StarCraft is the latest contender in the too-good-to-eat gamecake category. As seen on Reddit (via Hot Blooded Gaming).

After Steve Wiebe reclaimed the world record high score in Donkey Kong in September, the Seattle teacher said there still was "room at the top" left for future challenges. He'll try to beat his own mark in about two weeks.

Wiebe, whose 1,064,500 in Donkey Kong is currently the top mark, thinks a score of 1,150,000 is feasible despite the notorious "Kill Screen" glitch that keeps the game from running infinitely. He'll take three cracks at the mark on Jan. 15 at Chicago's Logan Hardware, and also will conduct a class on how to play Donkey Kong. A seat in the class, if you're in the area, will cost $12.

Logan Hardware is reopening with a collection of 30 golden age arcade games, including Asteroids, Centipede, Frogger, Pac-Man, Joust, Zaxxon, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and many more. Wiebe will go after the Donkey Kong marks in three 90 minute sessions beginning at 3 p.m.

News Release [Logan Hardware]

Some year-end retrospectives play out to the accompaniment of a tinkly piano. Others to a cheese-cloth montage. Our subject here plays out to strains of bow-chicka-bow-bow and the censor bars. It's Kotaku's Year, NSFW. (Warning, NSFW, duh.)

Heavy Rain is Light on Clothing: Midway through the PS3 thriller Heavy Rain, Kotaku reader kuroner declined a kiss from female lead Madison Page, one that ordinarily triggers a steamy love scene. No matter, Madison still got nekkid - for the rest of the game. Playable, too, as this video shows. Happily, the nude bomb affects only her and not Ethan, or Scott. Or the clown.

Mafia II is Watching You Masturbate: Mafia II's period-piece aesthetics extended to the game's unlockables, a collection of 50 vintage Playboy centerfolds. Some of these were unsafe for Japan (which, despite all of its unaccountably weird fetishes, can't show bush.) The game's stats include a timer counting down how much time you spend gazing at boobies from the 1950s and 1960s. And you can't say you were spending that time reading the articles, either.

Kinect-the-Dongs: Kinect arrived in November, and proved that for every advancement in technology, man's first instinct is to create porn with it. Shortly after the device was hacked and open-source drivers became available, sex game maker ThriXXX showed off a fondling simulator that skeeved pretty much everyone and threw local television reporters into predictable hysterics. Microsoft quickly stepped in to assure everyone such a game would never see the light of day on the Xbox 360. ThriXXX is still eyeballing Kinect support for its PC lineup.

The hijinks didn't start or end there, though. Once Dance Central hit the living room, folks realized that the game takes pictures of your performance - even if you play it in the nude. And the sex tech website Slashdong did pioneering research in the field of Kinect penis recognition, finding it can't recognize a dildo the length of the average schlong (5.75 inches). So those of us with rolling pin-sized cocks must wait for Microsoft to detect more subtle protrusions of male equipment before we get the FPFer we deserve.

Videos Worth a Thousand (Four-Letter) Words: NSFW isn't just T&A. It's also wirty dords like shit, fuck, and "bitch, eat that ho." "Snickers" took it to some next-level shit with this two-minute jeremiad about bitches, hos, ho asses and ass hoes. Fahey called the ball perfectly: "I swear at one point he starts remixing his own profanity on the fly, while playing Street Fighter. Now that's talent." Not to be outdone, Team Fortress 2 enthusiast ChoZo went on this 10-minute tirade that included the first ever usage of "rape banner." Oxford's English Dictionary is sure to come calling now. For in-game swearing, after seeing this video (above) by Rooster Teeth, Guinness World Records certified Mafia II as the video game with the most instances of "fuck" (or any of its permutations) in its script.

The Notorious S.M.A.L.L. For some reason, in the middle of a viral spot for Def Jam Rapstar, wrestling icon Hulk Hogan decided to yank up his nuthuggers and flash the camera. Censor bars thankfully spared everyone - Hulk included - from the image. Steroids, I hear they do emasculating things.

Mario Kart Meets Erotic Asphyxiation This is a guy sealed inside a plastic bag playing Mario Kart. What else is there to say?

