Take this from a guy whose brilliant mind turned figments of the imagination into glorious cultural icons. No less than the man behind Marvel himself, Stan Lee, has expressed his admiration and respect for gaming development. His exact words: "It's lke a miracle."

Just like the Guardian Forces that they can't survive without, Squall, Rinoa, and the rest of the Final Fantasy VIII crew have Junctioned themselves into a new domain - the Japanese PSN. Now you can go and relive the days of boosting Eden for ten years, spending hours hunting Draw Points, and taking advantage of critical HP to spam Limit Breaks.

No question about it, TellTale Games has proven time and again that they are indeed one of the more credible companies within the industry. Titles like Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People should be enough to convince that they really do churn out quality games. So how come they're not yet riding the PS3 bandwagon when they've already boarded the WiiWare and Xbox Live trains?

This year, fans of point-and-click adventure games will be treated to a revamped version of LucasArts' The Secret of Monkey Island which which will be released as a digital download on Xbox 360 and PC. Craig Derrick, the producer of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, intimated to the Guardian that PS3 and Wii owners may get the game as well.

Good news for PlayStation 3 gamers out there - in the UK and the rest of Europe at least, since the service likely won't be released in the US - the PlayTV service has been confirmed to be able to record TV content while playing games. Details in the full article.

 

Okay, this may cause some alarmists to scream "Big Brother!" so before all the speculation, here are the known details - just so all you privacy advocates can relax a bit.

Google has filed a patent that reveals that they plan to compile psychological profiles of millions of gamers by covertly monitoring the way they play online games. Now you may think that this only concerns folks who play MMOs on their PCs, however, the patent apparently says that Google can also monitor people playing on any game console that hooks up to the internet, including the Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Microsoft Xbox 360.

What's even more hair-raising is that it says that information could be retrieved from previous game details saved on memory cards. To quote: "Such saved information may be thought of state information, and offers a valuable source of information to the advertisers." Yes, if you've played 350 hours of Oblivion, they'll know. Yep, the patent is that creepy; it even says:

In a car racing game, after a user crashes his Honda Civic, an announcer could be used to advertise by saying 'if he had a Hummer, he would have gotten the better of that altercation', etc... If the user has been playing for over two hours continuously, the system may display ads for Pizza Hut, Coke, coffee.

Now here's why we're asking all those privacy advocates to calm down and not cry foul. Google has said that they do not plan to roll out the technology in the near future. They say that it was just one of the patents that they wanted to file. The Guardian reports that a Google spokesman had this to say: "Google registers different patents irrespective of whether we actually intend to use them."

So no, Big Brother, er, I mean, Google isn't watching you. Not yet. *insert cheesy B-movie sci-fi music* It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

Is the Sony PlayStation 3 a game console with a built-in Blu-ray bundled in or is it in fact a Blu-ray player masquerading as a game console? The Guardian website in the UK thinks it's the latter.

The Guardian interviewed Sony Europe VP Matt Brown and read between the lines to conclude that Sony is propagating the storage format using the PS3 as the Trojan horse to carry the drive that will help win the war against the HD DVD.

"The PS3 is going to help us do the job," says Brown. He explained that by selling the PS3, they bring the number of Blu-ray owners up. That way, even if consumers actually prefer the HD-DVD format, they'll have a Blu-ray drive by default and that gives them a compelling reason to use it and buy Blu-ray discs with games and movies in them.

Evidence for this strategy, the Guardian says, is the fact that the high-end PS3 is priced lower than most Blu-ray players. Thus, the wiser thing to do in this case would be to buy the PS3 and  forget the player. The move is reminiscent of how Microsoft won its browser war against Netscape by bundling the Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.

Ultimately, the article said that even if the console war is won or lost on Sony's end, its Blu-ray master plan will rake back the megabucks. Research firm Understanding & Solutions say that it's likely that Europe will have four million Blu-ray players, PS3s and PC drives using the format by 2008.

A bold interpretation of the status quo indeed. To read the full article published in the Guardian, click the read URL.

Okay, before we even begin to talk about this, please promise that you guys won't blow up all over the comments in reaction to this story. We've had this discussion in related stories before, and you'll be preaching to the converted anyway.

