A few of my friends like to call themselves gamers. That is to say, a few of my friends who are not already (real) gamers like to label themselves as such. Perhaps you know folk like these. These folk play Farmville, and believe it qualifies as a videogame in more than name only. These people annoy gamers, non-gamers, friends and enemies alike with unrelenting Facebook notifications inviting one and all to partake in… whatever it is Farmville players do? Arrange flowers, or something? Anyway, I’m kind of letting my Farmville hate get away on me, here. That’s not the point. The point is that intelligent,…

Remember growing up when people used to want to be astronauts? Well tomorrow’s people walk this planet today, and while space exploration budgets are cut and we still don’t have jet packs, today’s the day the NASA-developed ‘Moonbase Alpha’ game hits the Valve Steam servers for some PC gaming goodness. Announcing the title last year, the space scientists spoke about the power of games as educational tools, saying their game functions as a persistent environment, calling it “a massive visualization tools and collaborative workspace while simultaneously drawing users into a challenging,…

The great thing about Apple’s portable devices for fans of simulation games is that you can actually live more of a life while spending almost every waking moment tweaking some setting or researching new technology, or exploring a series of bad decisions as you go to war with your neighbor. This is a good thing. What follows are six of the most engaging simulation type games I’ve come across this week, with many of them available in the HD format for the iPad. Of course, these all work just as well with any of Apple’s smaller-screened iOS-powered devices. And they’re all great fun, enjoy. Civilization…

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Pac-Man today, Google has converted its company logo over the search bar into a fully playable version of the game allowing players to weave around the corridors made by the company name. Google’s logo changes have been nothing new over the past 10 years, with the company changing it’s doodles for holidays and special occasions regularly. Up until now the only interactive logo was posted last Halloween allowing users to click to see more candy, but with this new Pac-Man doodle they have taken their interactivity to a new level. When the team found out that…

Get the pizza in, buy the beers and prepare to sign your autumn away on news Electronic Arts will release The Sims 3 for all three consoles and the Nintendo DS this fall. The Sims 3 is already a big seller on the PC and Mac platforms. Millions rushed out to pick up The Sims 3 on the PC/Mac last summer making it the biggest PC launch in EA’s history and the best-selling PC title in 2009. Now, EA says the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and DS versions of The Sims 3 are on the way. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions will allow content creation and sharing online. The Wii versions gets an exclusive new area Beach…

When it comes to news pouring out of Cupertino today,  many are understandably focused on multitasking. It was the thing Steve announced first, and it’s been the thing the ‘sphere has been salivating over for weeks. But the biggest news from Apple today wasn’t multitasking – and it wasn’t even the iAd platform. It was Game Center. Why is gaming such a big deal? Well, first there’s the obvious. Apple themselves have claimed that gaming is the biggest draw on the App Store. While Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS have hundreds of available games, the App Store has 50,000+, and games regularly rank as the…

Remember Tetris? We do! We remember playing Tetris on our Game Boys for hours and hours, all while attempting the seemingly impossible challenge of organizing virtual bricks into rows while they dropped faster as time went on. Oh what fun we had. Guess what? Tetris is making a comeback, and this time it is bigger, faster, more challenging, and more in-your-face than ever before. It’s the Tetris redux — reality style — and we want to play it right now. Unfortunately, there isn’t much information about the project, but it is apparent that someone took the time to create a large Tetris-inspired…

The iPad has been declared as the greatest gaming machine ever — thanks to the iCade. It’s an impressive set of hardware and software for the iPad that will enable you to play your favorite old-school arcade games. When you purchase the iCade — courtesy of the folks over at ThinkGeek — you’ll receive a hardware iPad arcade cabinet that allows you to slide your iPad in to turn your iPad into an arcade-like screen, and the iPad slides into a 30-pin connector that allows the hardware to control the iPad with the classic  joystick and big red buttons. Following that, you’ll then launch the iCade…

After a bit clever detective work by the folks over at PadGadget, we now know what games the iPad will be launching with. You will be shocked to learn – or not – that most of these titles are just upgraded versions of their iPhone counterparts, indicated by an ‘HD’ added at the end – a move now very familiar to users of the PS3 and Xbox 360. What this means is that developers will, initially at least, likely be upgrading the resolution of existing games, rather than developing new ones. Which, let’s be honest, is kinda’ disappointing. It seems tablets are at least perfect for board games shared between…

Like a tech industry Tekken, Apple is clashing with almost everyone these days, from Google to Microsoft to Amazon and beyond. Now Sony feels the force as iPhone grabs the handheld gaming market. Flurry Analytics says Apple’s surpassed Sony PSP game revenue in the US, estimating the iPhone has seized 5 per cent of the lucrative $10 billion US games industry. That’s up from $115 million in 2008 – near 400 per cent growth. With over 30,000 games available at the App Store and the upcoming release of the much-anticipated iPad, Apple’s set to continue grabbing share in the games market, the researchers…