Gaming

As was first reported here last month, Electronic Arts' hotly-anticipated new evolution game, Spore, was about to go "gold."

Now, EA says, the game from SimCity and The Sims designer Will Wright has indeed done so, meaning that development on it is finished, and Spore is off to manufacturing.

Now all that's left is for the Spore marketing operation to kick into high gear, getting ready for the game's September 7 launch.

It's hard to imagine that this video game, which was first announced in 2005, and which has had its ship date redefined several … Read more

Much has been made about violent video games and how they impact children over the past decade and legislatures and activist groups alike have tried to find ways to stop them from getting in the hands of minors. And with the help of retailers, most laws have tried to make it impossible for those under the age of 17 to buy an M-rated game. But according to a recent Nielsen survey, 17 percent of Grand Theft Auto IV buyers were underage.

Nielsen found that of the 6,000 respondents, 17 percent of all buyers were younger than 17 -- the children were aged between 6 and 17 -- and of those younger buyers, 61 percent bought the game themselves, while 39 percent had a relative or friend buy it for them. In those cases where someone else bought the game for the kids, 80 percent were the child's parent or guardian and 10 percent said their older siblings bought the game for them.

Of course, anti-video game hacks will use this survey and say that it demonstrates to us all that retailers need to be more prudent in who they're selling games to and parents should be ashamed of themselves for giving a violent video game to a minor.

But I have a different take. I don't see anything wrong with underage kids buying any video game from any store at any time. And why should I? It's abundantly clear that they'll just have their parents get the games for them anyway.… Read more

The Olympic Games in Beijing is proving to be a hit in the workplace.

Traffic to Olympics-related Web sites soared Monday, the first full workday after the official opening of the games Friday, according to numbers released Wednesday by Nielsen Online (see chart below). More than 2 million people visited the video section of NBCOlympics.com, up nearly 140 percent from Sunday when the site had about 858,000 visitors, according to Nielsen. Overall visits to the site increased 40 percent to 4.6 million compared with Sunday's 3.3 million.

Traffic to Yahoo's Olympics site also skyrocketed, … Read more

After several years of waiting, video game fans will soon be able to get their hands on the long-awaited new title from legendary designer Will Wright, Spore.

But if the game's publisher, Electronic Arts, has its way, a much wider audience of fans may someday be exposed to the game. Or at least a version of the game.

That's because, according to a Reuters report Wednesday, EA is hoping that it may one day be able to license the film and/or TV rights to Spore. … Read more

If you've ever dreamed of watching a Mia Hamm/Sugar Ray Leonard beach volleyball smackdown (and who hasn't, really?), Electronic Arts' upcoming Celebrity Sports Showdown (PDF) could bring a new level of fulfillment to your life. The title lets you play as (a sometimes odd-looking version of) select celebrities battling their way through outdoor games including smash badminton, rapid-fire archery, wild-water canoeing, inner-tubing, and hurdle derby.

Fergie jousting with Keith Urban? Reggie Bush locked in an arena dodgeball deathmatch with Kristi Yamaguchi? Don't even get Perez Hilton started on the possibilities here.

The game, which will be … Read more

On today's show: Heroic and controversial news from the 2008 Summer Olympics, Michael Phelps dominates the competition, Chinese gymnasts gettin' shady wit it, child abuse in the form of gymnastics training, the great bigfoot unveiling, Favre team traitor trading, Hawaii Five-0 remake, and submission from our 404 GoAnimate competition!

I know that we've talked almost nonstop about the Olympics this week, but we have to considering all the crazy controversy going on this year. I actually can't remember the last time I've heard so much news about the Olympics that didn't have to do directly … Read more

We've been waiting for August 14 to roll around so we could tell you about Gateway's new budget-minded gaming rig, the P-7811FX.

After all, we're big fans of the high-power, low-price 17-inch laptops Gateway's been putting out this year as Best Buy exclusives, offering Nvidia's powerful GeForce 8800 GPU for a mere $1,350 (or less, depending on retail discounts). Even though new products like this usually leak beforehand, it was a surprise to see the new system posted on Best Buy's Web site today, a day early.

It's a good thing, too, … Read more

Star Trek is coming to the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. By most accounts for fans of the science fiction series and gaming, this is exciting news.

But the real question for Trekkies is sure to be: which Star Trek?

First the news: At a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas over the weekend, Cryptic Studios revealed the first details and a trailer for Star Trek Online, an MMORPG based on the franchise. Leonard Nimoy was even onstage to unveil the game (a company spokeswoman said they're not saying what the price or release date will be quite yet).

I asked the spokeswoman which Star Trek the game will be based on and she said cryptically that Cryptic is "definitely looking at the movies and TV shows as canon but also looking to comics and novels for additional ideas." Unfortunately, I didn't see the trailer, but the screen shots Cryptic sent me look an awful lot like a Star Trek: The Next Generation fight with one of those smaller, circular Borg ships. I assume the new game will create its own Star Trek universe, inspired by everything from the original series to all of the movies.

But let's set aside the movies for a minute and run down which Star Trek would be best, assuming that shows that were heavy on action and light on handwringing would make for good MMORPG gaming (full disclosure: Star Trek and CNET Networks now share the same parent company, CBS, which we at Crave happen to think is terribly cool):

• The original, swashbuckling Star Trek, which featured a svelte William Shatner; Leonard Nimoy; three seasons of Klingons who looked like swarthy, sweaty humans; green alien dancers; and occasionally brilliant writing. Lots of good fist fights and Shatner's faux kung fu (and who can forget Sulu thoroughly enjoying the sword play in "Day of the Dove"?), but the show's best moments were ultimately nice pieces of science fiction, like the famous "City on the Edge of Forever" episode, when Shatner has to sacrifice the comely Joan Collins to save the future.

Gaming factor: 7 out of 10

• Star Trek: The Next Generation, my personal favorite with Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, the android Commander Data, and an erudite flavor of benign imperialism doing its best to bring peace to the cosmos. There was some terrific writing on this show over the years, but a tad too cerebral for a video game?

That's not to put down games, but I'm not sure how you can role play Next Generation's brilliant final episode, which forced viewers to expand how they think about time. On the upside, it introduced the seriously bad-ass Borg, who did very, very bad things to Picard.

Gaming factor: 8 out of 10

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which a highly macho Avery Brooks (he of Spenser: For Hire and A Man Called Hawk) commanded a frontier space station in a war-torn area terrorized by the Cardassians and other menaces. Who can forget the epic battles between invaders from the Dominion and combined Star Fleet and Klingon fleets? Major kick-butt action, though it was disappointing that Brooks never once growled, "Spenssssserrrr."

Gaming factor: 9 out of 10… Read more

Computer maker Lenovo threw down some dough to become a sponsor of the Beijing Olympics, not only designing the Olympic torch but sponsoring athletes and supplying computers for the games' data and media teams. But the Chinese company may make some money back by hawking items like Olympic-themed USB flash drives that sport hefty price tags.

While America got stuck with boring flash drives bearing only the Olympic rings, visitors to Lenovo's Chinese Web site fared better with five types of interestingly designed USB flash drives (site in Chinese).

Lenovo announced the Olympic torch design, also featured on a Lenovo laptop, … Read more