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2009 | 2008 | 2005

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Review of the decade | Culture

26 December 2009 4:05 PM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »

Twitter, Daniel Barenboim, XBox, Wg Sebald, Nicholas Hytner's National, Big Brother and The Wire... just some of the cultural highs of the noughties. From the rise of Dizzee Rascal to the emergence – at the age of 89 – of the dazzling Cuban painter Carmen Herrera, our critics pick the defining people and trends of the past 10 years

Technology

Google

Larry Page and Sergey Brin began thinking about a new kind of internet search engine in early 1996 and their company was incorporated as Google Inc in 1998. But it was in 2000 that they started selling advertising against search results and this allowed them to move into their Mountain View headquarters in California (aka the Googleplex), begin acquiring other companies (including YouTube) and drastically expand their other ambitions throughout the noughties.

The verb "to google" entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006 and Google dominates the search engine market despite ferocious competition from Yahoo! and Microsoft. »

- Caspar Llewellyn Smith, Robert McCrum, Kitty Empire, Fiona Maddocks, Philip French, Giles Richards, Susannah Clapp, Alice Fisher, Stephen Bayley, Andrew Anthony, Daniel Barenboim, Gaby Wood

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5 last-minute gift ideas for procrastinators

24 December 2009 6:00 AM, PST | EW.com - PopWatch | See recent EW.com - PopWatch news »

Ho, ho, ho, Present-dubs! We're way past the point where we can sit around in our jammies and purchase all of our gifts online (unless we want to pay $1024.95 for overnight shipping, which we don't), so here are five things available In Stores that you can buy for pop culture lovers once you face the music and realize the dream is over and you're gonna have to leave the house today. 1. DVD: Ally McBeal: The Complete Series Mom, are you reading this? I want Santa to bring me the opportunity to renew my late-'90s obsession with Calista Flockhart's business suits. »

- Annie Barrett

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Top 20 Video Games of the Noughties

22 December 2009 7:28 AM, PST | t5m.com | See recent t5m.com news »

Top 20 Games of the Noughties Sick of lists yet? Of course you’re not, you bloodly love them don’t you? Well, I do, and here is another one. I’ve not been able to play every game released over the past decade, though I like to think that I’ve tried. This represents the cream of the crop that I actually managed to get my fingers on. They’re organised by release date, not preference. Enjoy! Resident Evil: Code Veronica - DC/PS2 That’s right, I’ve gone and skipped over RE4 in favour of an older game. Though RE4 is considered to be the best in the series, this is where things started to move beyond the fixed cameras and the pre-rendered backgrounds of the original two, creating something far more interesting. Deus Ex - PC/PS2 Still ranked as one of the best PC games »

- Joe West

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Feature: Top Ten Games Of 2009

19 December 2009 10:00 PM, PST | digitalspy | See recent digitalspy news »

Like previous years, we've been hit by a serious case of sequelitis, with follow-ups to some of the biggest franchises in gaming. However, we’ve never before seen such a huge leap in quality, honing the promising ideas of some lacking upstarts, or twisting timeless classics on their heads with a few simple but surprising changes. It's also the first time in a while that releases have been spread evenly throughout the year, a trend which we hope to see continue in the future. Much like last year, which saw Grand Theft Auto IV top our list of games from 2008, Digital Spy's gaming team have carefully weighed up every release into a final list. Some choices were obvious, others a little contested, but altogether the rundown is something we're satisfied with, and hopefully you will be too. We give honourable mentions to Professor Layton And Pandora's (more) »

- By Matthew Reynolds

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Sony Weekly Update (Dec. 17-23)

19 December 2009 8:09 AM, PST | GameRant | See recent GameRant news »

Another Thursday, another update to the Sony PlayStation Store, and another Game Rant Weekly Update.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen finds its way to PS3 retail shelves this week – jumping into the already over-saturated, and uninspired, band-specific Guitar Hero market. Unless you are a fan of the band, or were one of the savvy gamers who will be receiving this title free – as part of the a mid-Fall Guitar Hero 5 promotion – there’s nothing new in Guitar Hero: Van Halen to get excited about. Pixel Junk Shooter is potentially on track to become one of the fastest selling Psn titles to date. It’s a great game, I’m just saying, in case you want to save yourself about $50 dollars and download it instead of revisiting another uninspired Guitar Hero band game.

