considered so different is because of the Wii controller, but you don't have to include (motion controls) in Wii games or (stylus controls) in DS games."

He said that in Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer there are DS touchscreen controls, but that you don't need to use them to play.

Nakamura said he isn't too worried about how the game, which randomly generates dungeons and takes about 20 hours to play straight through to beat, will do in the U.S. when it hits here.

"If players like ninjas or samurai then they will like the game."

Congratulations on being selected to participate in the Halo 3 Epsilon! The Epsilon is now available for download on Marketplace!

First, unlike the Alpha, Beta or Delta, this is a very special test in that not only will you be testing nearly final Halo 3 Matchmaking, you will also be able to:
* Play Multiplayer on six maps: Snowbound, High Ground, Valhalla, Last Resort, Epitaph and our new big map, Sandtrap.
* Play Custom Games and test out full game variant editing.
* Play with the Forge and be able to cooperatively edit and save multiplayer map variants.
* Play up to 4 person co-op on a single Campaign level.
* Play and test the full Saved Film functionality, including screenshots you can view in-game for Campaign, Multiplayer and Forge.

So there you go, mystery solved. You can now put away your Hardy Boys sleuthing kit.

[Thanks, ChuckIsHere]

Graffiti welcomes Nintendo street art with open arms [The Tanooki]

It seems that EA is putting out a new Simpsons game in what I can only assume will be a tie in with the upcoming movie. Going to this page on EA's website, we are presented with a classic Simpson's yellow screen featuring the title "XXII" done in a mock GTA IV style. Underneath is a counter using the now famous Matt Groening font that is counting down the time, which at the writing of this article was down to exactly four days. So, by Wednesday afternoon we should be treated to some kind of announcement having to do with this mysterious game.

This better not be some sort of Island of Rhodes fiasco where on Wednesday the clock just rolls over to add two more days on. Although, if that did happen it would be pretty damned funny and I'm sure I would laugh heartily after throwing my laptop across the room. Flynn De Marco

Ben's previous projects include the Xbox 360 Laptop, multiple portable Atari 2600s and the PS360 Controller, so whatever it is, it's probably going to be somewhere north of awesome.

My guess? Someone's obviously taken Heckendorn up on his offer to manufacture a single-handed Xbox 360 controller, similar to the one he built for a disabled gamer. Hey, no stealing my idea. I'm determined to win this contest!

Mystery press release after the jump. Michael McWhertor

What The Heck? [eDimensional]

What the Heck? Guess the New eDimensional Product Designed Exclusively by BenHeck!

eDimensional teams up with renowned modder Benjamin J. Heckendorn on new gaming accessory.

Leading gaming accessory manufacturer eDimensional has teamed up with renowned modder Benjamin J. Heckendorn on their latest product. Gamers worldwide are clamoring to know about what Ben will design next and eDimensional is eager to build it and bring it to market. Now you can win one just by guessing what it is! eDimensional and Ben are pleased to announce the "What the Heck?" contest, where you can send us your guess for what the new product will be. Correct answers will be entered to win a signed copy of the newest product when it is released soon.

eDimensional CEO Michael Epstein raves, "It's been an absolute pleasure working with Ben on the new eDimensional product. He's full of fantastic ideas that are truly inspired by the hard-core gamer, which is exactly who we design our products for. We've really given him free reign to fulfill his creative vision and are thrilled with how the new product looks and performs. We can't wait to offer a benheck original to the entire gaming community."

Author of Hacking Videogame Consoles, BenHeck has been creating acclaimed custom devices such as his recent XBOX 360 laptop since the last century.

He notes, "I'm really excited about releasing my latest project, the first opportunity for gamers worldwide to purchase a Heckendorn original! Thanks to eDimensional for their contributions and support in making my latest creation a reality."

Please visit www.eDimensional.com/whattheheck.php for the latest clues and entry information. New clues will appear at random, so be sure to check back often to see if you can figure it out.

About Benjamin J. Heckendorn

Author and engineer Benjamin J. Heckendorn, known to the gaming community as benheck, is renowned for his innovative modifications of gaming consoles and peripherals including his popular XBOX 360 laptop, portable Atari handheld, controllers and more. Featured in such media as Popular Science, Maxim, MTV, Engadget and much more, his flair for creating the most novel of gaming devices has generated a cult-following and considerable demand for custom projects. His work is available on his personal blog,
www.benheck.com.

About eDimensional, Inc.

eDimensional is a leading developer and manufacturer of innovative gaming software and hardware accessories. The critically acclaimed eDimensional product line consists of 3D, motion tracking, audio and voice recognition products and is distributed online and in a variety of retail locations worldwide. eDimensional is focused on providing gamers with the most realistic gaming experience possible and has received numerous awards and accolades related to our proprietary technologies. For more information, please visit
www.eDimensional.com or email sales@eDimensional.com

Later this year, Nancy Drew will be hitting the Nintendo DS. Gorilla Systems will be bringing Nancy Drew: Secret of Olde World Park to the handheld. The plot centers around a missing theme park owner.

Nintendo's portable has been fueling a mystery game resistance of late, and it's nice to see Nancy Drew doing her bit. Those Hardy Boys can't be too far behind. Brian Ashcraft

Nancy Drew DS Coming [Gay Gamer]

We found the Pribyl boy. He is in Illinois holed up with crazed gamers. We found him because of my going public and good police work. Tell your sycophantic, panting audience that.

In the end everything turned out all right. The MMORPG player had called his parents on Tuesday night to assure them he was okay. He was visiting a female gamer he had met online, and as many male gamers will agree, a chance at sweet lovin' always wins out over common sense.

What intrigues me the most about this story is the odd team up of SOE, GamePolitics, and J-Money, who I am sure was in no way influenced by the lure of free publicity. Sure, the Florida lawyer seems to hate us crazed gamers, but maybe deep down under that gruff and manly exterior he cares for us, and just wants to make sure we are safe and sound.

Could this incident lead to a more industry / rabid lawyer collaborations? In a perfect world, JT and the games industry use this experience as a launching pad for a super team of mystery solving adventurers. I imagine it would be something like this...

SOE, GamePolitics, Jack Thompson in Search for Missing Gamer [GamePolitics]

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors, said in a report released today that video game retailers are doing a better job of controlling sales of violent video games to children.

In particular, the group applauded Target and Best Buy's efforts.

"It is evident that retailers are doing well on several fronts: all retailers included in the report have video game policies to restrict access by young teens to M-rated games; all display signage about the ESRB rating system; all conduct employee training programs and ongoing education on the video game rating system for employees; and all have established a system to identify the age of the purchaser at the register. ICCR is pleased with both Target's and Best Buy's policies to restrict ads for Mature-rated games in teen publications and on television. Target also places a prominent "M" on games advertised in its store circulars and Best Buy has a robust internal auditing process and compliance program, which are noted improvements."

The report also looked at Circuit City, K-Mart, Sears, Toys R Us, GameStop and Wal-Mart. The group goes on to highlight a number of things that should be done to improve the existing system, all of which, I kid you not, I agree with.

The improvements that the ICCR suggests are:

* Adherence to policy. ICCR understands that retailer members of the ESRB Retail Council will participate in a 'mystery shopping' verification program, coordinated by the ESRB, which will publicly disclose the mystery shop results on an aggregated and anonymous basis. This is an important action. However, shareholders that own stock in each of these companies deserve to see individual results, excluding confidential information. ICCR believes that companies have the capacity to develop such a report without providing proprietary information.

* Long and short term goals for compliance. ICCR recommends that companies set aggressive goals and objectives and track results to ensure progress is being made, with the end goal of 100 percent store compliance.

* Benchmarks or indicators. ICCR suggests that companies create indicators to demonstrate implementation of their policies on violent video games and evaluate the effectiveness of these programs.

* A balanced assessment. The public needs to understand the challenges relating to policy implementation, and what are the areas for improvement. There is no need to only present a rosy picture of policy implementation. ICCR recognizes the challenges in this area and believes that providing a balanced picture builds credibility.

It's good to see a group taking this issue seriously and making recommendations that actually make sense. In particular I think that the ESRB releasing the mystery shopper results by chain would help to dispell the belief by some that they are more concerned with protecting their members than the public. Brian Crecente

Retailer Comparison Chart [ICCR]

GameStop is holding a Guitar Hero 2 contest on February 3, 2007 at select GameStop stores. This appeared as a feature in one of their newsletters, but oddly, very little information is available at the moment. There's no mention of what the prizes are, but they certainly have no problem with advertising how much the game is. I would venture to guess that a copy of the game will be one of the prizes, although, if you're good enough to compete in a contest, one would assume you already own a copy. Gibson is listed as one of the sponsors, so let's hope that a REAL guitar will be included as well.

To officially register you must do so at an actual store, but seeing as they don't tell you which stores are actually hosting the events, you'll have to call your local GS store and check. A call to my GS was met with a curt, "I have no idea what you're talking about" and then a dial tone. Nice. There's a page on their site where you can sign up to receive "more information", but my sneaking suspicion is that it will just sign you up for their newsletter. This line sort of gave that away...

Click the Submit button below to sign up for more information and receive news and exclusive offers from GameStop. By clicking below you acknowledge that any information you submit may be used for marketing purposes.

