Look at the poorly drawn wheel above. Can you honestly say that one of those games outshines the rest?

Find out, after the jump! (more…)

Source: DailyTech

According to a new study done by the University of Michigan, I should have at least four murders under my belt by now. Yes, another one of those “scientific studies” about how shooting terrorists in video games makes us all want to kill our collegues.

Huesmann, the psycologist/professor who led the study, is either very well paid off, or total scum. He places violence in the media as the 2nd biggest risk to public health besides lung cancer from smoking cigarettes. WHAT?!

Eat sh*t and die, man. You are lucky I have all kinds of violent video games to take out my aggression.

Although, you would be the perfect therapist for Jack Thompson.

/*cue harp scales and add wave effect transition*/

Once upon a time, there was a store. And in this store, sat hundreds upon hundreds of games, as far as the eyes could see (in a location no bigger than a master bathroom). This store was so rightly named – Gamestop — because this is where games go to die. This is hell: the one place no gamer ever wants to be, but is sometimes forced against their better judgment.

Today, well, was going to be different. I was going in with a smirk on my face and nothing less coming out. (more…)

Photo and Commentary by Lono
all rights reserved
SOURCE: Gamasutra

EA’s CEO John Riccitiello, in a teleconference with shareholders, discussed rival football game All-Pro Football 2K8. As you may know, All-Pro Football 2K8 is the first football game produced by Take Two’s 2K Sports since 2005, when EA secured an exclusivity agreement with the NFL. In a bold move, Take Two made exclusive deals with recently retired players such as Jerry Rice and Troy Aikmen among others, to be included in the game.Specifically, Riccitiello stated:

“When you’ve got a competitor like Take-Two on the sports side, and they launch a football title using some of the industry legends, you want to make sure that ends up being a blip and is not repeatable, because we like to defend our franchises aggressively.”

He then said that their plan was to go to every Wal-Mart in the country and draw frowny faces on every All-Pro Football game in stock!

Defend your franchise aggressively? What is this guy talking about? They’ve put out the same game every year since the graphics went 3D twenty freaking years ago. Save your hit stick and quarterback vision comments, fanboys….

I haven’t played a good football video game since 2k5 and until something changes, IMO, EA is just defending mediocrity.

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The American Medical Association got together and decided that video games are now officially addictive.

This announcement eclipsed some other headlines that came out of that same AMA meeting. In case you missed them, here they are.

• Car accidents can lead to injuries.
• Getting hit with a hockey puck hurts.
• If you stop breathing, you will die.

If people doing something in excess equals addiction, then why haven’t I heard anything about rock climbing addictions? Or swimming addictions? Personally, I think I suffer from a baseball addiction.

Most of you are going to laugh this off, but I contend that this is some bad news. It paves the way for morons like Elliot Spitzer, who already mopped the floor with the radio industry in New York, to legislate and enforce some insane crap. Laugh at that headline now, but beware. This is going to get a lot less funny before it gets better.

Look, I know there are people that do literally nothing except play video games. They’re too lazy to get up and get a job or mow the grass. But addicts? Are they going go into muscle-clenching mouth-foaming withdrawal if they can’t log in to WoW? If so, I stand corrected, and I can’t wait for THAT video to come to YouTube. Until then, I’ll be over here in the corner, looking concerned.

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Proving once again that God(free) has a sense of humor.

After about a week of controversy surrounding the “Major Announcement” of Pac-Man:Championship Edition, and the subsequent accusations by less-than-reputable entities that Gamertag and it’s founder Godfree were part of some MS Publicity stunt, gamertag radio has decided to give away 5 copies of the game, totally free. That’s rich.

For Godfree, Pink Sage and the crew at Gamertag, it’s really just business as usual.

“To tell you the truth we always give games to the community,” says Godfree. “That’s what GTR is all about. This is just a way to say thanks to our old & new fans for supporting us in anyway.”

We were going to enter, but…. we never win anything.

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One Day….. One Day… I will be proved right about this!

Now the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair has jumped into the fray, along with, possibly, all the Christians in Japan. Today, PM Blair said, and I am paraphrasing, that Sony was bad and shouldn’t have allowed Resistance: Fall Of Man to be set in an alternate reality, that happened to include the Manchester Cathedral.

Although I doubt that Sony envisioned this getting so out of hand, I just know in my heart of hearts that this is part of the new “Humble” Sony. Sony that’s been kicked around by gamers, critics, and now the country of England. Sony who we should be running to the defense of waving anti censorship banners. We should run out and buy their consoles to show solidarity with the company. If we already own a PS3 perhaps we should get one for downstairs.