 

Most of the attention this week is on the release of the Gran Turismo 5: Time Trial Challenge Demo »

- Ben Kendrick

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Videogame face-off: 'Assassin's Creed 2' vs. 'Left 4 Dead 2'

18 December 2009 12:00 PM, PST | EW.com - PopWatch | See recent EW.com - PopWatch news »

Gore. Action. Sequels. Lots of solid, inventive games came out this year, but if you were going to narrow your list to the cream of the crop, Face-Off has you covered. Today, it's Assassin's Creed II against Left 4 Dead 2. Check back each weekday through Dec. 24 for a new match-up. In this corner: 'Assassin's Creed 2' The original Assassin's Creed in 2007, set during the Third Crusade in the late 1100s, was addicting. The sequel is life-encompassing. Once again, the main character Desmond in the year 2012 must use a virtual reality machine, called an Animus, to stop a world-domination plot by modern-day Templars. »

- Steve Heisler

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Graphic Nature – The Saboteur

17 December 2009 10:02 AM, PST | WeAreMovieGeeks.com | See recent WeAreMovieGeeks.com news »

Interesting story (check), amazing art style (check), killing Nazis (check), code that lets you unlock topless burlesque dancers (check), elements of Grand Theft Auto and Assassin’s Creed (check). All these things compose Pandemic Studios latest and last game ever The Saboteur.

The Saboteur

Xbox 360, PS3, & PC

Developer: Pandemic Studios

Publisher: EA

Esrb Rating: M for Mature

Price: Xbox 360, PS3, & PC – $49.99

Pros

It’s Like Sin City Meets 300 – The art style within The Saboteur is amazing. As you make your way through Paris you will notice that areas still under Nazi occupation lose their color and become different shades of grey. The only real colors left are those of the lights in windows and anything red. From the second I started playing this game I feel in love with this and hope more games take a cue from it. You can even over look the generic character models this game has because of this. »

- Rob S

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Bayonetta Demo Impressions - Witches, Demons and semi-naked chicks!

17 December 2009 1:22 AM, PST | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

The Japanese game market has been in kind of a lull the last few years. Ever since the emergence of Microsoft as a player in the game market, Japan has seen its videogame developing mastery dwindle and subside, leading way to the rise of the American video game development market. Games such as Halo, Call Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto from companies such as Microsoft, Activision and Rockstar have changed the gaming landscape, eliciting less resistance from Japan (at least commercially), outside of Nintendo and their reliable stable of Mario and Zelda. Now, I think this tide might have taken a slight turn. To be released on January 5th in the U.S, Bayonetta, the new action game from Sega and Japanese developer Platinum Games, is the old school, rock 'em sock 'em style action game that has style and substance to back it up.

Bayonetta revolves around a hybrid witch, »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Eric Mayo)

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Response: These videogames are not art. They are extreme pornography

15 December 2009 4:05 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Has imagery of violence against women become so normal that we no longer notice it?

Mark Kermode says we should be relaxed about adult themes in videogames (Should we avoid violent games?, 11 December).

He confesses to knowing nothing about these games: "I don't play them and probably never will." But he then says, "I do know something about horror films, and the moral panic they provoke," and takes issue with the "ominous sense of ill-informed outrage" about the modern videogames market. He then advises readers looking for a sensible opinion on the subject to refer to "someone who knows, someone who plays them, someone who actually likes them". In short, the fans.

My organisation, Equality Now, has heard a lot from the fans of some of these games. We highlighted the game RapeLay, produced in Japan, as one example of many that promote violence against women. In RapeLay the player »

- Jacqueline Hunt

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'Red Dead Redemption' Is Basically 'Grand Theft Horse'...And That's A Good Thing

15 December 2009 10:00 AM, PST | MTV Multiplayer | See recent MTV Multiplayer news »

I got my first look at "Red Dead Redemption" back in June and I came away with a distinct feeling of "Grand Theft Horse." Now, with an updated look at the game, the same appears true. That isn't meant to be derogatory, it's just accurate. If you take the gameplay mechanics of "Grand Theft Auto" and moved them into the Wild West, the end result would be "Red Dead Redemption." Let's take a look at the similarities, shall we?

Big Open World

Huge, in fact. "Red Dead Redemption" has a map that's larger than the one in "San Andreas" which, if you'll recall, often required a jet airplane to traverse. Since this game takes place around 1910 it's not likely we'll be seeing too many of those sitting around, but you will always have a trusty horse (or mule) at your side.

Like "San Andreas," the world in "Red Dead" is »

- Russ Frushtick

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The 2009 Spike Vga Winners

14 December 2009 9:11 AM, PST | GameRant | See recent GameRant news »

The 2009 Spike Video Game Awards are over with, and we’ve been covering a lot of announcement and trailer information coming out of the show, but in case you missed the actual awards themselves, we haven’t forgotten about you – we’ve put together the official list of 2009 Vga winners in each category (as well as the nominees).

