The National Institute on Media and the Family is to release its 13th annual video game report card today and have given a list of 10 games parents should not buy their children.
They are Blitz: The League II, Gears of War 2, Saints Row 2, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Legendary, Left 4 Dead, Resistance 2 and Silent Hill: Homecoming.
The group recommended the following five T-rated games: Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band 2, Rock Revolution, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and Shaun White Snowboarding.
To quote: Bloodshed and brutality are staples in the list of 10 games to avoid. All the games were M-rated, intended for those aged 17 and over.
"Blitz: The League II" players can target which body part of their football rivals they want to injure. Warriors in "Gears of War 2" use a combination rifle and chain saw. "Saints Row 2" features gang violence and allows players to shoot police officers.
Nine years ago, the DVD of "The Matrix" shattered records and catapulted the budding DVD format into the mainstream. Can "The Dark Knight" do the same thing for Blu-ray?
The Blu-ray release of "The Dark Knight" is slated to Dec. 9, and as Video Business [via High-Def Digest] reports, Warner Brothers has more than a million Blu-ray copies of the Batman blockbuster teed up for retailers—reportedly, the most ever for a Blu-ray movie to date.
Indeed, "The Dark Knight" is perhaps the biggest gotta-have Blu-ray title yet, bigger even than "Iron Man" (which has sold about 500,000 Blu-ray copies so far, according to Video Business) and "Transformers."
But here's the big question: Will the popularity of "TDK" translate into a tipping point for Blu-ray, as "The Matrix" (which was the first DVD to ship more than 1.5 million units back ... More »
Target today announced that they will be offering an exclusive edition of Shaun White Snowboarding that includes extended content and features that consumers won't be able to find anywhere else.
The exclusive content includes: an entire mountain environment called 'Target Mountain', exclusive jibs, additional scenes, more characters and the Target Chalet (which is is the only indoor environment anywhere in the game).
Press Relase: Target to Offer Special Edition of Ubisoft(R)'S Shaun White Snowboarding Video Game
Snowboarding phenomenon and Target athlete Shaun White will be riding his way into Target stores this Winter with an exclusive edition of Ubisoft's newest action sports title, Shaun White Snowboarding.
The special Target edition of the game will have exclusive extended content and features that consumers won't be able to find anywhere else, including the Target Mountain -- an entire mountain environment found only in the Tar... More »
Here are Yahoo's picks for the Top 20 games of fall, 2008:
Lego Batman Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS
Genre: Action
Release Date: September 23
The caped crusader gets an angular makeover in Lego Batman. Protect Gotham as Batman and sidekick Robin from a rash of criminals, including nefarious villains like The Penguin, Two-Face, The Riddler and Mr. Freeze. Utilize a wealth of Bat-gadgets to survive over 30 levels in another comical Lego adventure.
Why It's Hot:
It's Lego. It's Batman. If you can't suss out why this is hot, we're not sure we can help you. Go sit in the corner and put on your Bat-dunce cap.
Why It's Not:
We stand by these Lego games because they are that very rare breed of video game that appeals equally to parents and kids. Still, they're all sort of the same game. If you've played Lego Star Wars and Lego Indy, don't expect a huge change in gameplay with the blocky D... More »
Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. (SCEA) and the prestigious Parsons The New School For Design today announced its partnership in hosting a 24-hour LittleBigPlanet(TM) Game Jam.
The event will take place September 21-22 in New York City at Parsons and will consist of a 24-hour video game design competition featuring more than 120 students from disciplines such as technology, music, fashion design, illustration and photography.
Participants in the Game Jam will be tasked with creating the most inventive and challenging game levels within a 24-hour period for the highly anticipated PLAYSTATION(R)3 title, LittleBigPlanet.
Press Release: PLAYSTATION(R) Teams Up With Parsons The New School For Design for a LittleBigEvent in NYC
"We are thrilled to be partnering with some of the most imaginative talents in the world at Parsons The New School For Design," said Scott Rohde, vice president of Product Development, Worldwide Studios Ame... More »
Qimonda, the second largest DRAM company worldwide, has announced that they are mass producing XDR RAM modules for use in the PlayStation 3. An article on EDN.com is suggesting that Qimonda might be mass producing 512mb XDR RAM modules that they first showed off earlier this year. Current models of the Playstation 3 offer only 256mb of XDR RAM, which some gamers, industry analysts, and developers have complained about.
What many of those people don't understand is that the true power of the Playstation 3 doesn't lie in the memory, but in the eight-core architecture of the Cell processor. The Cell processor can handle a lot of physics objects because it's very math intensive, but struggles with memory intensive coding, which challenges developers to completely rework their game structure.
Press Release: Qimonda Started Volume Production of Rambus XDR™ DRAM for PLAYSTATION®3 Computer ... More »
Software king of the world Microsoft has defended its ad-targeting practices, claiming that it is a lot more responsible than others.
In a document for a House committee Microsoft has more or less admitted collecting data on its web users. Redmond said that it began collecting data outside its own Web sites in 2006, when it launched a third-party ad network, and that activity accelerated after the acquisition of aQuantive in 2007.
Microsoft said that while it started by offering an "opt-out" option on all pages on which it serves ads starting in the Spring. Users were falling over themselves to sign up to give their data to Microsoft. Only 1,800 users had said no.
Although apparently finding the opt-out option on Microsoft's page is just as easy as hunting the Snark or finding the Holy Grail.
Microsoft says it's getting caned in the online ad business and the committee should look at Yahoo and Google if they want to see who the bad... More »
Firmware 2.40 brings the PS3 closer to a fully-fledged system, but there are still problems with the system software and features that are missing.
In this article, we detail some of the problems faced by the existing system software and what additional features can make it better. While not everyone will agree with the problems and improvements features in this article, it just goes to show how many flaws the system has and how far off it is from perfect.
Don't get me wrong here. I love my PS3 but there is always the need for criticism.
Current Problems (and possible solutions):
The friends list takes long to load - if you have over 50 friends, your friends list can take a while to load, in addition, it takes some time for their online status to refresh. One way to solve this problem is to cache the list and reload it as needed. Currently, it seems that the list is loaded fresh every time the console is started.
(3) 
