Forget all the competitive, professional tournaments. This is the tournament I want to watch.

NeoGAF user TheFightingFish uploaded this picture of his two adorable children, dressed up as Chun-Li and Ryu and fighting as Chun-Li versus Ryu.

Although he didn't win the arcade stick photo contest the photo originally appeared in, they win the day for the most adorable round of Street Fighter to date.

Post New Pics of Yourself 2012 Edition [NeoGAF via Reddit]

Halo 4 will be out on November 6, 2012, publisher Microsoft said today.

That's also the day Americans will vote for the next President. My money's on Cortana.

The upcoming Xbox 360-exclusive first-person shooter will mark "the first chapter of a brand new Halo saga," the company said. This will be the first entry in the series developed exclusively by studio 343 Industries.

Microsoft says we'll get to see more about Halo 4 on Conan O'Brien's late-night show tonight.

@RobSemsey [Twitter]

Welcome to Kotaku's official forum, known affectionately as Talk Amongst Yourselves. This is the place where we gather on a daily basis to discuss all things video game and existential. Want to talk about new games, old games, games that aren't even out yet? Knock yourselves out!

This TAYpic comes courtesy of kaploy9 channels the massively uncoordinated running game QWOP. As wacky as he looks, Kicking Guy looks far more athletic than QWOP ever did in my time with the game.

HEY, EVERYONE! WE'RE RUNNING LOW ON YOUR HILARIOUS TAYpics. PLEASE MAKE SOME MORE! PRETTY PLEASE?

You can do funny things with pictures, right? Want everyone on this fine web forum to see? Here's what you do. Post your masterpieces in the #TAYpics thread. Don't forget to keep your image in a 16x9 ratio if you want a slice of Talk Amongst Yourselves glory. Grab the base image here. The best ones will be featured in future installments of Talk Amongst Yourselves. Create something wonderful, won't you?

The Space Shuttle Discovery got flown to Washington, D.C. today, on the back of a 747 jumbo jet. Regular folks are snapping some terrific photos as Discovery makes its way to the Smithsonian. Here's a sampling from various online sources.

Follow the #spottheshuttle tag on Twitter for tons more amazing photos. Add your own in the comments below.

First pic by John Stockton, Flickr.

Pic by John Stockton, Flickr.

Shuttle-on-plane photographed near Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Pic by Herrea, Flickr.

Here's the shuttle flying over the White House, taken by one Rick Prisinzano and shared via Twitter.

And here's one from NASA themselves, so you can see how Discovery got loaded on board in the first place.

JUST ADDED: A great one via Ethan Klapper on Instagram.

JUST ADDED: Video of the take-off, via YouTube.

Here's the first trailer for Bethesda's Dishonored, a first-person stealth action game that the publisher will release this year for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

We get to meet the main character, Corvo, who is apparently framed for an assassination he didn't commit. And we get to see the steampunk-inspired open world, which is kinda BioShocky. I dig.

Dishonored is helmed by French developer Arkane Studios.

The number one rule in Star Trek fiction states that the Federation can't mess with the development of other planets. Looks to me like that whatever planet Kirk and Spock are on is freakin' crumbling. Surely, that counts as messing with development, right? Nevertheless, Starfleet's most famous officers are finally coming back to video games in an new action title developed by Digital Extremes. Each iconic character will have different abilities in the co-op adventure but you're not really seeing any of that here. Mostly what you'll see is running and jumping and shooting.

Digital Extremes has a mixed track record so far, having done the multiplayer portion of BioShock 2 and all of The Darkness 2. Still, I'm excited to get to play as everybody's human/Vulcan buddy system. You expect to beam aboard the Enterprise early next year when Namco Bandai releases next year.

The grassroots initiative to generate a sequel to old-school CRPG Wasteland wrapped up last night by getting more than triple the amount that InXile Entertainment was asking for. In addition to the $2,933,147 raised on Kickstarter, $108,803 has donated through PayPal.

Passing $3,000,000 means that a mod kit will be made available for the in-development RPG, meaning that players of the post-apocalyptic game will be able to graft their own inventions onto the release. So, money's coming in and development is surely happening. All that's left is the waiting, right?

Wasteland 2 [Kickstarter]

I haven't played Mass Effect 3 yet. As a big fan of the franchise, I've been meaning to. But I had a very important task at hand before tackling the last game in the trilogy. I needed to replay Mass Effect 2.

(Mass Effect 2 spoilers ahead.)

In my first playthrough of the sequel, I felt a bit rushed. I was on a tight review schedule and didn't analyze every facet of the game as meticulously as I would've liked. So, forgoing some very important ship upgrades, I fell victim to a sloppy mistake and lost some of my teammates. And I lost someone very important to me.

If you aren't a stranger to BioWare's Mass Effect franchise—or, heck, just BioWare games in general—you'll know that the companions you gather along your adventures can become your friends, and these friendships can even develop into romantic relationships.

