PAX 2009 Keynote Speaker Revealed
Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Culture, PAX,
Fans of the Monkey Island Adventure series are about to go bananas! Organizers of Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) have just annouced Ron Gilbert as the keynote speaker at this year’s sixth annual event to be held Sept. 4-6 in Seattle, Washington. The 20-year veteran game designer, programmer and producer, Ron Gilbert’s resume includes Maniac Mansion and the first two installments in the Monkey Island adventure series. In addition, his famous SCUMM scripting language granted him a spot in the Computer Game Hall of Fame. He is currently creative director at independent development studio Hothead Games in Vancouver, Canada.
Gallery: PAX 2009 Keynote Speaker Revealed
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Pew Study Finds Most Teens Play Games
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: MMORPG, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox,
A recent study by Pew finds that 97% of American teens of the age 12 to 17 play computer, portable, console or online video games. When asked, half of them claimed they played yesterday and the ones who admitted to daily playing say they did so for at least an hour. Here are some of the other statistics:
- 86% of teens play on a console like the Xbox, PlayStation, or Wii.
- 73% play games on a desktop or a laptop computer.
- 60% use a portable gaming device like a Sony PlayStation Portable, a Nintendo DS, or a Game Boy.
- 48% use a cell phone or handheld organizer to play games.
- 80% of teens play five or more different game genres, and 40% play eight or more types.
- Girls play an average of 6 different game genres; boys average 8 different types.
We expect that if Pew queried adults, they would find at least the same statistics, or more for those who play MMORPGs like WOW. As for the good news, another study last September found that, for the most part, teens playing games resulted in positive social action.
Read More 
| Pew
Gallery: Pew Study Finds Most Teens Play Games
Crispy Gamer Personal Reviews
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet,
Only open for a couple of months, Crispy Gamer claims that it has over 35,000 members. It certainly proves that of all the failing industries, this one certainly isn’t. The site gets its content from gaming writers, as opposed to ads and other info from publishers. In addition to extensive reviews, the site features news, forums for gamers and video clips. Head over there and toss in your two cents worth on your favorite game or research one that you would like to try.
Read More | Crispy Gamer
Gallery: Crispy Gamer Personal Reviews
Toshiba Qosmio Gaming Laptop
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, PC, Portable/Mobile, Wireless,
We found the ultimate gaming laptops for the hardcore player. Toshiba’s Qosmio X305-Q706 and X305-Q708 are filled with three NVIDIA GPUs, one GeForce 9400M and two 9800M GTSs. To help save energy and battery power, the user can turn off the 9800Ms. Both have 17-inch displays, Bluetooth availability and Harman Kardon stereo speakers plus a sub-woofer. The X305-706 features a Core 2 Duo P8400 CPU and comes at a price of $1,999.99. Move up to the X305-Q708 and you get a Core 2 Extreme QX9300 CPU, a DVD burner, a 1.3MP webcam, and a second 128GB SSD at a price of $4,199.99. Both are available at Toshiba Direct.
Read More | Yersys Technology
Gallery: Toshiba Qosmio Gaming Laptop
The Console Wars Veteran I gaming medal
Posted by Lolita Beckwith Categories: Accessories, Culture, Nintendo,
Only a hardcore gamer knows the unique sense of accomplishment felt after reaching “100% completion” on a video game. But when you brag about it, you’re likely to get the response “So whaddya want, a medal?” Well, now you can actually have your own gaming medal, courtesy of Supermandolini. The limited edition Console Wars Veteran I medal honors “the memories of endless epic battles, infinite high scores and numerous blistered fingers.” The metal badge features a retro NES controller, but we’re hoping other consoles will get the medal treatment soon, as we’d love a SNES version. Available for approx. $27 USD.
Supermandolini
viaRetro to Go
Gallery: The Console Wars Veteran I gaming medal
Geek Jewelry: The “Space Invaders” Rings
Posted by Lolita Beckwith Categories: Accessories, Culture, Retro,
Call us paranoid, but we’re beginning to wonder if the aliens in “Space Invaders” really are trying to take over the world: The tote bag. The baby’s mobile. The scarf. The doormat. And now… the rings! Yes, now you can show your love for the classic game 24/7 by wearing one of those pesky aliens (or elusive spaceship) on your finger. Choose one of four designs, each made of pure silver with Rhodium plating. Strangely, we couldn’t find price info on the manufacturer’s website, so you may have to contact them yourself for details.
Toy Me Milano
viaGeek Sugar
Gallery: Geek Jewelry: The “Space Invaders” Rings
California Extreme Channels a Simpler Time
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Culture, Editorial, Retro,
Gamers of a certain age, if given half a chance, will gladly recount grand tales of smoky rooms, dimly lit by a few dozen cathode rays where the only sounds are the white noise of competing digitized soundtracks, crude speech sythesizers, blips and bells, pings and whistles and artificial arpeggios rolling down an electronic scale.