Crush My Feelings: Back in the spring, GameCrush launched, offering its roster of "attractive," "ladies" for one-on-one gameplay sessions ranging from $6 to $8.25. GameCrush's lasses broke down into categories "Flirty" and "Dirty," snagging 1,200 "PlayDates" within the first week of launch, and furthering the cause of gamer gender equality by spreading the idea that all girls who play Modern Warfare 2 want to screw your brains out. For money.

Alright, Privates! Pioneering studio Zombie Cow boldly took platform shooters where, uh, many men have ventured before, I suppose - an infected vagina. Nominally figleafed as educational on the subjects of sexual health and promiscuity, Privates' first five levels revealed it was, well, the clinical term is "gross." Unsurprisingly, Xbox Live Arcade refused to certify the game, and so it went off to PC-release-only-land. Slated for release next year, Zombie Cow has promised some penis-themed levels in its first DLC extension.

Tron: Legacy has been, at best, a critical disappointment. At worst, well, "a Dora the Explorer movie would be more interesting." Who said that? The eight-year-old daughter of noted video game academic Ian Bogost.

Bogost, whose "Cow Clicker" Facebook application this year masterfully blended his talent for games criticism and design, today received a four-paragraph review of Tron: Legacy from his daughter, who suggested that it was "appropriate for blogging." She doesn't mince words: "Now if you've already seen the movie and don't agree with me, then you probably have really bad taste."

Slamming it as "worse than Dora," and delivering fatal levels of boredom, Miss Bogost concludes the $10 ticket would be better spent on the animated Rapunzel biopic Tangled. That's not to say she liked nothing about Tron: Legacy, "The only part I liked was when they played "Separate Ways" by Journey," she said, identifying a song released 19 years before she was born.

"I guess if you like to sit and watch Boom! Boom! Boom! for two hours you can go see it," she writes.

I think we know from which side of the family she got her criticism gene.

Review of Tron Legacy (by my Eight-Year-Old) [Bogost.com]

There's a difference between dead and lifeless, as this iPhone port of Dead Rising unfortunately demonstrates.

Tedious mission design, bad frameskip and close - I mean very close - redraw distances, plus a slapped-on social networking feature, don't do the Dead Rising brand any favors in Dead Rising Mobile. Its sludgy virtual stick controls are the least of your worries.

It may be tempting, especially for those looking for meatier, console-style experiences on this platform. There certainly are a lot of bullet-point features that on paper might justify a $6.99 price tag. But they don't come together in any kind way that compels your attention, and the return to a bland, Willamette Mall is devoid of nostalgia.

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Some Things I Like About America

Sweet Baby Rays! I love that stuff. But how could you, a Texas guy, leave out barbecue. You know that means you're going to Texas Hell... El Paso.

What you missed
Review: The World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm MMO Mouse Caters Shamelessly
Do Cheap Tactics Ruin Online Multiplayer?
It's Not Easy Being Deaf In World Of Warcraft
The Year in Controversies

Joseph Bonneau, a PhD candidate at the Security Group, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, contacted us to report a problem he found with non-Latin character passwords (Unicode) on Gawker Media sites:

I discovered that, after creating an account with the password 'ДДДДДДДД', I was able to successfully log in by typing '簡簡簡簡簡簡簡簡,' as well as 'ႤႤႤႤႤႤႤႤ', '©©©©©©©©'. It turns out that any string of exactly 8 characters whose unicode code point is >= 128 will be accepted. I've looked carefully at the implementation of crypt in PHP and across several platforms I tried, this is not a library problem-somehow your server is converting all of the non-ASCII characters to some fixed value prior to calling crypt() with them. It is worth noting that 'ДДДДДДДx' is not accepted when 'ДДДДДДДД' is the registered password-so a check is still being done. However, if 'ДДДДДДДx' is the registered password then '©©©©©©©x' is accepted. The most plausible explanation I can come up with is that your code is mapping all non-ASCII characters onto some canonical character (maybe �), and thus ignoring the actual character value in the hash. I'd be
curious to see exactly how/where in your stack this occurs.

The issue was in jBCrypt, a library we use for password hashing, and is outlined here. The non-technical explanation is that this issue (outlined by Joe above) affects non-Latin characters (e.g Korean word for 'password': 비밀 번호), Latin characters with accent marks, and other characters that are not in standard English usage (e.g German: Füße).

