Thanks to GameSpot for their review of Castlevania:Lament Of Innocence for PlayStation 2, released today in the U.S., as they pronounce this "new 3D installment" to be "a fun, though fairly short and simple, game that marks a promising new beginning for this beloved series." GameSpy also have an interview with the creator, Konami producer Koji Igarashi, but end up judging the title a "very playable but somewhat dull game", and 1UP try a different tack by nominating the Top 10 Belmonts, discussing the "Belmont family of vampire hunters", before ruling similarly to the other reviews, albeit with a more upbeat edge: "Taken on its own terms, Lament of Innocence is a resounding success, and one of the best 3D action games on PS2." Would you prefer the Castlevania series stuck to 2D, or is 3D the only way to truly evolve it?

Thanks to OgreCave for their article discussing the imminent arrival of the Warcraft-licensed board game, adapting Blizzard's classic RTS series for paper-gaming. They point to a new article on maker Fantasy Flight Games' site, where "...designer Kevin Wilson described his desire to have an endless variety of scenarios for the game, and how victory points and interchangable board pieces will make it possible." The game itself, shipping later this month, will have "13 board sections alone, helping bring the game's component count to over 400 pieces", but despite the large amount of units, an earlier article describes the design goal: "...to create a fun, relatively simple game that could be played in under 2 hours while still capturing enough of Warcraft's charm to have players yelling 'Zug zug!' and 'At your command, my Lord!'"

Thanks to GameDevLeague for their article discussing discussing the Grand Theft Auto-like Activision game True Crime, and its good cop/bad cop dilemma. The author argues: "In Differentiate or Die, Jack Trout says if you're not the leading brand with the killer attribute - then you should go 'opposite' the leading brand's killer attribute." He continues: "What attribute does GTA own? Crime. How do you go opposite of crime? Law enforcement." But he laments that, while you play a cop in the game, "...Activision went and called it True Crime! And buried the law enforcement angle so deep I can barely even tell from the ad copy that's what it's about." So does everyone "want to be bad" nowadays, thus Activision's clone-like marketing ploy, or do users genuinely not care as long as the game is fun?

Thanks to Tleaves.com for their article discussing RPGs that tinker with the basic hack n' slash formula to "try to provide incentives for non-combat development." The author comments on combat-heavy RPGs: "Sometimes my best friend sees me playing Angband and asks me what I'm doing. 'Knitting,' I say, and this is pretty accurate - it's repetitive, mindless, and somehow comforting." But he suggests that, while levelling up via combat is great fun, "...there is room (and indeed desire among players) for higher aspirations as well", referencing Ultima IV ("most of the interesting parts of the game were actually unlocked by ethical development") and The Witch's Wake module for Neverwinter Nights ("Experience is meted out specifically for reaching various narrative goals. Combat yields no experience whatsoever.")

Thanks to Nintendojo for revealing new details regarding the previously rumored, Namco/Nintendo co-produced GameCube-exclusive rhythm game, Donkey Konga. The site has pictures of the "new Congo Drum peripheral dubbed as 'Barrel Konga Drums'" which will be shipping with the game, and the 4-player, 32 music-track title may include the Super Mario Bros theme alongside "Latin beats, pop music, dance, classical, Anime and children's tunes." Adding to the fun, "the drums will include a microphone that's designed to pick up the sound of claps thus making the game require you to clap as well as bang on the drums", but Nintendojo reckon a U.S. release to be "highly unlikely" since "it caters too perfectly towards the Japanese audience" weaned on games like Taiko No Tatsujin.

jgoeres writes "StarROMs, Inc. has just launched a pay-per-download service for classic arcade ROM sets. These are what you need to make your emulator fun and legal. This aims to bring ROM collection & emulator use out of the semi-underground and turn it into profit, but will it fly? They currently have about 60 games, all from the various incarnations of Atari over the years, with more on the way. Prices range from about $2 to about $6 per game. And no, they don't have Marble Man."

Thanks to GameSpot for their 'GameSpotting' editorial discussing why online gaming can often be more frustrating than fun. The columnist finds two main reasons for frustration - firstly: "I don't like getting trounced by someone who is either flat-out, hands-down better at a game than I am or has simply invested many more hours in getting good at the game than I have." He also has issues with impolite players: "I think online gaming brings out some really despicable behavior in people, which I don't particularly mind but that I certainly don't like." Some possible solutions are mentioned, such as "effective player-matching services", but what can and should be done to make playing online a delight?

Thanks to Joystick101 for pointing to a news piece discussing the in-development Glucoboy add-on for the GameBoy Advance. According to the article, "Glucoboy is a glucose meter that can be inserted into a Nintendo GameBoy. The product operates independent of the video game system, but downloads video game programs that are contained within its circuitry into the GameBoy as a reward for maintaining good blood sugar control." The product hopes to help children with diabetes monitor their condition better, and the creator comments that his son "...always knew where his GameBoy was, but he always seemed to misplace his Glucometer."

Thanks to GameSpot for their review of the PS2/Xbox/GC driving game, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, released this week, in which they shrewdly point out: "with perhaps the sole exception of Konami's 1991 arcade action game, The Simpsons, no [Simpsons games] have really even proved to be much in the way of fun." Although it seems "practically every mission in the game is a direct clone of one of the GTA driving missions", the reviewer thinks Hit And Run "finally manages to bring the world of the Simpsons to life with proper justice", and much of the appeal, according to Gamers.com, is in the references: "You'll plow through a field of Tomacco... and take a shortcut through the Stonecutters' Hidden Tunnel... you'll conduct missions that require you to collect 'flatmeat' for Cletus, [and] round up monkeys for Dr. Nick's experiments."

