There is, perhaps, nothing more frowned upon than cheating. Do it, and you risk getting caught; get caught, and you carry the stigma of cheating for the rest of your life. Especially in the gaming world, there is no greater crime. Even today, you can find yourself on the wrong end of a knife or a gun depending on who you burn and just how savagely you do it. When it comes to cheating on Xbox LIVE!, however, just exactly how is punishment dealt to an anonymous cheater living a thousand miles away, or more? With the right tools and a level of persistence reserved for the disturbingly obsessed, no one is truly anonymous; but for those of us in possession of more rational faculties, justice may never really be served. Therefore, we rely on a higher power: Microsoft.

Dungeon Runners is about as fun as a drug addiction. It’s an unabashedly grindy dungeon crawler that owes its roots to Diablo while desperately trying to ripoff World of Warcraft. As far as freely available, massively multi-player, online role-playing games without subscriptions go, it’s better than a lot of what I’ve played in the past, but it’s still not great. It’s meager; it’s mediocre. It does manage to rise above the average in a few areas, however: the game’s terrific sense of humor can be found nearly everywhere from the naming of weapons to the kind of non-player characters you meet. But then other areas are rather low: I constantly keep a helmet on my level six warrior — not for the armor points, but because he’s so ugly that I can’t stand to look at his pouting grimace anymore. So, why do I keep playing?

In the United States, when we think of software piracy on such a broad level that it might actually destroy an industry, usually our focus shifts to countries in Asia. We think of countries such as: Japan, China, India, etc. — we hardly ever consider South America. Mostly, this is simply due to our own ignorance and the limited amount of media exposure we get in this country to other areas of the world, but now, in the age of the Internet, that’s hardly an excuse not to see what’s going on.

I don’t review games too often, but when I stumbled across Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper the other day, I knew I had to say a few things about it. I’ve really been digging this great game. It’s a kid-friendly, Scrabble-esque puzzle game that is very fun, but also very challenging.
The premise of […]

No article this week as I need some time to regroup and brainstorm some new topics to write about. It’s really just been one of THOSE weeks…
So, instead of working on an article, I’ve decided to post a link to an awesome Flash game called “Shift”.
I used to be really down on Flash games. […]

In the face of Steamworks, will Games for Windows - LIVE ever become a valuable part of the PC gaming experience?

Thinking of taking a road trip soon? Don’t have the time or money to get away but desperately wish you did? Well, why not go on a virtual road trip, instead?
In “Thule Trail” you’ll have to brave nasty weather, car problems, and crazy drifters as you travel over 2000 miles to the Atlantis […]

Fact-checking has to be one of the most important jobs a journalist must do, which is why it’s so sad to see what actually passes for “journalism” these days — especially of the variety that comes from Fox News. Of course, mistakes happen. In extreme cases, the facts might never be known, but to report facts that aren’t merely incorrect but are, in fact, bald-faced lies, is going to quite the extreme. In a particularly defamatory segment, Fox News couldn’t have produced a more libelous statement than what they had to report about the game “Mass Effect”.

If you’re a regular, you probably noticed something a little different about the site, today. Can you guess what it is?
So basically, I got a little tired of only seeing one post at a time. Although it was a lot more convenient to have the first, latest post right on the index for […]

There’s nothing quite like a good scapegoat, and video games make for a pretty good one. I’ve heard all about the wiles of depraved developers who design “murder simulators” and the psychotic, sociopathic obsessives who crave them. I’ve heard all manner of ignorant, ill-informed opinion and have been appalled at the range and depth of pseudo-scientific theories that spout off numbers, rates, and statistics that supposedly add up to prove the evils of demon video games. The problem is, statistics can mean anything. Emphasize a certain statistic, come up with a good explanation, and then continue to spin and spin as the media soaks it up and spits it out in countless market tabloids and daytime TV talk shows. Build a panel of “experts”, show a couple clips of the latest “Grand Theft Auto” game, turn on the cameras and watch them go… It’s a sickening charade that results in thousands of shocked viewers who can’t believe what they are seeing and who can’t wait to put a stop to it. The sensational headlines, the buzz, the hype; it just continues to build. No wonder it comes as a breath of fresh air when I see even one person in a position of authority who actually employs rational thought on the subject. Someone like Governor Ed Rendell.

You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. At least, that’s how it is when it comes to game reviews and previews. Provide soft, fluffy reviews that start at 8 — and only go up — and you’re doing a disservice to your readers by catering to the game companies who advertise in your magazine. Provide hard-edged, honest reviews that tell it like it is and the company pulls its ads to punish you. In the wake of Gerstmanngate, writing up a negative review of a game would seem to be the fastest way to end up in the unemployment line, but what happens when the entire magazine suffers at the hands of a miffed game company? If you’re Dan Hsu, you call them out.

