Batman: Arkham City features a new voice for Harley Quinn, Batman: Arkham City PC News

Even before we played Batman: Arkham Asylum, the developer had us on its good side just by filling the game’s voice cast with regulars from Batman: The Animated Series. Mark Hamill was the Joker, Kevin Conroy played Batman, and Arleen Sorkin reprised the role she created, Harley Quinn. We had assumed Arleen would be returning in Arkham City along with the confirmed Conroy and Hamill, but developer Rosksteady has revealed the part has been recast, with the role going to voiceover vet Tara Strong,

Above: Skip to 1:09 and you’ll hear Tara Strong doing the voice

From the clip above it seems like Strong is sticking pretty close to Sorkin’s version, so much so that we didn’t even notice it was a different actress in that trailer until today. And Strong is a very accomplished actress, appearing in piles of cartoons and games, including Rikku in Final Fantasy X/X-2, Talwyn in the Ratchet series, and Rachel in Ninja Gaiden. This marks the first time Sorkin has been replaced, with Arleen supplying Harley’s voice most recently in January’s DC Universe Online.

Above: Here's Sorkin as Quinn in Asylum

We’re sad to see Arleen Sorkin leave the role, as writer Paul Dini even created the part with Arleen in mind. Harley was a breakout star on The Animated Series, quickly going from the relatively small part of Joker’s henchgirl to starring in multiple episodes. Ultimately she became so popular that she joined the official comic book universe, a rare feat for animated characters. Watch the below vid with some of her best moments in case you doubt Arleen’s chops:

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Microsoft offers students free 360s with Windows 7 PCs, PC PC News

If you were one of the biggest manufacturers of gaming hardware in the world, and your rival was recovering from a spell of terrible luck, how might you consider capitalizing on the situation? If you're Microsoft, you could tacitly advance the notion that your hardware's so damn ubiquitous that the would-be learners of the next generation don't even have to pay for it.

The dream of a 'Box in every home continues with the announcement that students who(se parents) spend more than $700 on a Windows 7 PC will be eligible for a free 4GB Xbox 360. Those worried that their student experience might involve immersion in new ideas or the opportunity to go outside and physically meet new people can dodge both bullets in one fell swoop by following the steps detailed on theWindows Team Blog.

Above: A player takes a reluctant break from Team Fortress 2 for some obligation of some sort 

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Rapture-proof your iPhone with a chic Pip-Boy 3000 case, Fallout: New Vegas PC News

This Pip-Boy 3000 iPhone case may not actually help you in a real life battle against a Deathclaw, but it can locate and call the nearest hospital if and when the fight goes down. Judging by the quality, it could also fetch a few bottle caps on eBay - assuming you can convince its creator to sell you one in the first place.

The replica Pip-Boy 3000 was constructed by Dale Chance, with Geiger counter sound effects and Pip-Boy programs supplied by the Apple App Store. Chance has crafted other items from the Fallout world including Nuka-Cola and Sunset Sarsaparilla caps and badges, an AEP7 Laser Pistol and 'That Gun'. These are all shown in detail on his Etsy shop, The Chance Emporium, where it appears he's already started selling replicas of his replicas to artsy Fallout fans.

On the page describing his newest Pip-Boy 3000 creation, he writes:“This is sure to make your time in the wastelands that much easier, and face it, no one else will look quite as suave as you would, with this on your arm.”

The man has a point. With this and a few Sarsaparilla bottle caps (guaranteed to add +1 charisma), the cosplay ladies won't stand a chance. And with the whole rapture thing on the way...

{Source: Deviant Art– Chanced1 via Gamma Squad}

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Slow news day leads to Portal 2 adoption“controversy”, Portal 2 PC News

A mildly derisive segment of the script for Portal 2 is at the center of a media firestorm that looks to dominate news cycles in the Charlotte, NC area for the foreseeable future. The game, which features the player character being gently chided by the game's villains for being adopted, has reporters straining their“concerned and outraged” voices as they report on the inappropriateness of antagonists holding moderately contentious views.

“If you're an adopted parent, it's literally the worst thing you could have possibly heard,” says a visibly mildly-perturbed Neil Stapel, Charlotte resident. Stapel, who was playing the game with his adopted Chinese daughter when the Steven Merchant character called the protagonist“Fatty fatty no parents,” says his daughter still likes the game and is, um,“pretending” not to have been affected by the remarks.