The misty sincerity of those gamers who cut their teeth on the quarter-munching cabinets of Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command and Sinistar is almost enough to make one forget what a mess the modern arcade equivalent has become. The gargantuan interface machines with their elaborate weapon approximations and physical demands juxtapose over a likewise spectacular price per play resulting in a hollow shell of what the old guard knew so well. These are not arcades as exist in those guarded memories, they are interactive entertainment experiences: The kind of branded, marginalized speciality device that has been focus tested and trade-show marketed to get the premium floor space right out front in view of the mall concourse is showpiece here.
Even those arcade machines which can still accurately be described as video games compete for the higher-yield ticket-generating skill games (which ironically involve very little skill). Most of those who recall the days when 3D graphics referred to the vector lines of Tempest pass by these modern emporiums. Perhaps they shake their heads a little or make a disparaging comment. Kids these days. Get off my lawn. They don’t enter; inside is only heartbreak.
Perhaps what hurts the most is that it is a heartbreak we chose. We have no one to blame but ourselves, for while the arcade as it was may be dead, ultimately it is us who killed it.
We wanted the more valuable entertainment experience. We asked for and then demanded a perfect replica of our arcade favorites that we could play at home from the comfort of our couches. We pressed for more arcade-quality graphics on our home consoles until our set top boxes had visuals that outpaced anything showcased on a standalone machine. We asked for, and received, greater narrative depth in our games and as a casualty for our insistence we killed the arcade—the very entity we now mourn.
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Gallery: California Extreme Channels a Simpler Time
GamerAndy Live! Episode 82: Sex, Lies and Gamertags
Posted by Edie Sellers Categories: Internet, Namco, Politics, Release Dates, Rumors, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace, GamerAndy,
It’s a veritable cornucopia of co-hosts, as Andy, Hawkes, Edie and Steve519 (from XBLRadio) initially intend to talk up this week’s gaming news but instead delve deep into what we think is a growing plague on the landscape of podcasting: Corporate Lapdoggery. Yes, this is the episode where we pretty much rip apart Microsoft’s MVP program and pretty much expect we’ll be banned from all Microsoft events from now on.
We didn’t want to do it, but it had to be done. What can I say, kids, after months and months of everyone thinking it, someone had to pipe up and say the emperor has no clothes.
Just be warned, we’ll say a lot of stuff that will make us enemies, but we believe we are firmly on the side of truth, fairness, and the open exchange of information. We believe that you should be able to trust podcasts—any podcast—as much as you trust your local newspaper. Is that too much to ask? And even though we’ll probably take a lot of heat for this, we’d rather be dead right than alive and wrong.
AND!! There’s a contest for Halo2 and Shadowrun for Vista and Stalker for the PC (XP or Vista). Just listen before the first break and the end of the show to find out how to win!
Gallery: GamerAndy Live! Episode 82: Sex, Lies and Gamertags
Alex St. John Talks Wii, Casual Games, Blasts Vista
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PC,
Alex St. John, CEO of online game publisher Wild Tangent, recently talked with Dean Takahashi at Mercury News about casual gaming, Vista, and a little about the Wii, but most of the interview seems to focus on a withering criticism of Vista. St. John has long made his feelings known about the things he feels are broken in the gaming support in Vista, but here he seems to go into a little more depth. Some of the stuff isn’t that shocking – it’s fairly well known that there is generally a performance hit when gaming in Vista. Gamers don’t really get any benefits from DirectX 10 right now without content to support it, and of course St. John goes after the standard Microsoft criticisms of code bloat and memory footprint.
Beyond that, St. John’s big criticism is that the security mechanisms and parental controls, in his opinion, are horribly poorly thought out and implemented. St. John claims that Wild Tangent had to do tons of work to make sure that their online platform worked correctly in Vista, and very few of the competing online providers did the same, resulting in a broken experience for most casual gamers.
Interestingly, Microsoft sent a response to the interview, but the email from Microsoft reads more like a general “feel good” press release about how they worked with developers and families to come up with the solution in Vista, while countering none of the issues that St. John raised. St. John is saying that the implementation is broken, and Microsoft’s response basically seems to be “we talked to a lot of people and tried really, really hard” which in itself seems to be an indictment of Microsoft’s development process.
Read More | Mercury News
Gallery: Alex St. John Talks Wii, Casual Games, Blasts Vista
Black Xbox 360 Box Art Leaked?
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Rumors, Xbox 360,
Playfeed’s parent blog, Gear Live, has gotten a hold of some internal images of a limited edition black Xbox 360 console with HDMI support, which would seem to confirm the recent rumors on the Internet about a black Xbox 360 release. These rumors originally had the release timed to counter the Playstation 3 launch in Europe and Australia, but an actual release date at this time is unknown. The box art reportedly mentions that the new console includes three USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI port, but has no mention of the hard drive size. Still, the mythical HDMI-enabled Xbox 360 looks to be getting closer and closer to becoming a reality.
Read More | Gear Live
Gallery: Black Xbox 360 Box Art Leaked?
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