Games

Rapper 50 Cent, once shot nine times on the street in a gang incident, said on Tuesday parents should buy their children his new video game, rated 'mature' for blood, gore and sexual themes, and use it as a teaching tool.

The industry rating for "50 Cent: Bulletproof" means it has been deemed "not suitable" for those under the age of 17.

"Just because it is rated mature doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it for your kids," the rapper, whose given name is Curtis Jackson, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "Play the game and explain to them what they are playing."

If you're the kind of person who dreams about "Tetris," can play "Diner Dash" while you work, and can outright destroy the computer opponent at hearts, SkillJam just might have $1 million for you.

The company, a subsidiary of Fun Technologies, on Monday announced that it is giving away that cool million to the world's best casual game player. If that's not incentive to sneak in a little solitaire while your boss isn't looking--or hey, even when she is looking--I don't know what is.

The rootkits and Sony's shameful attempt to spy on its customers made the headlines all over last week and there's more to come apparently. Even though Sony has offered removal and replacement for rootkit DRM, hackers had enough time to discover that the rootkits can be used to cheat on World of Warcraft, one of the most popular online MMORPG. It looks like the hiding capabilities

BUNGIE, developer of Xbox hit Halo, has hinted that both Halo and Halo 2 will have an enhanced appearance on the Xbox 360.

Bungie's weekly update writer says he is "Counting the days" until the release of Microsoft's next generation console. He went on to write that, "First thing I am going to do is play Halo one on my HDTV... There is a very slight possibility I might play PGR3 or Perfect Dark Zero first. But then, straight onto Halo one."

Whenever a new MMORPG comes out some enterprising hackers manage to figure out how reverse engineer the hosting server and then play the MMORPG on their own "private" servers. And with a game as popular as World of Warcraft it would only be a matter of time before private WOW servers appeared on the Net.

Since graduating from university Maija Parjanen has mostly been paid to play games.

Eight hours a day, five days a week, she beeps and clicks her way through the working day, testing new mobile phone games for Helsinki gaming studio Sumea.

"When my friends ask me what games to buy, I usually suggest one-button games, which can be played well even on cheaper phone models," said the 27-year-old in an office much like any other in the Finnish capital's high-tech district Ruoholahti.

Think online gaming is huge? You have no idea. Blizzard Entertainment announced their "World of Warcraft" game passed the one million subscriber mark in North America and broke the four million subscriber mark world wide. That's a lot of gamers. That's also a lot of monthly income.

A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said on Tuesday.

The 28-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lee, had been playing online battle simulation games at the cybercafe in the southeastern city of Taegu, police said.

Lee had planted himself in front of a computer monitor to play on-line games on August 3. He only left the spot over the next three days to go to the toilet and take brief naps on a makeshift bed, they said.

Fresh from the fallout over some sex scenes hidden in a violent video game, an anti-game crusader is pressuring Electronic Arts to take action against those who modify another game, "The Sims 2,'' so that it can display naked characters.

Last week, a culture war erupted over a different video game, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,'' a violent game that hackers modified so that it played graphic sexual scenes. The game industry's ratings board, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, canceled the "mature'' 17-and-up rating on the game and restricted it to "adults only.''

The Zhejiang Jinhua Procuratorate has filed charges against three computer game hackers, accusing them of "destroying a computer information network". This is the first time that the procuratorate department has used such charge against hackers.