Anything new and relatively untested will be subject to more misconceptions than facts. Ridiculous and sensational news reports about the seedy underbelly of Animal Crossing and batshit-insane lawyers like Jack Thompson have diluted the truth about gaming. Combine their ignorance with our own misconceptions as gamers, and there’s a lot of nonsense to sort out. We can’t sort it all out, but we can at least hit some of the bigger points of confusion with our hammer of truth and brief internet research ...

The Tokyo Game Show used to be filled with eccentric Japanese titles, destined to be locked away from all but the most hardcore collectors. Those days are over. Almost every major upcoming title on show this year was confirmed for release outside of Japan. ...

Is everyone loving The Beatles: Rock Band? In this new age of lifelike mo-cap, crisp digital audio and video games being more mainstream than ever, we’re finally seeing the most famous rock gods and musical heroes take to the polygonal stage in games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. ...

Earlier this week, publisher Capcom announced that Super Street Fighter IV, an expanded, stand-alone follow-up to this year’s fighting megahit, will arrive in stores sometime in 2010. Aside from tweaking the gameplay (like every Street Fighter expansion before it), the new game will introduce around eight “new” characters, some of which - like Korean fighter Juri – will be genuinely new. ...

Christmas '09 is cancelled, but early next year looks amazing. ...

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. ...

Most game ads are usually a bit rubbish. But we can forgive them, because whether pushing Z listers ‘enjoying’ entertaining interactive products or offending our ears with a cheesy, booming voiceover, most of them are just charmingly clueless. The following ads are guilty of a much worse crime, though. They all utterly adore themselves. Self-indulgent, self-loving bullshit, below you’ll find cynical commercials that have ...

Waiting sucks. Period. Fortunately, there is a cure. While many iPhone games lean towards the short, cute, and casual end of the spectrum, we’ve consulted the dark tome of Baphomet to summon forth a demonically delicious sampling of portable RPG gems capable of consuming voluminous amounts of time and possibly a few souls.

Not afraid to geek out in public? We’ve got your back ...

Games are banned in two primary ways. The first is by corporate policy. When a company refuses to sell or distribute an unrated game, it is effectively censoring the game, but they can’t be entirely lampooned for attempting to maintain a positive image. Nintendo has every right to prevent “Sextrobes: Pornigins” from being released on the Wii ...

Question: what gaming platform has a userbase that rivals the entire current generation of consoles? If you answered Facebook, well, you're partly right. It may not have been originally designed for games, but the social networking platform has steadily built up a library of titles that are sure to distract you when you should really be getting some work done. The problem is, the games section is filled with so much crap that it can be tough to find a good game ...