Gaming Feeds

Having studied the desktop mountains of research into the effect of violent games on children, Dr Tanya Byron has admitted the "jury is still out" on potential risks, but that the type of testing required to investigate it fully would be "ludicrous, unethical" and "should never happen".

So do Microsoft and Sony hate each other? "Not exactly" according to Microsoft’s Game Studio’s attorney, as he’s stirred the hottest rivalry this generation. Don McGowan made news a few days ago with his comments regarding the Master Chief mod on Sony’s PlayStation 3 running on Unreal Tournament. In response to whether or not Microsoft had a problem with it, Don explained the content usage rules did not forbid users the right to create such content if they are not making money from it. He went on to describe how proud Microsoft were that Master Chief was so popular that gamers from the other platform wanted to play with the character, and then proceeded with a low blow - "And no one is taking characters from PlayStation games (do they even have any games?)"

He made an appearance on Major Nelson’s blog to explain his comments and admitted that because he’s a lawyer himself doesn’t mean he’s untouchable, as he waits to be "spanked" because of the controversy.

Listen from the 49th minute mark on the Podcast.

Indonesian police said Monday they are searching for a nine-year-old boy who ran away from his home in Jakarta with more than 10,000 dollars in cash belonging to his father.

The boy reportedly bought a Playstation video games console and a mobile phone after enlisting the help of a shopping mall security guard to change around 800 dollars into Indonesian rupiah.

After starting a boycott against EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company, Sarcastic Gamer has produced this hilarious "commercial" for Bad Company, complete with all of the "touches" of an EA game.

From the article: "Well, its been a while since we’ve released a parody/satire video, but the hiatus ends as EA literally handed us an ammo box by deciding to charge EXTRA for WEAPONS in a FIRST PERSON SHOOTER. Hit the jump and see the vid!"

With all this talk about pirates and ninjas, vikings often get overlooked. Too bad, because vikings have a lot to offer. Amazing beards, for example. A shame high-brow British men’s lifestyle magazine FRONT focused more on boots and boobs instead of beards. (Missed opportunity, folks!) Model Kitty Lea hacks her way though Viking: Battle For Asgard in a bikini. She must be cold.

One of the great things about the Game Developers Conference is that you never know who you’ll run into. As Newsweek’s Level Up hung around the conference room following Dylan Cuthbert’s illuminating talk about the methodology behind his PixelJunk series of games for Playstation Network, they spotted none other than Martin Hollis, director and producer of the classic Nintendo 64 shooter GoldenEye 007. Hollis, who after leaving Rare went on to found a new development studio named Zoonami, was kind enough to chat with Level Up for a few moments. They asked him what he thought of the current state of videogames, and he replied that the last three-quarters of 2007 and early 2008 represented a Golden Age of gaming, led by BioShock and Portal. Prior to that, the pioneer of great console first-person shooters confessed that he’d been suffering from FPS burnout.

The N4G Podcast Crew returns this week to discuss game creators crossing the line, the Battlefield Bad Company Beta and of course the latest releases including Crisis Core, Dark Sector and Rainbow Six Vegas.

A British newspaper is trying to pay people hundreds of pounds to say that computer games made them turn to a life of crime. This is just an outrageous and ridiculous attempt to stitch us up once again.

Banjo Conker writes:

In Major Nelson’s most recent Xbox Live Activity Update, Conker: Live and Reloaded was marked #10, as one of the original Xbox’s most played games.

As we discussed in a previous article here at Nintendic, even Nintendo, for all the fantastic good it has done in serving the videogames industry over the years, sometimes gets it wrong. Aside from software bungles, one of its biggest hardware misjudgements was the ill-fated Virtual Boy.

Invented by Gunpei Yokoi (the man behind Game & Watch, Game Boy and Metroid) and released in 1995, the console that aimed to provide “3D games for a 3D world” lasted little over a year, sold badly, made gamers ill, and turned out to be one of Nintendo’s biggest ever flops.