Girl Gaming - Down a percentage

A recent UK study observed at female presence in the games industry and showed a drastic decrease within the past four years. 12% of gamers in 2006 were female, compared to only 4% today. The survey, conducted by Liverpool PhD student Julie Prescott surveyed 450 UK women. The results showed the rise in females in business as a major factor.

32% of the sample claimed to work over 45 hours a week, with 22% that worked between 6 and 55 hours a week, and 10% that worked more than 56 hours. 43% of surveyed women said their long work hours negatively impacted their well-being.

Industry News: Increase in Gold Accounts for XBOX LIVE

It's easy to be angry with Microsoft and easier to not care, assuming you have the funds, but the $10 price hike on Xbox Live is both a warning to consumers and a wake-up call to Sony. As a consumer we've got two options, renew when our subscriptions are over (for $10 more) or to play all of our games online with the PS3. Neither option makes us happy. We got used to paying $49.99 and were happily complacent about it. So why the price hike now?

Microsoft isn't one to throw free money away, their board meetings must have agreed on one thing, they were going to make more money from the people that would renew for 10 extra bones then they were going to lose from people being offended by the cost increase. Essentially, they know we're hooked. So as consumers we'd be silly not to watch Microsoft for service improvements, because our $10 dollars should be going to something.

As for Sony, they can't feel great knowing

Game Reviews - Halo: Reach Online Experience

Multiplayer for Halo Reach will give players options they have not had before. Reach will give players the options of "loadouts" a feature that allows player to choose a predefined choice of weaponry when they spawn. This feature is a dramatic change gamers will love. Gamers will be able to choose between having a jetpack, sprinting faster, camouflage or having an energy shield when playing against others. This feature will completely change how gamers play with one another. Competitive gamers will need to use the different loadouts for strategic purposes against other teams. Gamers will be able to choose their Spartan gender and customize their armor as they play and obtain experience. The multiplayer for Reach will have the standard Slayer, but new games have been added. In "Headhunter", players drop skulls upon death, which other players can pick up and deposit at special zones for points. When a player dies all their accumulated

Games - Demanded Firefight is in Halo: Reach

Halo: Reach comes out tomorrow with a significant amount of improvements, but the mode I'm most excited about, is Firefight. When Halo 3: ODST came out about a year ago we weren't playing an elite soldier like we'd been used, but rather a combat rookie. The lead character in ODST was an interesting method of revealing the truth about the Halo universe "€œ if you aren't Master Chief, if you aren't a Spartan, you're a glass cannon at best.

All of the tools of destruction were there, but with a health bar that wouldn't recharge,

GAME REVIEW - REACH IS HERE!

Reach is finally here for all of the Halo fans! Halo Reach will be Bungie's last Halo game as they give the rights to Microsoft to continue the series if they choose too. Bungie went back and put some thought into creating their last installment on the series. Halo Reach is about the Spartan's home planet, Reach. Master Chief is gone! Players will be playing as Noble 6, a super soldier part of a unit fighting the Covenant. Halo Reach is the ultimate prequel and gives gamers options they never had before. The game is still a first person shooter, with co-op, online multiplayer and firefight modes. Reach takes Halo to an entire new level. Halo Reach campaign mode is said to be the most difficult compared to the other Halo's. With difficulty increasing as you add players for co-op makes the game a bit more interesting. Also there is a credit system involved in the game. As your player collects credit they will be able to upgrade and customize their character

Rumors in Games - Bioshock 2 No Multiplayer for you!

Ken Levine, the original creator of Bioshock has been leaning towards to removing online multiplayer in the next chapter of the epic series. Bioshock Infinite, which is to take place in the roaring 1910s and most likely a prequel, is going to be in the ranks of Metroid Prime, where being in a series that had multiplayer in one title of its series, then didn't have it in the next. While this isn't really set into stone for Bioshock Infinite, Ken Levine stated that adding multiplayer on games are both not all that interesting and can be a bit of a financial drain. He says

Gamer News - More Marvel vs. Capcom 3 characters revealed!

As if Capcom couldn't give us more of an excuse to get us fighting game fans to bulk up our fingers and prepare our Evil thumbsticks, just as of this past weekend, at Gamescom in Germany, it is revealed that both Viewtiful Joe (from Viewitful Joe) and Dormammu (the nemesis of Marvel's Dr. Strange) are going to be in the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. In addition, if you were to search back, the confirmation of Dormammu has significance in the leaked possibility of the Silver Surfer for Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Back around the end of July, in a Japanese video game magazine's interview with the producer of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Ryoto Niitsuma, the magazine accidentally revealed Dr. Doom (already confirmed a week or two ago), Dormammu (just confirmed now), and Silver Surfer. If Dr. Doom and Dormammu are already confirmed then most likely the Silver Surfer is probably now 95% confirmed. I left five percent, because the

Gears of War 3 won't be out till April 5^th 2011, so until then, Sega's got your back.

Vanquish is a third-person cover based shooter inspired by the success of Gears of War. The man behind the title is Shinji Makami, more famously known as the father of Resident Evil. Vanquish is Platinum Games' attempt to break into the American market. Something they weren't able to do with Bayonetta and MadWorld.

Vanquish attempts to appeal to both the western and eastern audiences, but it's still a very Japanese game. It's got all of the Japanese trademarks: non-realistic settings, humans stylized like 3D anime, mechs, and ridiculously large boss sequences. Platinum games is doing to Gears of War, what's it's done to Devil May Cry with Bayonetta, adding a gratuitous amount of over the top action. However, it's also adding complexity to the game's core mechanic, cover based shooting. Gears of War fans may find the game's screen seemingly cluttered and not as streamlined

Gamer News - Activision not finding Female Leads to be Profitable

Activision recently admitted they believe games with female protagonists do not sell, referencing a number of male fronted top selling games in previous years. As a result, Activision and other companies avoid using female leads in games directed toward the general gaming population, only showing female leads in licensed games such as Barbie and Dora. Furthermore, according to Gamasutra reports, companies like Luxoflux have even attempted to create titles with female protagonists but changed their concepts based on Activision's narrow-minded focus on current high sales of male driven games. Sadly, since little chance has been given for female fronted games to prosper, it looks like this trend will continue. This derives from a lack of faith in a potentially outstanding product, based solely on gender rather than quality itself.

Luxoflux started to take a step in the right direction with their original notion

Microsoft announced that it hopes to add 5 more years to the lifespan of its most recent console. Now the X-Box 360 has been released since its days back around 2005, and it has recently reported its first ever, profitable quarter. Microsoft believes that the Kinect and future services and features will contribute to this proposed lifespan. In this blogger's opinion, this could be a good thing and a not so good thing. I'll start with the not so good. If Microsoft is planning to expand its console's life by five years, there is a possibility that within those five years its competitors might drop a new console and eat up everyone's attention. I believe that could be a possibility because of the demand for new technology and technology's ever so rapid pace of evolving. But I could be mistaken on this because the X-Box 360 could be like the Dreamcast from SEGA. The Sega Dreamcast was still being played even after its bigger rivals (Nintendo and Sony) decided to bring in the Gamecube and the