A fatal car crash

A fatal car crash occurred in the UK, details of which are reported in the Times (UK) Online. Two cars were found to have violated speed limits down a road, with one car recklessly overtaking and driving too closely to the other, according to witnesses, and that attempt to overtake in a hazardous bend led the overtaking car to crash head-on into a car driven by an elderly lady, who died at the scene of the crash.

The driver of the overtaking car was found to have been playing Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo in his car (most likely a console GT, as the judge refers to one of those "Pimp My Ride" monitors that pop from the dash) in a layover before going full throttle.

The judge's quotation

What makes this story worrisome - and thus postable - is that there's a British judge in the decision-making loop, which bears implications for future rulings, media coverage, and public policy down the line (at least in the UK, but certain critics of video games will be watching this very closely). The judge in question, said:

One of the troubling features of the case is looking at and playing the game on the PlayStation beforehand, in the sense that he was playing a game involving vehicles of excessive speed immediately before his driving. When I heard he had a monitor screen that would come up from the dashboard of the car whereby he could play on the PlayStation a game of that sort, it didn’t seem to me to be particularly desirable.

Translation: driver, in his car, plays game with excessive speed. Driver then drives and gets into an accident involving excessive speed. Conclusion...

I HATE jumping to conclusions. For the conclusion to THIS article, though, you have to jump.

Click on the "Full Article" link below to read our take on this matter.

A few days ago, we featured London dailies' take on the PS3. Let us take a closer look at The Guardian's Greg Howson's grade for the PS3.

After the usual "oohs" and "aahs" upon getting Sony's next-gen console, Howson's got one question to ask: What is it really like to use a PlayStation 3?

According to Greg Howson, games-wise, it seems that the PS3 doesn't offer much. Of course, the games are nothing short of spectacular, "but there is nothing on display that Microsoft's competing Xbox 360 couldn't produce."

Now of course, a lot of guys will contest that fact, but then, that's just our source's opinion. He does say, though, that "we'll have to wait until next year" for a complete comparison, as devs would already have known their way with the system by then.

Regarding the console's hardware, Howson says that the "build quality is high", with the touch sensitive buttons and all. The built-in power supply's definitely a bonus, and it's not as as "noisy as the Xbox 360", which is great, when you're watching a Blu-Ray movie.

As mentioned by IGN, the controller is a bit light, which can be a disconcerting at first. Unfortunately, the one Howson tested didn't have movie playback and networking capabilities, so they weren't able to test out the console's other features. He did say that the XMB is great, and "compared well to the Xbox 360's equivalent."

Of course, this is just a sort of rough PS3 try-out, as Howson didn't have access to other features of the said console. Of course, the "real test" will happen next year, when users get access to movie playback, online facilities, and more polished games.

UK">London's newspapers are having a battle of their own in delivering their verdicts on the PS3. In one corner, you have the Evening Standard, which, after comparing the three models, gamely awarded top points to the PS3.

Dedicating a whole page of the daily to the comparisons, Mark Prigg, Evening Standard technology correspondent, raves about the PS3  in his article 'World-beating PS3 well worth the wait'. Says Prigg, "The first thing that hits you is the quality of the graphics. They are incredibly detailed and fast, noticeably more so than Microsoft's xbox 360, and often though to distinguish from video."

In conjunction with the console-critique, they also did reviews on three of the launch titles. Resistance: Fall of Man, and Ridge Racer 7  survived with 4 stars each, while MotorStorm came out as the winner, earning a full five-star rating.

On the other corner, we have here The Guardian, offering a rather polar take on the PS3. Apparently, while they found it good, it fell short to offset what the Xbox 360 can offer, and thus, impress them. Says Greg Howson, "The launch games we've played do look more impressive, especially when viewed on a high-definition TV, but there is nothing on display that Microsoft's competing Xbox 360 couldn't produce.

Well, that's their take. And inasmuch as everyone is entitled to their own opinions, you need not be swayed by what others say. The PS3 will be out in a few days, so, then, we'd know for ourselves which one wins over the other.