The end of summer means the beginning of the game season, and today is the last Friday before the game industry’s big holiday push. Publishers jam the fall with games to challenge the true worth of your credit card – a double dog dare in the uncertain economy of 2009. ...

Diablo III may look awesome, but it’ll be quite some time before the franchise that redefined the dungeon crawling genre hits store shelves. In the meantime, Sacred 2 continues to look like a sweet sequel for lovers of leveling up and loot. We recently scored an exclusive sneak peek at the Dryad, one of the new classes lined up for Sacred 2. Scroll on for some fresh screenshots and a first look at her deadly skills.

Above: The ...

Remember when killing monsters repeatedly for loot wasn’t called “grinding” and was actually really fun? Leveling up before the rise of MMOs never felt like a chore, but Sacred 2 looks like it might return a bit of that old school charm to the dungeon crawler genre post Diablo 2 and Titan Quest. ...

In the context of a game, Achievements and Trophies are harmless. They're just carrot-dangling tactics that we're happy to indulge for our greedy pursuit of intangible virtual rewards. We wouldn't think twice about nail-bombing a kitten orphanage if it meant five more gamer points.

But, let's say, purely for the purposes of this here article, that we take Achievements and Trophies out of their virtual world settings and reconsider them ...

Mario is a cultural phenomenon. Final Fantasy is epic. Resident Evil, Fallout, Diablo... all of these classic franchises will eventually be tossed away, but they won't be stamped with expiration dates anytime in the foreseeable future.

Other franchises started growing mold before they even left the grocery store shelves.

The somehow-less-inspired franchises may sell millions, contain lovable ...

Swear words are used in film, TV and games to glorious effect. But sometimes the sheer quantity of obscenity causes the words to lose their meaning. Ever the cultural explorers here at GR, we’ve compiled a list of the ten swearing-est games we could think of. Then we grabbed footage from the first hour of each, and chopped it down to just the dirty words. Very scientific.

Check it out. But remember: this video is categorically ...

When did professional darts players attain to the status of WWE stars, playing to stadiums full of screaming fans and strutting into the place with an effing intro? Bluster aside, there is no way that holding a Wii remote like a dart is “realistic.” ...