Casual Games, Gamer Culture, Nintendo Wii, PC
Games For Beginners: Nurture Your N00b
Did you know that there are some people out there who don’t play video games? By choice? It’s understandable, though. Jumping into gaming isn’t as easy as it used to be. Stick your grandpa in front of an online Counter-Strike match and he’ll look at the keyboard the same way a monkey would look at an algebra equation. And it hardly seems fair throwing him into the inevitable onslaught of spawn-killing delinquents. There’s hope for your Pap-Pap though, with the aid of the right introductory games.
Ranking Valve games is a lot like ranking your own children. When people ask, you spout, “I love them all” or something equally inane. Deep down, though, you prefer little Randy and hope Sally is the mailman’s demon spawn so you can divorce your overbearing shrew of a wife. Note to current and prospective parents: Child Services frowns upon ranking children with a branding iron, especially when rankings are subject to change.
There are few certainties in gaming: extra lives, “game over” screens, and saving the princess. It’s time to add one more to that short list. The addition of the gun from Portal would drastically alter any game (for the better, of course), so why not help struggling developers who can’t seem to come up with new game play mechanics? Here’s a list of games that would benefit greatly from the inclusion of a portal gun — GLADoS (sadly) not included.
For as long as games have had fanboys, those fanboys have tried to 
You can’t say “ground-breaking first person shooter” without mentioning the Half-Life series in the same breath. Since its initial release on the PC in 1998, the series has garnered overwhelming critical acclaim as well as commercial success. Crowbar-wielding Gordon Freeman fanboys have been frothing for Valve’s next concoction – Half-Life 2: Episode 3 – for over a year.
Have you ever found yourself playing a video game for hours on end, losing all track of time and, quite possibly, the love of family, friends, and significant others? Many gamers have a vice, whether it’s Call of Duty 4, World of Warcraft, or Halo 3. It’s that game that makes you incoherently mumble, “just five…more…minutes!” even though you know damn well you won’t be stopping any time soon. There is no denying that games have an addictive quality, but is there a cause for it? And more importantly, are there consequences? Scientists have stopped research on developing a 