Gaming

WoW and the Quest for the Patch of Molasses

Many of the 1.5 million subscribers playing "World of Warcraft," the smash online role-playing game, are complaining that publisher Blizzard Entertainment sent them on a less-than-entertaining side quest this week.

This particular mission involves downloading a 63MB patch for the game over a connection that can slow down to a languid 2KB/second when the servers are busy, which they always are. The result has been waits of five hours or more for some players to download the patch, and a proliferating series of tirades in Blizzard's user forums with titles such as "We demand … Read more

Electronic Arts skips Christmas

So Electronics Arts had a bad holiday season, as cited in the company's revision of earnings estimates late Monday.

Gee, no way anyone could have seen that coming. Who would have figured that titles such as "Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2" and "Armies of Exigo" wouldn't go head-to-head at the cash register with "Halo 2" and "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas?"

The immediate future doesn't hold much more promise of breakthrough hits--"Rugby 2005," anyone? But hyperventilating investors, who pounded EA's stock down by more than … Read more

Meet the new boss, Lara Croft

The news that Elevation Partners, the investment firm co-founded by U2 singer Paul "Bono" Hewson, is bidding for control of game publisher Eidos, got us thinking.

Forthwith, here's our Top 5 list of ways the life of "Tomb Raider" heroine Lara Croft will change if Bono becomes her boss.

5--Will have to yell, "Uno, dos, tres, catorce!" before every big jump.

4--Must always wear twee little cowboy hat.

3--Instead of an English butler and various science weenies, sidekicks will now include Brian Eno and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

2--Instead of pistols … Read more

More PSP midnight madness

Sony is offering another chance for procrastinating gamers to lose sleep.

The company's Sony Style store in New York will stay open past midnight Wednesday to sell the already- scarce new PlayStation Portable handheld entertainment gadget.

Doors open at 9 p.m. at the store at 550 Madison Ave., and PSPs will be sold--one per customer--beginning at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. Sony says it will have 500 "Value Packs" available, so be prepared to line up early.

Sony is also keeping its PlayStation store in San Francisco open past midnight to sell PSPs, which will be … Read more

New chapter for IGN?

Is game news and review conglomerate IGN Entertainment on the block?

The Wall Street Journal reports, based on our favorite source of "people familiar with the subject," that various parties, also unspecified, are preparing bids for the company. The WSJ thinks the IGN empire could fetch as much as $800 million.

IGN is also said to be considering an IPO, an odd choice considering that it's less than two years since the company went private, after three profit-challenged years as a public entity.

An IGN representative said only that the company is "looking at several options … Read more

North Carolina cuts the cards

Here we go again; another state legislator has decided to take on the game industry. This time, it's North Carolina, and the target is--solitaire?

Instead of the usual concerns about games turning the nation's youth into a gang of trained killers, Republican Sen. Austin Allran is worried that state employees are frittering away valuable work time playing solitaire, "Minesweeper" and the other little games that come with recent versions of Windows.

Under the terms of Allran's No Games on State Computers, currently awaiting a committee hearing, department heads in state government would be responsible for … Read more

A PSP by any other name...

One of the innovations in the new PlayStation Portable likely to be overlooked in the initial lovefest is that Sony wants you to name your gadget.

Navigate to the PSP's "system settings" screen, and the first thing you'll see is a space for giving your gadget a nickname.

We're still grappling for a handle that expresses our innermost feelings about our little baby, temporarily dubbed "WangDangDoodle," but here are a few suggestions for y'all:

•  Pay tribute to the national heritage of new Sony CEO Howard Stringer by naming your PSP after … Read more

My blind date with PSP

OK, so we've had an actual PlayStation Portable in our hot little hands for two days now, enough to form some initial impressions:

•  I now have a vague sense of what it feels like to be a gorgeous woman. I used the PSP twice while commuting on public transit, and both times every male within visual range fixed me a gaze that conveyed a worrisome mixture of lust and "I am a potential mugger."

•  Contrary to what certain curmudgeons have said, it's a very capable movie player, especially compared to my 15-year-old TV. But … Read more