Games and gear

There are plenty of Wii accessories on the market, and some may actually help you improve your game play. But what good is all this without the appropriate attire?

City Magazine understands this well and has offered some helpful fashion hints for the well-heeled fanboy and fangirl. Among the designer fashion wear it chose, according to Luxist, are "a Polo Ralph Lauren vest and polo, a Tiffany diamond bangle, P'8419 sunglasses and, if one-piece outfits are more your style, a map dress from Lacoste."

We can't wait to see what outfits are recommended for venturing outside … Read more

Better luck next time, Sparky. Remember those two special-edition World of Warcraft Dell laptops we mentioned that were up for charity auction on eBay? In case you missed it (shame on you for not reading Crave more carefully), they were a pair of custom XPS M1710 gaming notebooks painted by artist Mike Lavallee and signed by Michael Dell himself.

The company announced the winners, Trip Hoover of Texas and Daniel Marinow of Germany, whose combined bids totaled nearly $12,000, according to Laptoping. So don't feel too bad. The proceeds went to the America's Second Harvest.

Web site discovery and recommendation site StumbleUpon, best known for its thumbs-up-or-down recommendation and discovery system for Web sites, has given its Stumble Video product a makeover that targets the coveted demographic of Wii addicts. The site now has an interface specifically designed for the Wii's Opera browser so that Wii owners can use their consoles to find cool new videos from YouTube and other sites, targeted specifically toward their prior StumbleUpon rating histories. It's a bit like Netflix's recommendation service.

StumbleUpon, which claims nearly 2 million registered users, has also released the 3.0 version of … Read more

LEGO unveiled its biggest, most detailed Star Wars kit to date with the Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon. This massive package is clearly targeted more toward hard-core fans and hobbyists than children, with its huge price tag and thousands of pieces.

This beast consists of over 5,000 pieces and measures over 33 inches long by 22 inches wide by 8 inches high. It can't make the Kessel Run in 1.2 parsecs, but it features careful details like a retracting boarding ramp, rotating quad blaster turrets, and an elevating radar dish. It also comes with LEGO minifigures of … Read more

You might already be familiar with the Nerf PS2 controller, a foam-covered wireless game pad that can survive the angry throws of frustrated gamers. Now Nerf is getting into the Wii accessory game, and televisions everywhere might be a little bit safer for it.

Performance Designed Products, the gaming accessory company that developed the Nerf PS2 controller, recently showed off the Nerf Sports Pack for Nintendo Wii at Toy Fair New York 2007. The Nerf Sports Pack includes a Nerf foam sleeve for the Wii remote and three Nerf sports attachments--a foam golf club, baseball bat, and tennis racket. It'… Read more

Considering the medieval-fantasy appearance of much of the World of Warcraft universe, I suppose it's not that surprising that WoW-obsessed high school students would start using the game to enhance their English and history class projects. And here we have it: some kid actually put the game to good use and turned it into a machinima platform for a re-enactment of the Pardoner's Tale from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

If you consider medieval humor to be unspeakably vulgar, well, then, ye be warned. And if old English literature isn't your preferred form of game video, you … Read more

If you happen to be visiting Japan this spring, you may see some unusually long lines outside stores on April 26. That's when Nintendo is planning to debut a DS Lite special edition to coincide with the release of the anticipated Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, according to Plastic Bamboo. The special DS will initially be sold as a limited-edition bundle with the role-playing game, but it's unclear whether the laser-etched device will be available on its own later on. Either way, you can expect to see the usual sequence of events: the rush of fanboys, Flickr photos … Read more

We've already reported this week on Nvidia's issues with its GeForce 8800 cards and their lack of fully cooked Windows Vista driver software. Yup, it's a bummer. The good news is, you can help. Last night, Nvidia introduced a Vista Quality Assurance Page, which lets you, the GeForce-owning, Windows-Vista-running public, report your bugs directly to Nvidia. The page asks for reports on issues with Vista and any GeForce card, so just because you don't have a newer Nvidia card doesn't mean you're off the hook. But let's keep this on topic, folks. If … Read more

I have no idea how they did it, but Make Mine Marvel managed to get the first photo of the Mr. Potato Head Spider Spud.

The Hasbro toy company, which owns Marvel, has been keeping a tight wrap on the item, but did announce this morning that the $10 Mr. Potato Head Spider Spud will be available March 24. It will contain 12 body parts, including webs, a Spidey leotard and parts for changing back into "Peter Parker Potato."

The toy is to be revealed at the American International Toy Fair in New York City next week.

The … Read more