Thanks to Ludology.org for pointing to the Georgia Tech game morphology project, which, although still in development, has asked famous creators and academics for their favorite games of all time. Interesting picks include Warren Spector's kudos for Ultima IV ("Wait, you mean games can be about more than just killing things? Whoa! This game, with its ethical underpinnings, changed my life"), Henry Jenkins' choice of Myst ("not a great game from the perspective of game play... [but influential because] it brought some degree of middle class respectability to games"), and Will Wright's picking of Pinball Construction Set ("[a] heavy influence for me - construction is fun.")

ChinoH81 writes "Video games are never going to be as popular as films or music unless the people who make them concentrate on making them fun, says a leading game expert."

Thanks to Video-Fenky for their translation of an interview with Hisao Oguchi, the new boss of Sega. In it, Oguchi argues that less "grandiose games" are the way to rejuvenate the games market, referencing titles such as The Sims, Animal Crossing and Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin as good models for doing this, and saying: "Developers can't force their game worlds and huge stories on users. We can't have people balk at sitting in front of the TV and playing games because it's too tiring. All games are made to be fun for the people playing them, so in the next generation especially, making content that doesn't feel tiring to gamers will be very important."

Mahrin Skel (Dave Rickey) writes "When I wrote up my Engines of Creation column for August 12th with a focus on Dr. Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds , I had no idea it was the closest thing to an independent review the book had yet received. I hadn't intended my column as a review, but simply as nit-picking over an almost theological point of disagreement between my philosophy of game design and that of Dr. Bartle. My intended audience was the normal readers of my column, mostly other people already working in the Online Games industry." Rickey provides a review of Bartle's book for a more general audience below, and explains his reasoning for doing so.

Thanks to IGN Xbox for their hands-on feature on Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden, claiming that Star Wars:Knights Of The Old Republic "...has some competition for game of the year" on Xbox. According to the effusive preview, "While the original Devil May Cry made it fun to juggle enemies with your gun and then slice them in half with your sword, Ninja Gaiden one-ups Capcom's classic with a combat system that is more free-flowing and naturalistic than any 3D action game I can remember." The game, a sequel to the classic NES title, is "...tentatively set to ship Holiday 2003."

Thanks to Wired for their article discussing the success of ex-arcade designers in the casino machine business. The article focuses on Larry DeMar, once the co-creator of classic arcade titles such as Robotron, Defender, and Stargate, but now producing innovative video poker games such as Multi-Strike which "..add an element of fun to machines that traditionally have been routine gambling devices." According to industry executive Joe Kaminkow, "By making a game entertaining, you can enhance the wins and soften the losses for your players. You learn to give your players good cookies - things that are fun and exciting. Good designers understand how to dole out those cookies in just the right amount." Since a top-selling game "can reap more than $1 million per month in royalties for its creator", gambling machine design is a bigger business than many might think.

Huxley_Dunsany asks: "Yesterday, while attending the (super-duper cool and fun) Classic Game Expo here in Las Vegas, I was lucky enough to trade some old game stuff (Intelivision II, ZX-Spectrum, some Neo-Geo Pocket games) for a really neato black Sony Playstation 'Net Yaroze' edition. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, back in '97, Sony came out with a (very) limited edition of the plain old Playstation. Back in the day, the 'Yaroze' PSX ('Yaroze' supposedly means 'Lets do it together') came with some special cables and software for PC/Mac, and, given enough time and effort and programming talent, you too could create your own Playstation games! Unfortunately, the Yaroze I got yesterday came with nothing but the main CPU - no software, and none of the special PSX-to-PC/Mac serial cables. This morning, I hooked it up and hit the power button, and it fired right up with no problems! So, I'm just wondering if any of you have ever used this seemingly rare dev system, and if you could pass along any good ideas or advice. It seems that Sony has long since discontinued this program (and then recently started it again with the PS2 Linux kit), so I'm not sure where to turn for help if I actually wanted to use this thing to make some games, let alone finding/creating the cables and software."

Thanks to Planet GameCube for their report on how the newly released Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is faring in the Japanese press. This GameCube action RPG, which came out on August 7th in Japan, but is now delayed until February 2004 State-side, scored 32/40 and a Gold Award in the often strict Famitsu Weekly, and a Famitsu reviewer commented: "The one player mode feels a bit lonely as the gameplay tends to become routine. However, the game becomes more interesting in the multiplayer mode, where players can execute combination magic and work together to beat the boss. The fun factor is doubled." There's more info via hands-on impressions at IGN Cube, who seem to like the single-player campaign somewhat better.

darkstar2a writes "Back in the dot.com boom years, a bunch of us would crash the empty customer service department for some fun LAN gaming. Nowadays, though, we use our own computers, and have a significant ratio of Mac users - about 55%. This has brought up a huge frustration in finding games that work cross-platform (PC and Mac), and what exactly we need to make them work. We've only been reliably able to get the following working: Unreal Tournament (but the same game can get kind of old after hours of play), 4x4 Evo 2 (which we got cheap and was a great change of pace), Descent 3 (out of print and relatively difficult to locate.) This has to have been covered somewhere, but we've been unable to locate a resource for it. Can Slashdot Games readers help?"

ViperG writes "A small development team known as Moonpod has developed and self-published Starscape, a top-down 2d scrolling PC space action game. You can download the full game for a modest fee of $25, or just try the demo out for free. I haven't played a game this fun since the good old DOS days. If you don't want to take my word for it, read Avault's review." Other readers also point to positive reviews from StaticGamer and from NetJak for another worthy indie game.

The Herman writes "The free Stair Dismount game from tAAt for the PC was a big underground hit, and now there's a even better sequel: Truck Dismount. This program does a full-body crash simulation, with the crash-test dummy being smashed into a wall with a truck this time round." This sequel is almost more fun than the much-loved original, if that's even possible.