It was a scandal that rocked the industry: the firing of Gamespot’s Editorial Director, Jeff Gerstmann, created a wave of negative publicity and raised numerous questions about the ethics and policies of Gamespot and many other publications and web sites in regards to their treatment of editorial content and advertising. Although Gamespot and parent company CNet continue to attest that the firing had nothing to do with Gerstmann’s review of “Kane & Lynch: Dead Men”, the rumors persisted that Eidos Interactive had pressured Gamespot to reprimand Gerstmann accordingly by threatening to withdraw advertising money. Regardless of the tenacity of these rumors, the facts remain: Jeff Gerstmann, after eleven years of employment at Gamespot, was dismissed from his position on November 28, 2007, sometime after publishing his review of “Kane & Lynch: Dead Men” in which he scored the game a 6 out of 10.

There’s something strange going on at Eyebeam in New York City. The sights and sounds inside are typical for a club setting on a Saturday night: flashing lights, pulsing electronic music, and a crowd of hundreds of dancers. But a glance at the stage would reveal that there is something quite different about this scene. The DJ isn’t spinning records or mixing CDs, he’s holding a GameBoy — an original, green-screen, gray-brick Nintendo GameBoy from 1989. But he isn’t unwinding with a game of Tetris or Pokemon on this busy night — he’s providing the music. In fact, the GameBoy in his hands is the very source of the music the crowd is dancing to. His name is Josh Davis, but most folks know him as Bit Shifter - and tonight is the third night of Blipfest 2007.

14 million. That’s the number of Wiis that have been sold in the 12 months since the console, formerly known as The Revolution, launched in November 2006. It became the fastest selling console in history and even managed to put a decent margin between itself and the Xbox 360, which already had a year’s head start. Nintendo couldn’t be happier with its success; the console which inspired countless jokes about its name and had been panned by critics for being underpowered has blown through all expectations placed on it. While the games have been less than stellar with a slew third-party titles of questionable quality, the first-party games — games released by Nintendo itself — have been monstrous hits. Games like “Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” and the recently-released “Super Mario Galaxy” have been among the highest rated, most anticipated games of all time. But is the Wii running out of steam or is it just getting started?

You can get people do some pretty strange things when it comes to playing games. I can’t imagine anyone who would consider tagging images to be “fun” — even when tagging my own images for personal use, it gets boring rather quickly. Yet, when placed within the context of a game, suddenly, these boring chores become fun. You almost have to wonder, what other kinds of things can you get someone to do in the name of fun and entertainment?

Except for the cases where an advertisement showed me a product I was actually interested in and maybe even gave me some piece of useful information, I’ve generally been insulted and annoyed by the majority of the ones I couldn’t outright, completely ignore. I’ve seen just about everything from blatant product placements in major motion pictures to being told I wasn’t cool unless I had the latest gizmo by the very people who made that gizmo. In a lament voiced by The Rolling Stones over 40 years ago, I’m just the latest version of the dude who can’t get no satisfaction.

It only makes sense that as games get larger and more dynamic that console developers would want to take advantage of having on-board storage. The Xbox set a precedent by making a hard drive a standard component at a time when such a device was a questionable extravagance. In those days, there was […]

If variety be the spice of life, Gerhard Florin, EA’s head of international publishing, has had too much. Considering the cost of development and the current retail environment, it’s easy to see how a single-console future seems like a really good idea. Why develop for three different consoles when you can develop for one? If there were one, standard, universal console, there’d no longer be an excuse for poor performance and missing features. There’d be no more idea of a “fanboy” because we would all be unified under a single console that plays all games with high-definition graphics, excellent connectivity, innovative controls, and costs less than $100. Mr. Florin predicts that this could happen within 15 years.

Video games are an expensive hobby — for PC gamers, it’s even more so. When you adjust for inflation, it’s plain to see that the price of consoles have come down quite a bit. In 1977, an Atari 2600 cost $199 — that kind of scratch would almost net you a Wii, these days. For a few dollars more, you could own a new Xbox 360 Arcade at only $279. In the PC gaming world, however, this kind of cash would just about cover the cost of a decent video card — and that’s just one component. You still need some RAM, a case with good air flow, a capable motherboard, and a CPU — none of this is cheap. If you already have most of the components you’ll need to build a new system, you can usually save yourself a few hundred bucks, but for the modern-PC gamer who’s just starting out, you’re looking to spend over $1000, easily. Oh, and don’t forget the monitor!

On October 1, Nintendo announced the Wii Remote Jacket — a durable, non-slip cover for the Wii Remote made of silicone and designed to provide a number of benefits to the player. Most notably, the benefit of not accidentally throwing the controller through your television screen. Although, I guess, if you really wanted to, you still could. There’s nothing to prevent you from doing it on purpose….