My female Shepard initially took to Garrus, a blue, Turian alien who had battled with me through the treacheries of the first installment in the action/RPG franchise. We had memories together. We fought together. We helped each other through our desperate situations by cracking jokes and complimenting each other's skills with weapons. Basically, we bonded.

But not all meaningful relationships have to become romantic. I realized that Garrus wasn't meant for one of those relationships with me when I started to pursue a romance with him in Mass Effect 2. He was nervous. He fumbled with his words and immediately started contemplating the science of interspecies intercourse. He turned what I wanted to be sweet and playful flirtation into what felt like cold analysis. At best he would say these things to me in a cooing voice. Don't get me wrong, I still loved Garrus. But I realized that while he was a trustworthy friend, someone I could rely on, he wouldn't be able to give me the relationship I wanted.

And I had no hesitation about that thought once I met Thane. Being an assassin, Thane is cool and collected. He's thoughtful and pensive. He typically keeps to himself, but he's easy to talk to once you sit down with him. He has an interesting background and even more interesting perspectives on life and his career. I don't agree with his spiritual beliefs, but I respect his dedication to them. I wanted to hear every story he had to tell me. About how he met his first wife, and about his feelings towards his son. He called me "Siha" and explained that it meant a warrior angel. I like the sound of the term of endearment he chose for me, and I like its definition even more. Thane is a romantic. He is also a poet, and a philosopher. Plus, he dresses pretty well.

But this would be a complicated relationship. Thane, like all Drell, is susceptible to Kepral's Syndrome, which is something of a respiratory disease. He knows he is going to die some time in the foreseeable future. He's told me as much. But Shepard can't help but fall in love with him regardless.

To my great dismay, Thane didn't survive the trip through Omega 4 Relay. I didn't realize how critical the ship upgrades would be. Worse still was that I had to watch as he and a few others died during a cinematic cut scene, completely out of my control. I'd spent hours with these people, helping them with their respective missions, lending both my rifle and my shoulder for support. After all that, it only took a few seconds and a few lucky hits of a laser to wipe them from my universe's existence.

I knew that I'd be replaying Mass Effect 2 before the final game came out. There was no way I was going to go through Mass Effect 3 without Thane. Jack was a loss. Legion I could live without. But Thane? Thane was worth another 40 hours of my gaming time.

I took the opportunity to complete every side mission, every dialogue option, and every single upgrade. It didn't matter if it was for a shotgun I'd never use. I spent hours mining resources from planets for it anyway. I wasn't going to leave one stone unturned. Not this time.

I wanted to hear more of his sweet nothings. I wanted to see how our relationship would continue to evolve. I wanted to either watch the world burn, or watch it come to a victory with Thane at my side in Mass Effect 3.

Here's the kicker: Thane survived, but I didn't even get to romance him. I screwed up some other decisions while trying to keep him alive. You should have seen my frustration while I was about to embark on the Omega 4 Relay mission for a second time, knowing that it wouldn't end in Thane sex. I looked through my save files and figured out that I'd have to backtrack about 13 hours to rectify this offense. Thane was worth the extra 40 hours. Another 13, though? Nah. 80 was enough.

What kind of World of Warcraft does Blizzard expect us to live in when the red male Pandaren doesn't have a long floofy tail? It just doesn't make sense.

I was cautiously optimistic that the Mists of Pandaria expansion would feature enough new content to keep the game interesting for another couple of years. Now that blue posters on the WoW forums have confirmed that red Pandaren males will not be getting the same bouncy tail as the female Pandaren, I'm pretty sure Blizzard will be out of business within months. Activision will sell them off, Diablo III be damned. They'll offload them to Perfect World Entertainment or maybe Nexon; anything to escape the taint of the stumpy-tailed red panda.

Hee. I said taint.

Perhaps I am overreacting just a little. After all, Blizzard did add in red skins for the Pandaren males, previous limited to the black-and-white color scheme of traditional pandas. That the males got red options at all is a triumph for red panda fans everywhere. Why not give males the floofy tails as well? According to blue poster Wryxian, Blizzard prefers the distinction.

Earlier this morning in the World of Warcraft Europe forums, Wryxian put the matter to bed once and for all.

We consider the pandaren models pretty much done: i.e. the distinctive longer tails for female red-coloured pandaren, that we like, are there to stay.

Let's say it like this: we don't want to repeat the female worgen on this one. We don't want to second-guess the design.

I'm going to read that as "Blizzard fears male red panda tails." It's okay. They are pretty intimidating.

