games

News of the Electronic Arts "Simpsons" video game has barely rolled off the presses, but the product merchandizing juggernaut has long been in high gear.

Microsoft is coming out with a Homer-yellow Simpsons Xbox 360 to coincide with this summer's movie, though CrunchGear says there will be only 100 of them made for promotional events. We'll be starting an office pool to see how quickly they end up on eBay, not to mention how high the bids will go.

The only thing missing is a doughtnut accessory like the one dangling from the strap for Samsung'… Read more

Electronic Arts on Wednesday announced that it will release this fall a new Simpsons video game.

The announcement, by the world's-largest video game publisher, came just minutes before an invite-only press event in San Francisco where it was expected to make a "special announcement." It's not yet clear if the two announcements are one and the same.

The game, which is expected to be released this fall in conjunction with Gracie Films and Twentieth Century Fox, will feature the familiar Simpsons characters, and presumably, the storyline. It will also feature the voice actors from the TV … Read more

Hewlett-Packard is giving the public a chance to try out one of the experimental technologies it's cooking up. HP Labs is expected to announce Wednesday the open beta of Mscapes, a suite of software applications that let anyone create interactive location-based games or tours.

The Mscapes online authoring wizard can be used to design digital overlays on a map using photos, videos, graphics, text, or audio. Anyone with a GPS-enabled mobile device running Windows Mobile can use the Mscapes client to play any of the created games as they move through the physical world.

For example, HP Labs partnered … Read more

The notion of "frequent gamer rewards" has been tossed around by trend specialists and pundits (like MAKE Magazine's Philip Torrone) for some time now as online gaming becomes more and more profitable and increasingly entrenched in mainstream culture. Now, it's a reality with the World of Warcraft Visa credit card.

You can apply for it now. With your first purchase on the card, according to the World of Warcraft site, you'll earn a free month of game time.

But you won't be able to buy yourself new weapons by using this card. The WoW … Read more

With all these ultra-violent games everywhere, do you ever pine for the more innocent days of Frogger and Q-bert? OK, maybe not. But if you do have other favorites from an old Sega or Nintendo console, South Korea's Plezo says you can play them on the new PMG-250 handheld and its 2.5-inch color LCD.

This gadget may not have all the bells and whistles of its better-known counterparts, but it will let you pretend to be a real gamer as long as people can't see what you're playing. And it's an MP3 player too, so … Read more

We know that some of you won't balk at the $829 price tag of Nvidia's new highest-end GeForce 8800 Ultra 3D card, as long as it's the fastest thing around. With ATI's next-gen Radeon cards right around the corner, though, we'd definitely wait and take a few more laps around the money bin before springing for any high-end 3D cards today. The 8800 Ultra doesn't hit the street until May 15th, so you have a few days to think it over. But even if the Ultra card beats its soon-to-be-released competition, we have to … Read more

The NBA and NHL playoffs are in full swing, and baseball season has just begun. A sweet time of the year it is indeed. But how can we keep track of all the schedules?

Enter the "Game Time" sports watch, which is programmed to alert you when your favorite team is about to play, and if you're running late it sounds a tune to let you know when the game is starting. And for the OCD fans out there--and we know there are a ton of you--it also includes schedules of future games, venues and start times … Read more

Baseball fans will want to keep an eye on this promise. Microsoft's Silverlight could be used to bring live Major League Baseball to your mobile phone. The MLB folks were on stage at MIX in Las Vegas, showing off the next generation of baseball video services. Their capper was a live game on a Windows-enabled cell phone. We've embedded MLB's presentation to the left.

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The average video game can give you anywhere from eight to 80 hours of solid, fun playtime. You pick it up, pop it in, play it until you're done, and put it away (or trade it in for far too little in-store credit). Some games can pull in gamers for far more time. They're called MMOs, massively multiplayer online games, and they offer a persistent online world for gamers to explore and conquer with each other. They're the digital equivalent of crack, and can easily turn the eight-to-80 hour playtime of a normal game into an easy … Read more