Gamerscores have been a staple of an Xbox player’s personal identity, serving as a quick gauge for how much a gamer plays. 360Voice’s Achievement Challenge has taken that metric and has debuted a unique meta-game around Gamerscores in Gears of War 3. Gamers will accumulate achievement points in GoW3, and the Brotherhood with the most points after one month of play will take home the lion’s share of $10,000.

Due to the Steam Summer Camp sale a few weeks back, I was able to pick up the Longest Journey bundle. I had played the original some years back but most of that had faded from memory and the sequel would be brand new material. All I remembered about The Longest Journey was that it had left me with a feeling of being impressed and that it seemed more adult than I was used to.

He draped a battered, red cap behind the door and sidled up to the bar, scratching his enormous head. His eyes were shocked and bleary. One strap of his overalls hung loose, threatening to lose grip. He pulled off the white gloves, tarnished with dirt and blood, heaving his weight up the stool beside the Hero. He ordered a quarter liter.

“Well,” said the barman, “if it isn't the Mario.”

“Don't call me that,” he said, “I told you a thousand times.”

“Sorry, Jump,” said the barman, screwing out the cork.

“Always with the Mario.”

“Everybody calls you—”

With technology reaching incredible heights, there is constantly pressure to innovate. But while developers try and try to come out with the Next Big Thing (see Virtual Boy, motion control, glasses-free 3D, controller-free gaming, etc.), plenty of companies are banking on simply updating what has already proven to work -- and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Twenty-eight days after the PlayStation Network went down Sony began restoring it piece by piece across the globe, leaving restored regions only missing the PlayStation Store.

What Happened, And How Does It Affect Me?

For anyone who hasn’t been following the situation: the PSN was hacked last month, compromising all 77 million members’ personal information.

Why should gamers care about the recent decision by the National Endowment for the Arts to include video games in their list of types of media eligible for grants? The answer that immediately leaps to mind is that this decision now technically makes video games an art form.

Years had been building up to this trigger squeeze. Years of awkward super-soaker fights with girls, finding out laser tag’s more like disappointing regular tag, raging at paintball rounds for bouncing off targets, and of course, countless hours squeezing R2. I had held an M1 Garand before, virtually I mean, and won WWII with it a few hundred times already, but this wasn’t the giddy testosterone surge I thought it was going to be. I felt anxious. The M1 Garand is heavy. It’s made out of solid wood and steel, packing eight rounds of .308 death.

I’ll be the first to admit that I was not a fan of Dragon Age: Origins. The combat was too reminiscent of World of Warcraft and while I enjoyed the WoW system, I was felt it was necessary to play WoW on a PC, simply because the amount of options required a mouse and keyboard.