A 21-year-old Wisconsin man is ina spot of troubleafter using a fraternity debit card to unlawfully spend over $12,000 on videogames. Rather than accept responsibility for his crimes, Jose Taverez has adopted the American way of blaming other things, in this case his crushing videogame addiction. Poor Jose! “Tavarez … told police he used a fraternity debit card to buy videogames because his bank account is linked to his parents’ and he did not want them seeing that he spent his money on the games,” reports theWisconsin State Journal....

Nintendo is set to debut a video service for the Wii in 2009. Of course — as of right now — it is only slated to hit Japan. According to a CVGreport(viaReuters) the service will feature unannounced original content consisting of cartoons as well as other kinds of video “entertainment.” The service is being constructed in coordination with Japanese ad company, Dentsu. Some of the content will be free. This news is a bit of a surprise, mainly because this is the first thing Nintendo has done with the Wii that has any resemblance to what other consoles are providing this generation....

Not sold on Nintendo’s Virtual Console? Slightly nauseated by the idea of shelling out $8 to play a 15-year-old Super Nintendo game that’s received zero graphical, gameplay, or online upgrades whatsoever? Don’t worry; the folks over atWiiCadehave got you covered. For the low cost of “free,” WiiCade will offer a collection of Wii-friendly Flash games. Whenever Nintendo decides to unleash the Wii Opera browser upon the world, users will be able to browse the WiiCade site to find a collection of soon-to-be classics such asCrazy Koalaand the puzzling canine antics ofJack Russell....

Oh Tecmo, is there any shameless low to which you won’t sink? Continued editing of one’s own Wikipedia page isn’t always considered a classy use of one’s time, even less so when you’re attemptingto wallpaper oversome messy legal proceedings. A Tecmo employee has recently been dabbling with the company’s Wiki page in an attempt to obscure information, most notably details about who quit the company last year amidst the notorious Itagaki vs....

It’s time to get serious once again! We have 20,yes 20,Serious Sam HD: Second Encountercodes to give away for the PC this week. The new game is out on April 28 and will be arriving on Xbox Live Arcade later this Spring. To win a code for Steam, just take a picture of yourself with a very serious face. Make sure something Destructoid ORSerious Samrelated is in the image (you cannot use any sort of photo editing program to alter images) and leave the picture in the comments below....

You already own multiple versions of the originalSonic the Hedgehoggames, but hey, why not add a few more to that list? I know I did. Now would be the time to do so, as the Xbox LIVE Arcade versions are available on the cheap for today only. For the same price asSonic & Knuckles, you could get a virtual, remote-controlled Sonic car for your Avatar. You can’t makethis stuff up. And, lastly,The Notebookhas been marked down to $4....

ArtistOwen Denniswanted to see what a retro styleStarCraftwould look like. This video above is the result of his curiosity. It also shows us thatStarCraftwould be extremely boring as an Atari type game. The nuclear blast part is pretty cool though.

Jesus Christ, Capcom! You’re giving too much awesome stuff away to your fans. Just stop it already. It’s starting to look like you actually care about your fans! On top of theResident EvilandMonster Hunterfreebies comes someAce Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworththemed swag. Just hit up the Capcom booth, play the Miles Edgeworth demo and you’ll get either a branded gift tin, a Blue Badger DS strap orAce Attorneythemed … towel. Yeah. The game’s producer, Motohide Eshiro, will also be at the show speaking at the Capcom Lineup Panel on Thursday and he’ll be signing autographs....

It’s that time of year again — spring training is in full swing, and the start of the baseball season is right around the corner. That’s for the big leagues, though; since kids have that pesky nuisance of, y’know, school, the Little League World Series doesn’t kick off until the summer. That’s when you can expect to see Activision’sLittle League World Series Baseball 2009hit store shelves for the Wii and DS....

If there’s one thing PC gamers are good at, its petitions. The computer crowd will get up in arms over everything, but at least this time the cause is somewhat righteous. Microsoftrecently revealedthatAlan Wake, for the most ludicrous of reasons, has been canceled on the PC. Naturally, PC gamers are unhappy, and have formed yet another alliance. TheAlan WakePC petition currently has over 13,000 signatures, and that number is expected to climb....

A game calledBubble Ballwas created by a 14-year-old, and it somehow managed to knock the long-running top iOS game Angry Birds from the top of the sales charts. Robert Nay, an eighth grader living in Spanish Fork, Utah, so he’s one of us. Under his company, Nay Games, he launched his game on the App Store late last month. Now it has hit about two million downloads. Damn, kid! It’s just another physics-based game, but people are digging it enough to take Angry Birds down off the top of Apple’s free apps charts....

Even though the PSPGo launches in North America this afternoon, bundles for the other Sony-branded portable device — the PSP-3000 — are still coming. Hitting this November, the white PSP-3000Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlinespackage offers a bunch of content for 200 bones. Retailer Amazon.com hasan image of the back of the boxwhich not only reveals the pack-in stuff, but also speaks briefly to how the PSP version of the game will be able to talk to the PS3 version ofAssassin’s Creed 2....

Today, EA showed off a new trailer for the current running free-to-play online shooterBattlefield Heroes. It shows off a new set of skins that you can purchase for your character based on the barbarians of the north. The video announces this with a nice little sense of humor, showing off the ensuing chaos as these savages are given guns to replace their old weapons. You can prepare to put on your leather underwear and go berserk right away as the Savage Heroes pack is currently out forBattlefield Heroes....