You can bet that us here at PIÑATATONik won’t leave you high and dry on the latest Viva Piñata news. We’ve told you about the new Xbox 360 adventure, and now feast your eyes on a tiny bit of juicy Viva Piñata DS information after the jump.

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It’s been a week, which means Unlock the Achievement is over - and it was definitely a success. There were over 4,400 participants, and over 71,000 achievements were unlocked. Hopefully you enjoyed it as much as we did, but if there were any achievement on MEGATONik you just couldn’t find, continue reading because I’m about to tell you where they all were.

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I decided to make these two topics into one post, so the site doesn’t end up with a flooded page of Grand Theft Auto IV news, which I’m sure will happen this week no matter what.

Anyway, Xbox 360 Achievements has posted a list of all 50 achievements in GTA IV for the Xbox 360. You can view the list, but be warned, as some of them may or may not contain spoilers.

Kotaku has also posted some new details up about Grand Theft Auto IV, revealing the awesome track listing that’s included on the soundtrack of the special edition game. You can view the godly listing (Nas and Busta Rhymes, ftw) after the jump.

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I’m happy to announce that MEGATONik is NOT dead, and that we’re just all being lazy. I’m also excited to announce that we will be a part of the brand new Xbox 360 Community Scavenger Hunt that will begin on April 21, 2008, 12PM EST.

This is a chance for you to win stuff, so I suggest you hit the jump for the full press release to fill yourself in on this exciting news.

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There are some things that we really don’t need science to tell us. One of them is that men like video games more then women. I know, I know, there are plenty of girl gamers out there who love gaming of all sorts but let’s face it, it’s a male-dominated scene. Before all two of you female gamers who read this site get up in arms, be forewarned, science has my back.

A new study shows that men’s brains react in much different ways then women’s do when they’re gaming. The study, lead by Fumiko Hoeft of the Stanford University School of Medicine, shows that when men play games, a part of the brain involved in feelings of reward and addiction becomes much more activated than it does in women. I could have told them this 15 years ago when I sat in front of a TV playing games with my friend, who happened to be a girl, as she got more and more bored. Still putting the words “study” and “Stanford” behind my claim certainly validates it.

To accomplish these perfectly obvious findings the doctors hooked up an equal number of men and women to an M.R.I. and had them play a game. The study found that in the men, there was much more activity in the mesocorticolimbic system, which is a big-word way of saying men like to accomplish menial tasks and garner awards for them. The game they played was a simple game in which they were told only to click the images of balls they saw, with no mention of a goal. Both sides played the game well but the men were more interested in completing the game and subsequently did better.

[Via New York Times]

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That is right ladies and gentlemen, you will finally be able to confirm all those rumors and speculations about crazy gaming records, useless facts and zany trivia when the Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition gets released on Feb. 8. Amazon has the book listed at $13.57 with the list price at 19.95, but can you really put a price on hundreds of random gamers finally getting their 15 minutes of fame? No, no you can’t.

You can flip through a few pages of the book at the Guinness Web Site and you’ll probably notice it looks pretty shiny, even if it is basically full of a whole metric ton of filler like awards for the largest Tomb Raider enemy and giving Myst the record for the “least violent action game”, a title that is both impossible to judge and strangely attributed to a game most people would say falls into the puzzle category. Still, there are two whole pages of pretty Lara Croft pictures, along with some truly impressive game records, to distract you from the fact that some of these records might not be totally up to snuff.

Along with all this Guinness is offering a chance for you (yes, you!) to be part of the longest Guitar Hero Marathon Relay ever. Hit up the Guinness site above to see details about how to participate in the fake guitar passing action on Feb. 6.

[Via Wired]

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By now, I’m sure that you know about my hatred for Bioshock. Dispel that for a moment in your minds and listen to what I’ve got to say; Take-Two just announced that the new Bioshock DLC (for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows) will be available today. The downloadable content, which is free to all users who have the game, includes new plasmids and gene tonics such as:

* Sonic Boom: Hurls creatures and objects back with a blast of force
* EVE saver: Enables Plasmids to use less EVE
* Vending Expert: Reduces prices in the vending machines
* Machine Buster: Increases the amount of damage players deal to cameras, bots and turrets

Additionally, the downloadable content will unlock another achievement, confirming the rumor and giving players who can beat the game on hard mode without dying 100 achievement points. Also, Take-Two has added a widescreen option for all widescreen tv users who had to deal with screen adjusting the first time through.

All in all, this looks like a very solid add-on to a *cough* verysolidgame *cough*. What was that, you ask? Nothing, I just had something in my throat.

[Via Kotaku]

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Over at Games Radar they have a huge list of gaming firsts, from the first game to get an AO rating to the first real boss. Everything in gaming had to begin somewhere, and they sure found a lot - they list a total of 84 gaming firsts. It’s really interesting to take a look back at the roots of so many aspects of gaming (and even some more recent firsts), and to see how much has changed over the years.

I’ve selected some of my favorites after the jump, but there are a lot of other fascinating firsts in the full list.

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The challenge: Score 1000 achievement points in 2 minutes. The game: Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth, otherwise known as that Japanime Nickelodeon show with the three colons. Can it be done? Check out the above video to see, and check out my response after the jump.
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From our friends over at Xbox360Fanboy comes a rambunctious rumor of a new, secret achievement to be released in my favorite game, Bioshock. Apparently, 2k Games plans to release this secret 51st achievement, possibly through way of Xbox Live’s downloadable content, which will rack up at a whopping 100 Gamerscore. The achievement shows up on this list, so the rumor does seem legit.

Nobody is quite sure exactly how to unlock this achievement, but there has been some speculation on the subject. Right now, the most probable way to unlock this achievement is to complete the game on hard mode without using a vitachamber. In other words, you can’t die. Secretly, I am hoping that it hints towards some new downloadable content that would make the game suck less.

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