Heavy Rain and Madden NFL 11 lead the charge into a day filled with PlayStation 3 deals in Amazon's shiny golden box of values. What's up for grabs today?

A day's worth of PS3 deals on Amazon begins with Deal of the Day Heavy Rain, a game seeing increased interest lately due to the addition of PlayStation Move controls. Amazon's got it for $39.99 all day long.

If shouting for your missing son isn't your thing, then perhaps shouting out audibles is? Well too late. The deal on Madden NFL 11 ended at 8AM Pacific time, so you missed your chance to pick it up for $44.99. Instead, we've got Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions with bonus art book for $44.99.

Here are the remaining times and the clues:

10:00AM Pacific: Premium headsets for FPS games. (Obviously a headset.)
11:00AM: Battle as your favorite character in the war that started it all. (Um.)
1:00PM: Bigger hits and broken sticks! (Something sportsy?)
3:00PM: Ready yourself for an epic, retro adventure. (3D Dot Game Heroes)
5:00PM: Battle Soviet forces in an alternate time dimension. (Singularity)
8:00PM: Power up your racing experience. (Blur)

Feel free to fill in the blanks here. I am a horrible guesser.

See anything you like?

Amazon Gold Box Deals [Amazon.com - Thanks ph15h!]

You can't always be seated in front of your gaming rig playing Guild Wars 2, so ArenaNet has devised a way to keep players connected to the upcoming MMO via the iPhone, iPad, and Android phones.

Anyone who has played a massively multiplayer online game seriously understands the constant craving to be connected. You put off other activities, wait until there is no food in the house at all before going shopping, and in those rare instances when you can pull yourself away you get that horrible anxious feeling comes, like you just know you are missing something amazing.

As Rick Ellis, ArenaNet's tech director puts it, "You shouldn't be wondering what your friends are doing in-game; you should always be connected to them to chat. You should be able to help or otherwise contribute to your guild or the game."

And that's where Guild Wars 2 applications for the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android phones come in. Shown off during PAX earlier this month, the applications will let players stay connected to in-game chat while not actively playing. It's all thanks to a two-way data connection that allows information to both exit and enter the game. Most MMO operators prefer to keep that a strictly one-way path due to security concerns, but ArenaNet is taking the chance.

More than just chatting, offline players will be able to help out their online friends, locating them on a map and helping to guide them towards quest destinations, cities, and towns. When dynamic events occur on the map, they can act as a first alert system for their guild, rallying the troops without having to be in game waving a flag about.

Is being constantly connected to an MMO a good thing? That's my one concern about this extended experience initiative of ArenaNet's. If you're always connected to the game, what happens to real life?

Gaming Outside the Game: Rick Ellis Talks The Guild Wars 2 Extended Experience [Guild Wars 2]

While America's current leaders have only discussed but never been photographed playing video games, we've got photographic proof of the U.K.'s deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, using a Wii sans wrist strap.

Clegg played a Wii game — possibly Wii Sports Resort, given press reports that he scored a pair of bullseyes in archery — on Monday at a Liberal Democrat party conference in Liverpool.

Caution is thrown to the wind here, as he ignores using the Wii wrist strap.

His score, and that of other Liberal Democrats, posted on the wall.

Public displays of gaming by our nations' leaders are still rare. Unlike TV-watching, or music-listening, however, gaming isn't an act you can necessarily assume they do or have a clue about. A photo here or there helps.

Your artistic skills were questioned. You answered. For today's Talk Amongst Yourselves, we can't just discuss games. No, we must celebrate your manipulations of beautiful Rubens art.

Job well done, reader Ursus-Veritas. You have saved TAY. For 24 hours, at least. Everyone who wishes may submit this images to #TAYpics.

Aside from that, talk about video games here, will you?

We haven't had a chance to take Hori's HD LCD Monitor 3 for the Playstation 3 for a full test run yet, but I wanted to give you a look at this high-def video monitor in action.

As I mention in the video, the HD LCD Monitor 3 hit Japan in May of this year, but it doesn't hit the U.S. until the end of this week. The 11.6-inch widescreen LCD monitor supports a 720p picture, includes built-in speakers, plugs for headphones and other external composite inputs.

The drawbacks we see with this set-up, at least initially, are that it only works well with the PS3 Slim and it will set you back $250. Yikes! But it is tiny, form-fitting and HD.

To: Crecente
From: Bashcraft
RE: RUN!

Mini-Bash practiced Japanese calligraphy the other day at home! He's pretty good and seemed to have a natural knack for it.

What you missed last night
Japan Goes Bananas For Pokémon: Black And White
Michael Jackson, The Online Game
The Pokémon Movie For Grown-Ups
Do You Love Cars As Much As Gran Turismo 5 Loves Cars?

The future is a mysterious thing. Best to be prepared. So make your video games scalable.

Devil's Third, the upcoming game from Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki and Valhalla Games, is slated for the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

In an interview with Japanese website Game Watch Impress, Itagaki says that his team is making Devil's Third scalable so that it can run on "unannounced hardware." Like the Nintendo 3DS and the PSP2?

Instead of that, Itagaki mentioned that Nintendo might release a "high-end" game machine. He notes that he has no information about this, and this sounds like conjecture on his part.

The game designer also mentioned that he was interested in putting Devil's Third in 3D. "It's less that I like 3D," he joked, "and more that I like 'new things'."

Itagaki's newest game won't be out next year. You'll have to wait until sometime in 2012 (or beyond) for that.

【TGS2010】「Devil's Third」クリエイター板垣伴信氏インタビュー - GAME Watch [Game Watch]

Fighting game Super Street Fighter IV is getting a bunch of new costumes, previously hinted at here. Go ahead, check em out, have a look at them.

CAPCOM：SUPER STREET FIGHTER IV 公式サイト｜システム [Capcom]

On September 18, Pokémon: Black and White went on sale in Japan. It probably did pretty good, right? No, no it didn't. It did amazing.

In its first two days on sale in Japan, Black and White sold 2.63 million copies. By comparison, 2006's Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl sold 1.58 million in its first week on sale in Japan. Even before the game went on sale, it had racked up over 1.5 million pre-orders.

Black and White is the fifth generation Pokémon game and is bringing over 150 new Pocket Monsters to the franchise.

It will be released in the West next year.

ポケットモンスター：最新作「ブラック・ホワイト」が2日間で263万本突破 [MANTANWEB] [Pic]

Like previous Fables, Fable III lets you play home-owner. Unlike previous Fables, however, Fable III lets you put skulls on a bookcase, then blame it all on the butler.

This housing demonstration video shows the kind of stuff you'll be able to do to your home in the game, and if it's all a bit much, you can just let your butler take care of everything for you.