I hardly think his album would have been in trouble had that single song not made the cut. As worst, they would have had to remove the track from the album. He went through a similar situation with James Blunt's "You're Beautiful." In the end, the song ("You're Pitiful") didn't make the album but Weird Al released it for free download on his website.

If you haven't the time to watch the video (or maybe you're using elinks or something), they specifically cite the fact that police in Travis County, Texas have willingly supplied checkpoint data to Trapster developers.

And anyway, I don't see how these apps would help people avoid DUI checkpoints. If you're sufficiently wasted, then you probably don't have the judgment skills to use the app and avoid the checkpoint in the first place.

Posted too soon. Pepper's Adventures in Time is also good. And it's freely downloadable: http://www.markseibert.com/the_full_game.htm

It has a girl as the protagonist and there's some good (if twisted) history lessons there too. Cute stuff.

If you're looking for a good old school point-and-click adventure game, I highly recommend hunting down a copy of Torin's Passage: http://www.allowe.com/Torin/index.htm

Lowe designed the game so he could play it with his daughter - he's most famous for working on the baudy Leisure Suit Larry titles. That having been said, there's some sly humor there that only adults will understand. But at heart, it's a fun family game - there's even a hint system so little kids don't get too frustrated with it.

The Windows version never worked well even on Windows 95, but the DOS version should run perfectly in DosBox.

If this is true, then it is not a surprise. Sony released the PS3, the most technically advanced of all the current generation consoles, only to be outsold by the comparatively weak Wii. And in addition, games released on both PS3 and Xbox 360 generally looked better on the 360 (e.g. Bayonetta).

Sony of all companies should have known that the most technically advanced console doesn't generally perform the best in the market. Sega's Saturn had a multiprocessor architecture before most game programmers knew how to program for one and the PlayStation destroyed it in the marketplace. Similarly, the PS2 fared better in the marketplace than the technically superior Xbox and GameCube (which was primarily hampered by storage space issues like the N64 before it).

What is important is third-party support. That's what made the NES, the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2 and other successful consoles. If you have a system developers want to develop for, then you'll get the good quality titles that have people flocking to buy your system.

I can't believe people are settling for the current generation's graphics when they could be so much better. Think about a Grand Theft Auto type of open world game with character models as good as a one-one-one fighting game, that would look amazing. It's not necessarily about photorealism - it's about pushing the boundaries of current technology.

And the new consoles should at least render games natively in 1080p. The current generation can't even do that with the vast majority of games: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241 Indeed, most games render natively at 720p, when virtually no TV available does 720p natively. So you end up with a horribly stretched out picture with most displays.

Great. Another article about talking heads yacking their heads off about video games, blah blah blah. I cringe when I see flowery text like "Like most titles in this genre, it's designed to put us into a series of dramatic set-pieces." No. It's designed to have you shooting all kinds of people with all sorts of weapons. That is what an FPS is.

I'd be far more impressed if they actual did a study of the human brain and what parts of it are in use while playing video games - pleasure/reward centers etc. Otherwise, all we have in this set of articles is a bunch of people just postulating their "theories" in another long-winded manner that doesn't help anyone.

Here's a novel concept. We play video games that are fun. Yes, fun. Remember that? The original reason we played video games before self-proclaimed video game academics and journalists decided to inflate their own reputations and overthink video games as a whole?

It's kind of weird seeing realistic face motions grafted onto dated looking character models. The whole effect reminds of the old cartoon Clutch Cargo.

Seriously though, I think motion capture is going a bit far here. It gets to the point where if you're going to go with that level of detail in noninteractive portions of the game, you might as well do FMV.

Fools. If anything, the movie industry should welcome services like Zediva to buy DVDs in bulk since consumer sales of DVDs are down. Or at least compete by offering "official" streaming at lower prices.

How ironic. I have varying opinions on all the past recipients named, but all of them have actually been the center of conflicts, more so than defusing them. So in retrospect, Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize wasn't such a bad idea since most folks agree on global warming and don't launch armed conflicts about the issue.

It's pretty worrisome that Nintendo is the first company to announce a next-gen console. Sega can tell you that being the first in the pool doesn't work so well. The other console manufacturers get a good look at your hand and can make something even better. And considering that Nintendo's competitors haven't even announced their own consoles, it looks like they'll have plenty of time to create consoles that are technically superior to whatever the Big N is coming up with.

But what Nintendo really needs to do is to make sure that they have a better line to third party developers. They can't afford miss out on another A+ cross-platform title like GTA or a proper version of Call of Duty just because their hardware isn't up to muster.