Hawkeye to Cameo in Thor (Bleeding Cool)

Samuel L. Jackson Saying M*th*erf*ck*r (NSFW) (Abaurre3)

8 Hard Lessons 2010 Taught The Entertainment Industry (Wired)

World’s Smallest Periodic Table Etched on Hair of Worlds Adorablest British Scientist (Periodic Videos)

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer Restage Labyrinth; Gaiman is Bowie (Amanda Palmer)

Nintendo Warns Against 3DS Graphics for Young Kids (Ars Technica)

Gallery of Original Background Art from Masters of the Universe (Robert Lamb)

(Dougtrio pic via Reddit.)

X-Men Arcade Game Coming to XBLA and PSN (GameInformer)

Streaming 3D Movies on the 3DS? (GameRant)

NYCC Cosplay Day 2 (Kotaku)

Now is the Time To Buy Comics On Amazon.uk (Bleeding Cool)

A Pessimist’s Guide to the Future (The Globe and Mail)

Largest Lego Mosaic Ever? (GeekDad)

A Cuddlesome Cowlike Cthulu Milked by A Brave Milkmaid (Joystiq)

(pic via WoW Insider.)

Following Nintendo’s 3DS announcement yesterday, their stock dropped 9.34%, probably in part due to missing the holiday launch window and in part due to carrying a hefty price tag that is $100 more expensive than their own current-gen console.

The 3DS was delayed until February in Japan, causing Nintendo to change its fiscal year profits forecast from $2.4 billion down to $1.08 billion. In a statement by Nintendo:

“The earnings forecast has been modified to reflect the trend of stronger-than-expected yen appreciation, current sales performance, the sales outlook for the holiday season and the decided release conditions for the Nintendo 3DS.”

IGN claims to have received the hardware specs on Nintendo’s upcoming 3D-enabled handheld, the Nintendo 3DS, from a source that traded the details for anonymity. According to the source, the 3DS will contain “two 266MHz ARM11 CPUs, along with a 133MHz GPU, 4MBs of dedicated VRAM, 64MBs of RAM, and 1.5GBs of flash storage.” The 3DS also employs the use of an SD card slot in order to provide expandable storage.

We still don’t officially know when Nintendo’s 3DS is going to be released in North America, but now, we at least know when the 3DS’ release date is going to be released: The company announced today that it will announce the date on September 29th. They’ll also announce the handheld’s price.

We already know that the 3DS will be out in NA by the end of March 2011, and a TV appearance by the president of Nintendo America last month seemed to indicate that the 3DS would be coming in 2011. But does the September 29th announcement spell hope for a 2010 release date after all?

While every entertainment media outlet that ever covers gaming is sure to release some list of top picks from E3, the Game Critic Awards is the closest we come to a unified opinion. That is because it’s merely a conglomeration of all the other reviewers. After carefully and meticulously assembling and comparing the opinions of the 21 participating news outlets, winners are decided. The process takes weeks. Those weeks just ended.

Behold, the winners are chosen. Here they all are.

In spite of the potentially pricey glasses-free 3D screen from which Nintendo’s 3DS takes its name, Nintendo’s president and CEO, Satoru Iwata, recently revealed that the company expects to sell the handheld console at a profit from Day One.

The central tenet of good game design is ‘Don’t make it tedious,’ and on that score, the Water Temple from 1998′s Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was not a success. Last year, Ocarina director Eiji Aonuma personally apologized to gamers everywhere for the level, which required the player to put on and take off heavy boots a seemingly endless number of times to raise and lower water levels and flip lots of switches. “I am most sorry that it was not easy for you to put on and take off the heavy boots, that all the time you had to visit the inventory. I am very sorry about that. I should have made it much easier to switch to the heavy boots,” he said in a 2009 interview.

Now, Nintendo is correcting history: During a roundtable at E3, Aonuma said he felt “evil shame” over the design of the Water Temple, and vowed to make it better in the 3DS remake of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The E3 festivities continued today in full force, and I got to do and see a lot more. The knowledge I gained in this process is now passed on to you, the lucky reader! Let’s waste no time and get straight to the gaming goodness I discovered in this middle day of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

You know the drill: hot on the heels of Microsoft’s and Nintendo’s big E3 announcements, it’s Sony‘s turn as of 3:00pm EDT. They’ve got a tough act to follow after Nintendo’s barn-burner of a 3DS presentation, but don’t count Sony out just yet: They’re expected to talk about PlayStation Move, 3D support for the PS3, and — this could be the big one — roll out some new hardware.

Tune in to live, streaming video of Sony’s announcement below, thanks to G4: