You have to love Japan's ability to be perfectly blatant about their obsession with all things kinky (but stammer in public over the slightest little embarrassing thing). It's all so ... in the closet. Yet you can buy spanking games for the DS (not to mention sweat-mopping and witch-touching).

The latest in this deliciously passive/aggressive series of DS titles is KimokawaE, a game which allows you to spank one of the characters and displays a nice shot of her butt and other, uh, prominently displayed goods for your smacking pleasure. She also pees on things and takes baths. Don't ask me why I would expect anything less random from Japan.

The game comes out Christmas day in Japan. Surprise, I got you a spanking simulator!

[Via Kotaku]

Former Shadowrun Community Manager Kimona has announced that the official Shadowrun forums will be shutting down within the next two weeks. With the game's developer FASA having closed its doors, there simply weren't enough people on payroll to monitor the forums. 

"We'll eventually close down www.shadowrun.com," Kimona adds, "and transition it to the folks working on the next generation of Shadowrun products." 

Whether or not those products will be videogames remains to be seen, but it's unlikely we'll see Shadowrun home appliances or microwave dinners. For those still looking to discuss Shadowrun, Kimona suggests the forums on Xbox.com. We suggest moving on to another game.

Sometimes rumors aren't just rumors: Mitch Gitelman has announced that FASA Studio is no more. In a post on the official Shadowrun message board, Gitelman (FASA Studio) broke the news:

Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios. While the rumors have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didn’t want people’s attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love.

Gitelman goes on to assure fans of the game that support for the title would continue, as they'll be keeping their Community Manager and Technical Support Manager on the job. He also states that about half of the FASA team have moved on to other positions within Microsoft.

Seeing as how rumors have been circulating since earlier this year (when an ex-employee posted talk of the studio being cut from Microsoft), this isn't surprising news. Still, regardless of what you thought of Shadowrun (which was actually pretty good, despite early negativity), it's sad to see any losses like this in the industry.

Yeah, I know Nex brought you a Shadowrun preview done by some peoples I've never heard of, but now that the NDA has lifted, I thought I'd give you a proper perspective on this game ... as it now stands. And really, who do you trust more than me and my opinion? Nobody, that's who. Hit the jump for the quick and easy breakdown of why you want this game, FPS fans. view full story + comments

Shadowrun is an upcoming multiplatform release for the Xbox 360 and Windows PCs that will allow online play bridging the two disparate platforms. We can all agree on that, right? Good. Now that that's settled, I want to make a list of things that Shadowrun is not:

Shadowrun is not that pretty girl who never called you back after one date even though you thought there was a really special connection there.

Shadowrun is not liquid gold in the form of two beautiful twins willing to submit to your every fantasy.

Shadowrun is not the second coming of a Christ-like figure who shoots rainbows from his eyes and buys you a puppy every time you have a bad day.

Shadowrun is not the ultimate usurper of Counterstrike's claim to the "most-played online FPS of all time".

Then again, according to this article on UGO, I'm apparently totally wrong. While I support the use of superlatives and (confusingly complex swears), the following statement from their preview only shows that it's very possible to type coherently with one hand while giving handjobs to development teams with the other;

Shadowrun is definitely looking to usurp the enduringly popular Counter-Strike, especially when you consider the fact that it will in fact be the first game to offer cross-platform PC and Xbox 360 play. And the way things look right now, it could possibly do just that.

We appreciate their use of non-committal terms like "possibly", "looking to" and "the", but comparing an unreleased title to a game that uses more bandwidth on a daily basis than Skynet and Bram Cohen combined, is tantamount to comparing oranges to other, really sexy oranges that shun the first oranges for having terrible skin and being bad at sports; it's just not done.