Feedback: Red Panda Male Tail [World of Warcraft EU Forums]
Image: Red Panda Network

Girl's RPG: Cinderellife is the newest game by Level-5. Far from the puzzle solving of Professor Layton or the giant armored suits of White Knight Chronicles, this title is directed toward the female gamer demographic—just as the name suggests. But what exactly is a "Girls RPG," I wondered. Is it about a strong female protagonist, trying to make it in a man's world? Or is it a more stereotypical girl's tale about princesses, unicorns, and evil witches? Despite having one too many Y-chromosomes (or one too few X-chromosomes as the case may be), I decided I had to find out. But nothing could have possibly prepared me for what Girl's RPG: Cinderellife really is: a game romanticizing the life of a Japanese hostess. So please, join me in this insanity as I share with you my notes of the first hour of gameplay.

00:00 The title screen—made entirely out of varying shades of pink—starts with the theme song asking questions like "How can she be so beautiful?" and "Isn't everyone else jealous?" and stating that "her beauty will bring happiness to the world." Remember, girls: outward beauty is the most important thing.

00:30 The warning message (and all other text in the game, actually) shows the phonetic reading for all the Kanji (Chinese characters), proving this is indeed a game aimed at young children. Not teens or adults—but impressionable young girls.

02:00 Oh goodie, time for character creation. Let's see, my possible choices of body type are: 1) Anorexic and flat 2) anorexic and busty, 3) thin and flat, and 4) thin and busty. Remember, girls: No fatties allowed.

03:00 Apparently this guy on the jumbotron went from being a normal high school student to a billionaire CEO in just one year. Now his greatest goal is searching for the beautiful legendary "butterfly of happiness." Young, hot, and rich? I smell a love interest!

05:00 Oh but how can a plain girl like me ever compare to these beautiful hostesses? I mean, I have pig tales and straight black hair! Truly so very ugly. No make-over could ever make ::gasp-sob:: me beautiful!

06:00 Alright. So far in this game, I've been "propositioned" to work for a hostess club and now live and work in a flower shop.

15:00 Oh no you guys, my character's cell phone totally has Twitter. If it has Tumblr too, I may never progress in this game.

18:00 My character has just discovered the hostesses she met earlier were in fact hostesses and not professional models like she had assumed. Also, men frequenting the hostess club seem to be the majority of my flower shop's customer base. Poor deluded saps... Welp, off to the club to deliver some roses!

21:00 On the main street, I just passed an Irish pub called "Bar Never Knows."

25:00 In the club—named "Castle" just in case we needed to make the modern-day Cinderella cliché clearer—my character has come across an old high school friend. She is now telling my character all about the romantic life of working in a hostess club—which, as far as I always understood it, is pretending to be interested in a guy while getting him drunk on very expensive sake. I don't think my definition matches hers….

26:00 …And now "just for fun" they've hoed me up like a hostess. How nice of them. M-Maybe I can actually ::gasp:: be beautiful!?

27:00 So I've been left all alone in these expensive clothes and now have to enter the ballroom. But isn't that where all the male customers are? I can sense a misunderstanding coming.

28:00 The "Princess" of the "Castle" just entered the main ballroom. Apparently, men orgasm at the mere sight of her. Women, on the other hand, turn lesbian and THEN orgasm at the sight of her.

30:00 A rich foreign (read: white) guy, recently come to Japan, has decided to be my escort for the evening. My first actual choice in the game is A) complementing his Japanese, B) offering to show him around, or C) asking him what he's seen so far. I chose the Japanese stereotypical reaction and complemented his Japanese... it was the right answer.

31:00 The more of these conversations I do, the more I see that I should just agree with whatever he says. Remember, girls: don't be yourself, present yourself as whatever men want you to be.

36:00 WTF! The Princess just cockblocked me! (or whatever the female equivalent may be). Here I am, in the middle of a conversation mini game, and she sends a butler over to interrupt and demand to speak with my date. It is SO on!

36:15 Um, wow. The Princess has both a crown and little roses literally blooming off of her at all times. I… I don't know how to compete with that.

40:00 Welp, I did so well pretending to be a hostess that the club is offering me a gift: The chance to do it again, of course!

41:00 So, at this point, they are offering me the choice of becoming a hostess or not. I wonder if picking "no" at this point is really an option. Only one way to find out.

41:30 Selecting "I don't want to be" starts a conversation loop where everyone peer-pressures me into joining. Remember girls: if ever you feel hesitant about making yourself into a sex object for men, just be sure to let your friends force you into it. Surely they know better than you. *Note: if you say no a second or third time, it just keeps looping.

47:00 Wow! Now that's a sudden change. I'm currently watching a pair of scientists examining a giant glowing crystal and containers full of butterflies in their search for the "butterfly of happiness."

55:00 I like how in the game hostesses aren't called hostesses; they're called "Neogennu"—a made-up word that means nothing but sounds foreign. It's like calling a prostitute a "Iminashi" and expecting that to quash any moral implications.

58:00 My high school friend just came by and gave me a $500 signing bonus so I can go buy a new dress. Let's get our shopping on!

1:00:00 But do I really have the hips for this? I just don't know…

Girl's RPG: Cinderellife was released in Japan on March 8, 2012 for the Nintendo 3DS. There is currently no word on an international release.