Don’t forget to check out our own 2009 Game of the Year Round-Up for a more extensive discussion on the most critically acclaimed titles of the year.

 

Game of the Year

- Assassin’s Creed 2

- Batman: Arkham Asylum

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

- Left 4 Dead

– Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Studio of the Year

- Infinity Ward

- Naughty Dog

- Rocksteady Studios

- Valve

Best Independent Game Fueled by Mountain Dew

- ‘Splosion Man

- Flower

- Osmos

- Trials HD

Best Xbox 360 Game

- Batman: Arkham »

- Ben Kendrick

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Live – Updates from the Video Game Awards

12 December 2009 5:29 PM, PST | ReelLoop.com | See recent Reel Loop news »

6:56 Pm Pst – And that concludes it. Again, can’t express how happy I am that Uncharted 2 kicked so much ass. Some big announcements including Halo Reach, Medal of Honor, and Arkham Asylum 2. Aside from Best Voice Actor, you can’t complain much about the winners. Overall, probably the best year in terms of that for the show. It was fun, look forward to next year. In the meantime, here’s the full list of winners. Thank ya, and good night:

Game of the Year – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Best PS3 Game – Uncharted 2

Best Studio  – Rocksteady Studios

Best Music Game – The Beatles: Rock Band

Best Graphics – Uncharted 2

Best Fighting Game – Street Fighter IV

Best Handheld Game – Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Best Soundtrack – DJ Hero

Best Xbox 360 Game – Left 4 Dead 2

Best Original Soundtrack – Halo 3: Odst

Best Game Based On A Movie Or TV Show: South Park Let’s »

- Philip Barrett

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Nintendo reveals 'GTA' sales frustration

10 December 2009 7:21 AM, PST | digitalspy | See recent digitalspy news »

Nintendo has revealed its disappointment at the slow sales of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the DS. Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, Nintendo America vice president of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway described the game's sales performance as "frustrating", but expressed her hope that it will grow in popularity over time. "Certainly there have been mature titles - Resident Evil, the first Call Of Duty - that have sold over a million units and with something like GTA, there's great content there," she said. "We do think it'll have a long tail and we've seen that with a lot of titles across (more) »

- By Andrew Laughlin

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Rockstar Saddles Up For "Red Dead Redemption"

9 December 2009 11:54 AM, PST | SneakPeek | See recent SneakPeek news »

According to BigGameHunter, "Red Dead Redemption", Rockstar San Diego's sequel to western action video game "Red Dead Revolver", will be released April 27, 2010.

Set in 1908, "Redemption" follows former outlaw 'John Marston', sent across the American Frontier to help usher in the 'rule of law'. As Marston attempts to capture former gang member 'Bill Williamson', a series of events lead up to the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

"Redemption" will incorporate 'open world' gameplay similar to "Grand Theft Auto" with free-roaming ability in several environments including frontier towns, prairies and mountain passes.

Realistic horses will also play an integral part of the game's transport, with over 40 different types of animals featured throughout the game.

"Redemption" is being developed with middleware including NaturalMotion's 'Euphoria' animation engine.

Sneak Peek "Red Dead Redemption"...

»

- Michael Stevens

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Meet porn star Joslyn James or 'Tiger Woods' alleged mistress No. 'This is so insane we lost count'

8 December 2009 1:00 PM, PST | Zap2It - The Dish Rag | See recent Zap2It - The Dish Rag news »

The Dish Rag is wondering if anyone has considered creating an online Tiger Woods' mistresses video game? 

Just think of the Grand Theft Auto-style possibilities. We're sure it would make a fortune. Seriously.

Here's one to add to the mix of Tiger's alleged mistresses, porn star Joslyn James, writhing, er, performing at an adult film expo. Definitely kind of looks like the girl next door, if you lived next door to one of the meth houses on 'Breaking Bad.' Just observin'.

