gaming

Vent election frustrations

It's Super Tuesday, the day when 24 states hold primaries to choose their party's candidate for president. Voted by mail weeks ago? Just want all the ads and sloganeering to be over? Get so frustrated you just want to shoot them all?

Now you can, with the Space Invaders spoof called Political Invaders, where you fire pies from your ship to destroy advancing politician headshots.

… Read more

Color Sudoku game adds twist to computing

Beware. There's a new Soduku game that could prove to be as addictive as the original. Antony Harfield, a doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick U.K., based a new colorized version of the Japanese game on empirical modeling. This "pays more attention to what humans take into account and provides a practical means to explore problems that aren't so cut and dry," according to MSNBC's article. In the new game, each number is given a color, with empty squares blending the colors of numbers that could fit. … Read more

The worst game console(s) ever

A few days ago, we discussed the greatest game console of all time. Some would say the NES, some would say the Super Nintendo, some would say the Playstation, some would say the Playstation 2. It really depends on your standards, and what system you grew up with. Naturally, this now begs the question: What was the worst console of all time?

One CNET blogger wrote the Sega Saturn was the worst major console of all time. However, the Saturn's relative failure pales in comparison with several other systems' atrocious critical and commercial receptions. The Saturn certainly wasn't … Read more

One word for Girl Gamer Magazine: Barf

Lousy move, Nintendo. The company's U.K. arm has released a promotional Girl Gamer magazine to pimp its products, which Geeksugar has posted about, and it makes me want to puke up that steak fajita I had for lunch.

Let's see what's on the cover, underneath that ghastly pink masthead: Cooking Mama, Imagine Babies, and a pink DS Lite. Ick. It sure makes a gal want to go wild with the Manhunt 2 machete.

Not to mention the fact that I haven't seen eyeliner that atrocious since Congresswoman Katherine Harris.

Will it hurt Nintendo's business? … Read more

PaRappalliteration: Major Minor's Majestic March coming to the Wii

Once upon a time, in the age of the Sony Playstation, a strange rhythm game appeared. It was called PaRappa the Rapper. It told the story of a flat, cartoon puppy who wanted badly to be a rap star. The game wasn't especially popular against titles like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII, but its charming humor and bizarrely infectious music garnered a cult following. The game eventually saw a sequel on the Playstation 2 and, more recently, a remake on the Playstation Portable. To this day, a stuffed, singing PaRappa doll sits on a shelf in one … Read more

Where Randall is wicked late.

EPISODE 26

Wilson and Jeff get attacked by a bum, the internet goes dark in the Middle East, Yahoo drops some videogame mythbusting on y'all and Lost is back, finally.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

MIT professor on social responsibility in China's gaming culture

Henry Jenkins, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who is perhaps academia's leading fanboy, spent part of January in Shanghai and has been posting observations on his blog. I want to highlight one of his better contributions: on social responsibility in Chinese video game culture.

Video games, "freedom," and "addiction"

Jenkins was attending the International Games and Learning Forum, organized by MIT and Beijing University. There, the focus was on "serious games," those that might potentially be used to promote learning. His most frequently repeated observation was that, while U.S. experts on … Read more

Photos: Cracking open the PlayStation 2

Sony's PS2 was a defining game console-DVD player combo when it came out some years back. What exactly went into it?

You can see how it was constructed and how it stacks up against its successor, the PS3, on News.com: Cracking open the PlayStation 2.

Ideazon Merc Stealth: N00b-hunting keyboard

Ideazon had a hefty hit with PC gamers a few years back--the innovative Zboard keyboard, which offered different keysets for specific games. It was rather clunky, but it succeeded in making PC gaming slightly friendlier--the Battlefield 2 keys were certainly very handy. Now Ideazon's back with the altogether sleeker Merc Stealth keyboard.

Instead of a swappable keyset, the Stealth has an extra-wide chassis with special gaming keys built into the left side. These are basically a second set of the keys you use most when playing FPS-type PC games, such as W, A, S, D, Shift, Space, and so … Read more