Politics in Games - North Korea not going be lead by a Gaming Loser

One of Kim Jong Il's sons is apparently too busy playing video games to take over the reins of his father and run the world's most secluded militaristic oppressive country. Wikileaks (you know that organization that just likes to be the fly in every government's luncheon soup) has released information from a 2008 U.S. government consulate cable in Shanghai to the U.S. State Department. In addition to the information about the future prospects of North Korea and its leader being in very ill health they released this:

"...the two youngest sons, Kim Jong-chol and Kim Jong-un, far too inexperienced and incapable of effective governance. xxxxx, observing that KJI's oldest son, Kim Jong-nam, is

Back to Future Game Available Soon

Coming soon to a future near you: the Back to the Future franchise is launching into the video game world, with the first game installment hitting stores for PCs at the end of this month.

The game will pick up where the third film left off, in the first of five installments. Players will be able to play as Marty McFly and Doc Brown, traveling through time and encountering off the wall characters and peculiar situations. However, few details have been let out about where in time the game will actually take the player.

Co-creator/co-writer/co-producer of the films, Bob Gale, has been hard at work building the games,

Mortal Kombat Pre-Order Goodies

I've never had a huge issue with pre-order bonuses. In most cases, the content added through pre-ordering your game at a local game store always felt additional. It wasn't until recently that I've felt like pre-ordering was actually more like paying ransom. Since when did content that feels fundamental to the game suddenly get taken from the experience and split apart amongst different retailers?

Mortal Kombat 9 is a prime example. At this point I think it's safe to say that 80% of the people that will be excited for the newest Mortal Kombat have experience with the old Mortal Kombats, they've been there and done that with Mortal Kombat. We'll

Industry News - Stupid Burglar caught due to Facebook

All I can say is wow. You have to be pretty thick to be a criminal in my case, but this just about tops it for dimwittedness.

Apparently, a D.C. burglar thought his victims Facebook to be the best outlet to proudly flaunt his stolen prizes. Somehow, authorities have yet to catch the perpetrator, although of all the dumb things he could have done to give himself away and solidify the evidence, taking a picture of himself smirking with the stolen cash and winter jacket he took is probably at the top of the list.

The burglar broke into Washington Post writer Marc Fishers home last Friday, running away with Fishers 15 year old sons laptop, iPod, some saving bonds, cash, and a pretty nice winter coat. He then proceeded to take a picture of himself with the laptops webcam, posing and smirking with the stolen goods, and then posted it on Fishers sons Facebook page.

The latest patch for the hit PS3 driving simulator Gran Turismo 5 is going todelight those who were complaining about the details of damage in the game.After downloading the patch, "My Lounge" it allows you to choose exactly how much of mechanical damage you're willing to have on your car due from online play.

To be more detailed about this patch's key feature, you can have your car take as much damage and be looking spiffy and untouched for theentiretyof online play with "NONE" option. In addition, with the "HEAVY" option, if you took a lot of damage during playtime, your car would look so damage, I don't think even Carfax would take it. And somewhere in the middle,there's a "Light" option where it shows your car taking some moderate damage but regenerates it over time....which I would have liked in real life, especially when I was driving through wintertime Iowa during my college years.

Cheap as in Free!Free Games!

There's a nice gaming surprise for those of you that haven't checked the gaming marketplace in a while. Doritos recently released two completely free downloadable arcade games. Harm's Way and Doritos Crash Course. While you shouldn't expect full fledged arcade titles packed with a ton of extras, you can expect two pretty decent games (for being free). If you remember Dash of Destruction, just know that these two games pack a lot more content and will require more then a single sitting to unlock all the achievements.

Harm's Way is an unusual racing game with two modes of play. In the first mode you race around the track and

Canada using video games to boost morale

A while back, the Canadian military had a garrison outside of Montreal opened a requisition for $25,000 (Canadian, that would be nearly $24,800US) worth of video games. People in the military scratched their heads in confusion wondering why they would ask for such an unusual proposal, but the info has now been made public. They're gifts for soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.

Canada's Ministry of Defence (that's how it's spelled) followed up with the Canadian Press, who reported the story about the earlier experience, to inform the public that they wanted to buy 500 video games

Thanks to everyone that stayed up late with us this past Saturday night for our 12 @ 12 sale. We sold out of all inventory within about 8 or 9 minutes!

We were so happy with the sale we have decided to hold it again on Wednesday, January 12 at midnight Eastern Standard Time. We all know you gamers stay up late and play so a midnight sale should be a piece of cake! Who knows, maybe there might be more controllers this time!

Congratulations to Seth who snagged a Standard controller for $2 and to Jonathon who picked up 2 controllers. With one 12 @ 12 under our belts now, we will have the kinks worked out for next time. No other coupon codes will be valid during the sale and there is a limit of 1 controller per customer.

Thanks again everyone and wishing you all very evil holidays!

Rewards for being on XBOX Live!

Microsoft has now introduced its free Xbox Live Rewards program for their loyal customers. Members who participate in the program will earn Microsoft Points (the same currency used by Xbox Live) when they use the service to renew memberships, activate Netflix, purchase certain merchandise and more.

According to Major Nelson of Microsoft ( real name Larry Hryb), allparticipantswill be able to earn points while just playing games online. While its available to everyone, Gold Members get the more opportunities in comparison. This is great, in this blogger's opinion, as sometimes I feel like there should be a way to earn those points at times, because I really

Warcraft's latest Expanion, Cataclysm!

World of Warcraft (WoW) isn't a bad thing, it's actually an extremely well designed game. Perhaps too well designed. The problem with WoW is that it's too good at doing it's job. As gamers we tend to forget that gaming is a business. Sure we get the occasional title that's a lot more then that, like our Braids, Portals, and Okamis, but over the course of a two year development window the point of the team is to make a game that's going to make the player feel as though their $60 investment was worth it. With a game like WoW and any MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) is that the game has to be worth it's $15 dollar monthly charge.