Joslyn is alleged to be Girl No. 11. Here's the list of the alleged Woodsman's babes to date:

1. Rachel Uchitel.

2. Jamie Grubbs.

3. Kalika Moquin.

4. Cori Rist.

5. Jamie Jungers.

6. Mindy Lawton.

7. Holly Sampson. 

8. Unidentified Alleged Mistress,  former cocktail waitress from Orlando, Fla.

9. Unidentified Alleged Mistress, British TV presenter.

10. Unidentified Alleged Mistress is a "sex-addicted cougar," alleges a British tab.

11. Joslyn James named on the sports blog Deadspin.com as a Tiger regular. »

- editorial@zap2it.com

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Analyst: 'GTA has reached its peak'

8 December 2009 9:10 AM, PST | digitalspy | See recent digitalspy news »

Games analyst Ben Schachter has said that the "relatively flat" performance of Grand Theft Auto IV's downloadable content could suggest that the series has peaked. Rockstar Games recently released two Xbox 360-exclusive packs for GTA IV - The Lost And Damned and The Ballad Of Gay Tony. Broadpoint AmTech analyst Schachter told Industry Gamers that the Dlc's "flat" performance, coupled with weak sales of GTA: Chinatown Wars on the DS and PSP could suggest difficult times ahead for the series. "Given the strength of GTA IV in 2008, the question may seem misplaced, but our concern is that the very highly rated new GTA content for Xbox as well as PSP and DS did not perform up to expectations in 2009," he said. "Now, we very clearly understand that these do not represent 'true' new (more) »

- By Andrew Laughlin

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Dragon Age: Origins Smashes Boundaries with Gay Lovemaking Scene

7 December 2009 8:10 PM, PST | thetorchonline | See recent thetorchonline news »

Ever since the days of Mortal Kombat, conservative types have been horrified by what their kids can witness while playing video games, an action that's often undertaken while not under a parent's supervision. Recently, games have been getting into trouble for their sexual content, a notorious example being the Grand Theft Auto series. But as we all know, nothing in the universe gets conservatives more riled up than the possibility that their kids might see something ... shudder ... gay. But it's almost 2010, and the world of video games is finally catching up with what most game-playing youth already know: gay people exist, and guess what? »

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Analyst Criticizes Take-Two For 'Grand Theft Auto' Break In 2010

7 December 2009 3:00 PM, PST | MTV Multiplayer | See recent MTV Multiplayer news »

Last week's announcement that "Grand Theft Auto" probably won't produce a sequel in 2010 hasn't gone unnoticed by Take-Two's shareholders, and at least one vocal game industry analyst has stepped in to the conversation with skepticism over the company's transparency and planning.

"Dan Houser, one of the three key employees behind the franchise, said in a recent interview that the trio hadn’t even thought of the locale for the next instalment, let alone the plot," Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter wrote to investors, according to GamesIndustry.biz. "While we find this unfathomable, if it is true, it suggests that there will not be another installment of GTA until late 2011 at the earliest, putting the game on a three and a half year release cycle."

That's cold advice, but it's not the first time Pachter's opinions have put him at odds with a game company. He also infamously predicted the Wii HD, »

- Brian Warmoth

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'Grand Theft Auto 5' Not Likely To Launch In 2010

4 December 2009 1:05 PM, PST | MTV Multiplayer | See recent MTV Multiplayer news »

Even if Rockstar Games selects a city for "Grand Theft Auto 5," the game probably won't be ready in 2010. Publisher Take-Two Interactive doesn't see that as being a problem, however, saying that GTA as a franchise doesn't necessarily need to provide annual releases.

"We're certainly not saying we can't be profitable in a non-gta year," Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said duing an investor call yesterday, according to Kotaku. "We don't feel that GTA ought to be an annualized franchise."

Even if they wanted to, it would be hard to beat the number of GTA releases in 2009. In addition to putting out "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" for the DS and PSP, Take-Two managed to get out two downloadable expansions, "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony," for "GTA 4."

Zelnick emphasized a need to find "a balance between how long it takes to develop such an incredible title and »

- Brian Warmoth

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XBox 360 Review: Gtaiv : The Ballad of Gay Tony

1 December 2009 9:47 PM, PST | BuzzFocus.com | See recent BuzzFocus.com news »

These last few months of 2009 sure have resulted a crowded marketplace for games, with many "must-have" titles competing to be at the top of your holiday wish lists. So should the recently released second expansion chapter of Grand Theft Auto IV, "The Ballad of Gay Tony," make your list? With all the fun that it presents, we believe so. Die-hard GTA fans already have this title and probably have played through it twice. But if you're on the fence, the bottom line is that Rockstar doesn't disappoint on this go-round. With the graphics and gameplay unchanged, the focus is on introducing the gamer to yet another perspective of the grimy underbelly of Liberty City. You play the entire game as Luis Lopez, a former drug dealer who is now the bodyguard and business partner of Anthony "Gay Tony" Prince. Tony owns two nightclubs, Maisonette 9 and Hercules, where you »

- Link

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2009 | 2008 | 2005

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