How does this affect you? It does not affect most of our users — If you are not using non-Latin characters for your password, there is nothing to do (see wikipedia for more information on the characters that are not affected — US-ASCII). If you do use characters that are non-Latin, you should reset your password to ensure it is updated to fully support these special characters.

Joe did add one more comment: "I do think users are best to avoid non-ASCII though, since it's less portable." While is it not required, I do agree with him on this point. You can still create a very secure password using the US-ASCII character set.

As a side note, you should know that we do welcome suggestions to improve our platform. Joe is one of several to do so, and the suggestions are both taken seriously and much appreciated. Send your security related comments to security at gawker dot com.

Thanks, Joe.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 wanted to see a team spirit on its new Vietnam DLC package before unlocking a remastered Operation: Hastings map. PC players have answered the call first, passing the 69 million "team action" threshold required earlier today.

By comparison, the Xbox 360 community is about halfway there (37 million team actions), and the PS3 community trails that total by 10 million. What's a team action? It's the three Rs and an H. And an S. Resupply, revive, repair, heal and spot. Any of those carried out in BFBC2 Vietnam, retroactive to its release date, counts toward the unlock total.

The glorious PC community's triumph could be attributed to any number of factors. Maybe it has more players, or more players putting in more time. Or maybe they are more selfless and public-spirited.

Naaaaah.

Battle for Hastings [Battlefield: Bad Company 2 official site, via The Escapist]

One of your resolutions for 2011 should probably be "play more Rock Band 3." Harmonix is encouraging that kind of behavior with a long list of new additions to its full band music game, including an injection of Johnny Cash.

The Man In Black will lead off Rock Band 3's list of downloadable songs with an eight pack of Cash classics charted for the full band. Looks like two of the eight can be upgraded to Pro Bass and Pro Guitar difficulty for a buck.

On top of that, Harmonix will throw in a nonet of freebies for Rock Band 3 owners comprised of previously released tracks. The full list of songs coming to your console of choice on January 4 are as follows.

Johnny Cash Pack 01 (Xbox 360, Wii, PS3)

• "Cry, Cry, Cry"
• "Don't Take Your Guns to Town"
• "Five Feet High and Rising"
• "Folsom Prison Blues"
• "I Got Stripes"
• "I Walk the Line" (Pro Upgrade Available)
• "Tennessee Flat Top Box" (Pro Upgrade Available)
• "The Ballad of Ira Hayes"

Rock Band Free Pack 01 (Xbox 360, PS3)

• Abnormality – "Visions"
• Anarchy Club – "Get Clean"
• Bang Camaro – "Night Lies"
• Breaking Wheel – "Shoulder to the Plow"
• Libyans – "Welcome to the Neighborhood"
• The Main Drag – "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter"
• Speck – "Conventional Lover"
• The Sterns – "Supreme Girl"
• That Handsome Devil – "Rob the Prez-O-Dent"

When the mainstream debate turns to violent video games, it's inevitable that someone will dredge up Postal. It's like the triple dog dare, or comparing someone to Hitler, a completely bogus trump card with no real argumentative value.

George Rose, the chief public policy officer for Activision Blizzard, finally called bullshit today in a guest editorial appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle. Postal, of course, was released 13 years ago on PC and neither it nor its sequel appeared on any games console. Rose calls it a "video game dinosaur" and "a commercial flop dropped by mainstream retailers long ago.

"To whip up drama and hysteria where none justifiably exists, zealots supporting this movement cite the worst of the worst," Rose wrote. "No single movie, television program or video game defines an industry and justifies sweeping regulation, which is why the anecdotal example of Postal is disingenuous."

This isn't so much red meat for the video games base as it is getting something on the record for the mainstream public. Not that Postal won't continue to be invoked, and that larger media outfits won't continue to take the bait. But it's good to hear a senior executive call it out, all the same.

That said, Postal may have been a 1997 release and Postal 2 came out in 2003. But Postal 3 is said to be due for a release sometime in the first three months of 2011, sure to make that series current again in some folks minds. Rose's larger point is against the California law against violent video games, which the Supreme Court will rule on sometime next year. I'm sure Running With Scissors would time Postal 3's release the day of the Court's decision if it could.

California Ban of Violent Video Games Must Go [San Francisco Chronicle, via MTV Multiplayer]