Before I exonerate Sony of any hand in leaking or antagonizing the Church to rally public support, I want answers.

1. Why did this story break on the same day that Sony discovered humility (and blogging)?
2. Why don’t they direct the Church to the developer (Insomniac)? You think Microsoft is gonna take the heat for GTA4 when people find Hot Coffee 2.0?
3. What took the Church so long to find this? It’s the hottest game for PS3 so far.
4. Sony’s got enough money to bring back Jesus, so why wouldn’t they hush this up with a big check in the offering plate?

I’ll tell you why… Because this is the best thing to happen to Sony and the PS3 since electricity. Censorship-minded gamers are rushing to their defense, despite their differences with Sony.

If I sound a little pissed off, think again. Whoever thought this up, is the most brilliant public relations mind in the history of the profession. Someone should make a movie about this. If Sony continues to execute such brilliant moves, they could indeed give Xbox 360 and Wii a serious run for their money. You had me for a minute Sony. You had me for a minute.

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Still no reward for always coming in last.

Gamerscoreblog.com is reporting that 8 new multiplayer achievements are being added to Gears of War’s “Annex” game type, totalling 250 points. This is in addition to some exploit fixes and an improved “Roadie Run”. This should all go down sometime in the wee hours of the morning Tuesday.

For the more frugal gamer, the “Annex” game type has been converted to a free download, while the newer “Hidden Fronts” map pack will cost you a mere 800 points (10 bucks).

As seems to be the new practice with Gears of War, if you can stand not being able to follow your friends into “Hidden Fronts” matches, you can snag that pack for free if you wait all summer. (September 3rd).

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So Insomniac, the developer that actually did the work that’s got their cloaks in a wad over at the Church of England, is staying out of the fray…. letting Sony handle it.

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Moral censorship or brilliant PR ploy?

Editorial–(SG)- I have to admit, I fell for it. As a gamer, I am constantly on the look-out for censorship in any form. When I heard that the Church of England was persecuting poor Sony, I rushed to Sony’s defense…. sorta.

The more I mull this over, the less sense this whole thing makes to me. First of all, Resistance has been out for a LONG time in game lifespan. It’s been arguably the most successful PS3 title to date. Why did it take so long for the Church of England to find out their Manchester Cathedral had been replicated in a fantasy world surrounded by gun violence?

Incredibly, I first read about this controversy on CNN, which means that SOMEONE sent them a press release. I would be very interested to see who appears in the FROM line of that release.

Since when does Sony reply to negative PR in a public forum? These guys are professionals at playing dumb in the face of bad news. But their new blog is awash with opinion pieces defending Sony. Hmm and the blog launched the same day that this controversy surfaced.

It’s just too convenient. I don’t buy it. There’s a little voice telling me that something stinks here. Could Sony have instigated, directly or otherwise, the Church of England controversy to play the victim card and rally support for its otherwise unremarkeable public relations effort? Hats off to SCEA if they did. You had me there for a minute.

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I was skeptical. Mostly because of the hype surrounding the release of Shadowrun. Let’s face it, we’ve all been hurt before.

About 90 seconds after I fired up the demo, those fears disappeared. Shadowrun is a welcome shot-in-the-arm to the First-Person-Shooter genre. Mixing mandatory teamwork with incredibly fast-paced action, this tactical title promises to make your whole night go by in about 20 minutes.

One of the coolest of Shadowrun’s innovations is its interplay with WINDOWS users. Yup. Live PC users playing against Xbox Live users.

I enjoyed the ability to revive teamates almost as much as teleporting through walls. The freedom of movement granted by the glider backpack is also quite addictive.

I am giving Shadowrun 4 out of 5 stars. I don’t like the Halo-like matchmaking service that they seem to have emulated. Personally, I think it’s a dumb way to assemble teams in what is supposed to be a tactical environment. I think they could have taken a page out of Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six: Vegas handbook on that one. Better to let the gamers manage their own teams, instead of the annoying “party” system which caters to casual gamers. If you aren’t in a clan, you’ll spend a lot of time being matched up with noobs and goobs, so find a group of dedicated players to help reduce the amount of time you spend screaming into your headset for someone to come resurrect your ass.

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Software and electronics giant vows to also investigate the concept of making fun games in the near future.

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