With a (mostly) disappointing launch lineup and some niggling problems, it's easy to get down on Microsoft's Kinect. Try sparing a thought, though, for the parents of a four year-old autistic boy, for which it's been a revelation.

Gaming Nexus writer John Yan has penned an account of his experiences playing with Kinect with his son, who with autism finds controlling a game and navigating menus with a control pad difficult.

Kinect, though? By making him the controller, he was not only able to easily pick up how to play the games, but could find his way around normally-abstract things like menu screens.

It won't go changing your mind on how useful a product it is for you, but it's a touching story to end your day with regardless.

I think Kinect is OK, but it's the best $150 I spent on a console [Gaming Nexus]

At least, that's what these new commercials for the console in Latin America are saying.

The Move one below is...OK, but boy that top one is something special. It's great to see some quality PlayStation ads again that don't involve Kevin Butler. It's not that I don't like Kevin, it's just...he's very brash, and Sony's thing used to cool and classy ads, not fake executives talking shit.

Britain's hedgehog population is in crisis, with many falling victim to roadkill. Sega staged a "hedgehog road crossing" to raise awareness of the creatures, and, of course, Sonic Colors. Here one's fitted with red booties. Seen via Daily Mail.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let's put this Wednesday to rest with a little off topic conversation as we enter... Kotaku After Dark!

My day was busy writing about video games, buying video games, playing video games and making travel arrangements for the holidays. If you're in the New York City or Orlando areas next month, I'll see you there! What holiday based plans are you making a month in advance? And what else is going on in your life?

Hit us square in the comments and talk about whatever strikes your fancy.

• ThinkGeek's My First Bacon talking plush - Even your vegan infant will love it!
• The FDA's new proposed cigarette warning labels look fun - "Give me the one with tracheotomy guy"
• Google's Instant Preview looks... like something I'll never use, actually - Might be good for avoiding shock porn/gore sites though!
• OK Go's "Last Leaf" - That's a LOT of toast.

Adafruit, which laid a $3,000 bounty for the first open source driver for the Kinect, has declared a winner. "Hector" delivered the goods, verified as workable by a third party in the hacking community.

He's putting the $3,000 toward "hacking tools and devices for a group of people he works with closely," on projects such as the iPhone, Wii, and others. "They don't have much expendable income to buy tools and devices to hack, and sometimes this hobby can be a bit expensive, this will be a good investment that will allow them to hack more and newer devices."

Writes Hector: "Here's my take on the Kinect driver. Supports depth and RGB images and displays them on an OpenGL window. It's very hacky right now but it does prove the concept :)"

Adafruit also said it's using the bounty claim occasion to donate another $2,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "They defend our digital rights, our right to hack, reverse engineer and do things like this project," Adafruit wrote.

You may recall Microsoft vowed to ""work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant." Adafruit made the EFF donation to recognize its advocacy for tinkerers, programmers and, yes, hackers to perform such reverse engineering.

WE HAVE A WINNER – Open Kinect driver(s) released – Winner will use $3k for more hacking – PLUS an additional $2k goes to the EFF! [Adafruit, thanks Ryan C]

Electronic Arts will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC users hard next year with a trio of newly unveiled games, sci-fi stealth action game Warp, twin-stick shooter Gatling Gears and Flash-based platforming game The Fancy Pants Adventures.

Warp comes to us from the newly signed EA Partners member Trapdoor. The XBLA, PSN and PC game is touted as a "sci-fi stealth action game unlike any you've seen before" with a "distinctive art style, addicting levels, hazardous traps and challenging puzzles." Expect it to hit next summer.

Gatling Gears, pictured above in tiny size, comes from Vanguard Games. It's from the creators of Greed Corp and is "set within the same Mistbound universe featuring signature elements like collapsing land, walker units and warring factions."

Finally, lo-fi, Flash-based platformer The Fancy Pants Adventures is making the jump to PSN and XBLA next year. With 100 million plays under its belt already, you might be familiar with it. If not, you can play it online now.

SSX, the snowboard supercross game, was one of the most acclaimed series on the defunct EA Sports Big nameplate, but hasn't seen a new release since a poorly received Wii title in 2007. That might change with "SSX Deadly Descent."

Superannuation, cataloger of all prospective video game paperwork, noticed five sites all have been registered to Electronic Arts: DeadlyDescent.com, DeadlyDescents.com, SSXDeadlyDescent.com, SSXDeadlyDescents.com and SSXFirstDescent.com

Scrawl notes that "First Descent" could be a handheld or Wii version of the main title, a plausible theory. For now, it's just a domain name. But if Big alumnus SSX is coming back, can we get some NBA Street up in here too?

EA Registers SSX: Deadly Descent Domains [Scrawl]

If you care deeply about pixel counts and frame rate—or are simply still on the fence about which console version of Call of Duty: Black Ops to buy—don't miss Digital Foundry's deep technical tear down of the Xbox 360 and PS3 releases.

Eurogamer's techy side examines the two console versions of Treyarch's latest Call of Duty game, judging it by resolution, texture quality, frame rate and even which platform spits out a better stereoscopic 3D experience. Digital Foundry's analysis ultimately says "there's little doubt that the Xbox 360 offers the better experience: superior image definition, and a pleasingly smoother run of play."

(The PC version of Black Ops, which has its own ups and downs, is not factored into the comparison.)

The results likely won't be a surprise to discriminating Call of Duty fans, as the site's analysis of last year's Modern Warfare 2 resulted in a similar conclusion.

If the only thing preventing you from picking up a copy of Black Ops is the number of vertical lines on the screen or the mip-map quality of a cigarette pack texture, this is required reading before a purchase.

Face-Off: Call of Duty: Black Ops [Eurogamer]

Was it really a year ago that Modern Warfare 2 was the it-release, and its night vision goggles were the opulent special edition premium. This cake doesn't celebrate that anniversary, it's for "stepTOF," from his girlfriend. Sent in by TEAMCHINA.

What if you took New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS and hacked a complete recreation of Super Mario 3 into the thing? Well, why stop there? Why not put some Metroid and Legend of Zelda in there too?

Well, someone did that, creating the hacked New Super Mario Bros. 3, which not only puts recent Mario powers like the ability to shrink and wear a blue Koopa shell into classic NES era levels, the fan-made game also injects tons of bonus content. There are Metroid-themed zones, classic levels from Super Mario Bros. 2 and much, much more. If you're looking for the hardest of the hardcore New Super Mario Bros. challenges, this might be up your alley.

New Super Mario Bros. 3 [Final Trailer] [YouTube - thanks, Reducks!]