Film and television quotes are so entangled with our language that their origins have become irrelevant to most speakers. We use Seinfeld-popularized neologisms and phrases constantly without considering who popularized them (“shrinkage,” “yadda yadda yadda,” “close-talker,” “not that there's anything wrong with that”). But games are a younger medium, and for a time were thought to be the... ...

It’s not easy being a horse, especially a diabetic horse who loves sugar cubes and games. As a proud member of the Equidae family, I don’t give a damn about the new protagonist in Assassin’s Creed II or the stupid non-animal flying device he’ll pilot. I just want to know if Ezio will be riding a freaking horse through the Tuscan countryside. Will he get to mount a Salerno, or perhaps a San Fratello? ...

How many times in your life have you pressed “A” on a NES controller? Though we may not specifically remember every single occurrence of A-button pressage, we are left with a lingering sense of what that little red dynamo could do. Jumping, mostly, and sometimes shooting or punching or maybe some other stuff if it was one of those weird games. ...

“We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is? When will we get to the cowboy level?”

– Professor Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Time travel and videogames are a perfect fit. ...

You know that friend nobody likes? The one that keeps showing up because no one’s told him to buzz off? That’s what water levels are to videogames. Upon arrival, they kill the mood and alienate anyone who was on the fence about staying or leaving. In short, they tend to ruin the entire flow of a game that’s otherwise just fine, and very few titles have been able to do liquid environments right. ...

One reason we like games is that the stakes are high. The good guys are really good, the bad guys are really bad, and the princesses are really doe-eyed. But sometimes, games manage to work in villains that operate in shades of gray… and other times, they accidentally make a villain out of the most sympathetic guy in the story. ...

Nothing's perfect. Stare closely enough at anything - even a masterpiece - and you're bound to find flaws sooner or later. They might be small. They might be insignificant. They might not detract from the overall quality of the piece at all...

Except when they really, really do. With these seven games, in fact, you don't need to stare. Their flaws are so huge, so obvious, so frustrating and so effing obnoxious that you can't help but ...

So, Nintendo’s got a massive E3 announcement waiting in the wings. But as we detailed yesterday, not two years out the Wii has already blown its wad, unleashing Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Brothers Smash. It really makes you wonder what exactly they’ve got left to pull out of their puffy red hat. Sure, we can speculate about the likelihood of Kid Icarus and Star Fox until we’re blue in the wrist, but never with 100% ...