I will be investigating this further as soon as I can get a hold of an employee who actually has any information. Until then it will be a contest shrouded in rock and roll mystery.... Flynn De Marco

If you have a Wii, you probably have noticed there isn't such a thing in the box. That's because Nintendo managed to pre-load that software on the console before they started shipping. Well almost every. At least one reader emailed us to let us know his won't work because it wants a start-up disc. Which means he's going to have to return it.

Here's Nintendo's wording on the whole startup disc dealio.

The boxes in question (the ones that referenced a startup disc) are early-production boxes that were being used for display purposes only. The final Wii product boxes will not have any disc other than the free copy of Wii Sports, and the final packaging will not contain a reference to the startup disc.

So there you go, one mystery solved. Brian Crecente

In this vaguely unsettling clip from G4, Attack of the Show host Kevin Pereira exorcises his desperate frustrations at being constantly mocked by the entirety of the gaming establishment by beating the everloving snot out of a defenseless DS Lite.

The segment is framed as a sarcastic attack on the large number of people who are having hinge-cracking issues. Thanks for the plug, G4, but I'm completely at a loss as to what Pereira's point is.

That the Lite is flimsy? I don't think so...he really used some force on that thing. That Lite owners are whiny? I'm not seeing it. The hinges are definitely cracking; this isn't just some made-up FUD. That he's so rich and macho he can destroy neat toys like that and laugh his cruel laugh? Could be...maybe his female co-host got so flustered by his silverback display that she showed him what the Touch Generation was all about. Maybe he just thought it would be funny. But I don't get it.

Did anyone see the rest of this episode? Can you shed any light on what the hell was going on here? It's okay...we won't tell anyone you watch G4. Thanks, Joe and Eric. Eliza Gauger

After some embarassing guesses like Beat Takeshi and Takeshi Miike, it appears the mysterious Leopard Print Man has been identified and he is, apparently, Itou Ashura Benimaru, another Nintendo musician with a flairish penchant for pulling off improbable fashion statements. According to Mobygames, he appears to have done the soundtracks for Super Smash Bros. and Earthbound. And we even have a 2 hour video clip of him hosting Mario & Zelda Live for you guys to enjoy. Embarassingly, we've posted this video before, but didn't recognize him despite all that. Thanks to Chris S. for his sleuthing!

Previously: Seen At E306: Mysterious Leopard Print Man Plays Wii

Kotaku reader Daniel K. sent us in this mysterious photograph of a flamboyant man dressed entirely in gaudy leopard print duds hanging out with Koji Kondo at E3. Do you recognize him? Who is he? One of our on-site editors probably knows, but they are all sucking their thumbs whilst embryonically nuzzled in a booth babe's tequila-filled womb right now.

Daniel's email is after the jump! We're sort of intrigued ourselves, if only because we've never seen anyone pull off head-to-toe leopard print before.

I know E3 must be going stupenderriffically for you guys (it sure is for me). I don't know if you guys know or not, but it seems Koji Kondo (the legendary composer of Mario and Zelda music) was in the Wii booth the past couple days, playing the conductor game (on that rotating platform thingo) - I took three shots of him playing before I recognized who he was, and then completely geeked out when I finally did realize...and got a pic with him. (I just happened to run into Reggis later and got a pic there too! But that's another story)

Anyways, here is the bit where I'm asking for help identifying someone (I have pics). I went back to that area of the Wii booth later, and found that there were two other gentlemen sitting with Mr. Kondo, one regular business-y lookin' dude (not sure who he was), and another fella....all in leopard print clothing. Now, I'd seen the leopard guy yesterday, and last year too, but who is he??? I asked the booth girl, and she said the dude made Kirby and Pokemon. Now, we're goin' off at least several degrees of misinformation here, because when I get home and look it up, nope, turns out that ain't him.

Well, I had ended up getting a picture with him (when the booth girl asked him about a pic, she even yelled out "Hey! Leopard!"), so I can provide some clues that would help an investigation.

1) He's gotta be high up in the ranks (last year, a friend saw him being shown around Nintendo's booth by some suits), especially if he's rubbing elbows with Kondo.
2) His Starbucks cup holder had the name "Ash" written on it.
3) He loves his leopard print (wears it every E3). It is EVERYwhere. His shades, jeans, shoes!
4) His nametag even has leopard print.

Who is this Leopard Nintendo Man???? It's like his identity is supposed to be secret, because his badge is constantly and conveniently obstructed from a clear view (in my pics anyways). I wonder if Shigeru ever hits up clubs in leopard print too.

I guess when you're a Big N big shot, you can dress in all the leopard you want.