Scope dis: Videogames and hip hop “came up” together. Both art forms hail from the late 70’s. Both struggled for mainstream acceptance throughout the 80’s. Both achieved success in the 90’s, to finally become the staple of pop culture we now enjoy every day. Given their synchronistic upbringing it’s no surprise that we’ve seen more than a little overlap. ...

Top 7... Sadistic moments in games
The games that let you revel in pain inflicted on others.

Dante’s Inferno
Shane’s seen EA’s latest licensed title.

Killzone 2 is finally out! ...

Abnormally sized limbs that are sort of funny to look at: a premise that only minutes of arduous brainstorming could have birthed. Can we actually fashion a coherent article with a subject weaker than the plot of a Family Matters episode? Carl Winslow would believe in us, and it isn’t as if it hasn’t worked for us in the past. Enjoy, and be sure to come back next week for “100 slices of bacon that look like Mario.” ...

When we heard Mr. Cent was making another foray into the gaming medium with 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, we thought the idea was ludicrous. But once we heard that Fiddy would be fighting terrorists for the sake of America, we gleamed with happiness. Think about it: that’s exactly the jingoist shot in the arm our United States needs now that a new President has taken office. ...

Question: Does anyone really care about the real musicians signed to appear in Guitar Hero: World Tour? Don’t respond out loud - use our handy comment feature below. Shouldn’t the focus of games like Rock Band and GH be on you pretending to play an instrument? Case and Point: In Guitar Hero III, any moment given to taking in the mannerisms of Tom Morello, or the expressionless rock face of Slash is time spent not playing. ...

To celebrate Independence Day (the holiday, not the movie), we’ve scoured our encyclopedic minds for the most patriotic games to be developed. But that wasn’t funny enough. So, we dug deeper to find the most rabidly patriotic games every developed. Ya know - the ones with so much love for Old Glory that it starts to get a little ridiculous. Behold - our results!

America's ArmyUS Army | 2002Any game can add the word ...

Because we enjoy making graphs, looking at graphs, and talking about graphs so darn much, we decided to do a little research experiment. Our goal was to discover which numbered entry in a game series (not the number of games into the series, the actual number in the game’s title) is most often the best. Is it scientific? Not in the least, but it still might surprise you. ...

In all honesty, some games would be better off left on the whiteboard at the design meeting. Whether they're too ambitious, too expensive or simply too good to be true, we're frequently led to imagine great things only to have our expectations dashed when the game finally arrives. How could these games be so good on paper yet underwhelm so spectacularly? Let's take a look... ...