Blizzard News – BlizzCon Cancellation, 1st Battle.net World Championship, WoW Helping St. Jude Charity

If you keep up with gaming news, you know by now that BlizzCon 2012 was cancelled.  Blizzard attributes the cancellation to a lack of announcements/demos for 2012 and to dedicating work on upcoming games (Diablo III, new expansion for Warcraft, and Starcraft II).  Tens of thousands of fans journey out yearly to BlizzCon in Anaheim, California, paying $175 for entrance plus a truckload on fan pro... more.

In the intro of my second article for KitGuru, I wrote: Every kid (even those aged 40+) wants to build new, unique worlds where they can let their imaginations go wild.  Don’t you remember the days of building forts out of couch cushions, empires out of LEGO’s?  This free play experience has been loosely emulated in games like Age of Empires and The Sims, building up your empire and resource... more.

Newspapers, critics, and scientists can never seem to make up their minds about video games.  Do video games cause obesity, or can they have a positive impact on your health and the health of the elderly? Do video games promote or in fact prevent violent behavior? Is there any educational merit among video games for children, or are they harmful for child development?  As video games are shiftin... more.

If, like me you are in your thirties you might remember the original Choplifter game which was released in 1982 for the Apple II. A few years later it was ported over to other home computers and then in 1985 Sega released an arcade version which proved popular. Choplifter was a simple game, yet incredibly addictive. The premise was to shoot down enemy weaponry in your path and to rescue friendl... more.

I hesitate to post this article since there are already so many horrible stereotypes about Americans, and this piece of news reaches an entirely new level of insanity.  Before long, a new spin will be put on social gaming…The Pentagon itself is spending massive amounts of money ($32 million!) for universities, researchers, and game companies to develop games for casual players to test US weapon... more.

Yes, you read the title correctly.  There are indeed video games that improve mental health for the older generation.  So get out the pocketbook and start buying video games for your grandparents! The study was done by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine to determine the impact of interactive exercise games.  Turns out these games improve brain function, protecting from cognitive imp... more.

Mario eats mushrooms, Yoshi spits out turtle shells, RPG characters consume potions and ethers.  Food has a magical purpose in video games – improving stamina, restoring health and even bringing people back from the dead.  To be honest, I never thought much about the food in video games.  I just took it for granted that mushrooms could make Mario grow bigger and Phoenix Downs could restore li... more.

We’ve all been there – fights with your parents/spouse/kids to turn off the video game.  After all, the world at large knows video games are just a waste of time…right?  So what if you had the opportunity to play video games and be able to say, “Yeah Mom, I played Zelda all day long…but I helped a bunch of hospitalized kids because of it.  So what did you do today?”  That’s a pre... more.

I know the title of this article may seem farfetched.  For years, videogames have received enormous criticism for being too violent and resulting in increased violence among gamers.  Swarms of articles questioned the effects of video games.  Concerned parents closely followed research attributing gaming to violence.  Could the stigma against video games finally be reaching an end? A vas... more.

The Q*bert world record remains untouched.  The latest attempt happened this past weekend by George Leutz in New Jersey – 57 hours and 40 minutes with a final score of 26,721,915.  The record remains at a whopping 33 million, expected to take over 70 hours of gameplay.  Maybe Leutz should try for the longest drum marathon on Rock Band, since the world record is only half the time of Leutz’s... more.