Two things come across in this report: that Neil Stapel is, kidding aside, a stand-up guy who loves his daughter very much and is doing a great job of raising her honestly and responsibly (if imparting a dangerous tendency to misuse the word“literally”); and that wow, there is nothing going on in North Carolina this week.

“We did contact Sony... they told us to contact Valve, who actually created the game. We've not heard back from them,” concludes the report:“They're obviously passing the buck.” We're now abandoning serious journalism for another year, because WBTV Charlotte has that Pulitzer in the bag.

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'Films as Cartridges' image collection is obvious, charming, PC PC News

Few will observethis collectionof Atari-era game carts based on contemporary films and think,"what a novel idea!"(or worse,"JJ Abrams is going to get so sued!"). If it's contemporary and popular, it's inevitable that it'll get the"what if it were old?"treatment. However, as obvious jokes go, you can't fault these sleeves' fantastic attention to detail.

Graphic pranksters Penny Design– whose previous work includesthis similarly affectionate90s re-imagining of Angry Birds– put together these mockups for a series of pixel-age licenses of modern movies and TV shows, and the little touches really help them stand out from the crowd. Dig the ex-rental sticker on Tokyo Drift, or the“Merry Christmas '78” note on The Dark Knight.

See the whole sethere. Which ones do you like best?

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The Witcher 2 features snarky Assassin's Creed tie-in, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings PC News

Games developers can be pretty catty. There's a long-standing tradition of bitching at the competition in-game: think Duke Nukem's“Doomed Space Marine” or the directive in GTA 3 to kill the“strangely animated” protagonist of Driver. The Witcher 2 submits its application to the Mean Girls' club via a fairly open swipe at the reigning king of story-based period adventure, poorly hidden about 30 mins in.

As you can see, CD Projekt's throwdown proceeds thusly: Geralt wanders past a church featuring the requisite tall steeply bit and spies a familiar figure, sprawled dead in a pile of hay– the obvious consequences of a failed Leap of Faith. Oh, snap!

Questions raised by the diss are, of course, numerous. If your series features elemental genies and great big glowing magical spells and what-all, can you really afford to get snippy about a game mechanic like“the law of gravity”? Is a four-year-old game openly acknowledged as a bit disappointing really the ripest target for a takedown? What, is The Witcher 3 going to be slamming on Rise of the Robots?

Anyway, not like this isn't a neat wee aside. What do you think? What's your favorite in-game swipe at another title?

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Ubisoft Motion Pictures prepping 3D Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon films, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood PC News

Ezio Auditore, Sam Fisher and The Ghosts are about to go Hollywood. This weekend, Ubisoft Motion Pictures confirmed plans to break into the movie biz with 3D films based on the Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell franchises.

The movies are the first projects to be green lit by Ubisoft's newly formed film and TV branch in Paris. They are being developed with consultation from Ubisoft's gaming wing in an effort to stay true to their video game roots.

"Our strategy is not to diversify but to bolster the appeal of our franchises,"said the studio's senior VP of international marketing and distribution Jean de Rivieres, noting,"That's why we want to make sure our films will reflect the brands accurately and consolidate our fan base while expanding beyond the games' primary target audience."

This June, Rivieres will be heading stateside with Ubisoft Motion Pictures boss Jean-Julien Baronnet and senior VP of production and development Didier Lupfer to discuss the projects with US studios, screenwriters and agents.

"We want to keep ownership, retain control over the film content, and we're open to work with studios on the development of our projects, and eventually collaborate on the pre-casting, pre-budget and script,"said Baronnet.

Rivieres added that at least one of the scripts should be ready by the end of 2011.

{Source: Variety}

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Want to name your game? There's a site for that, PC PC News

Up-and-coming would-be Miyamotos stuck for the title that'll leap from store shelves and into players' hearts could do far worse than to peep the Video Game Name Generator. The basic tool's been kicking around in one form or another for a while, but the ever-growing site has just launched a new page boasting an HTML5 front-end and easy Twitter access for game-naming inspiration on the go.

With all the technological mastery available to today's superstar developers, it's a sad fact that game-naming hasn't really advanced a bit since the 8-bit days– with many otherwise fine efforts boasting titles that sound, frankly, like word-mashups significantly less inspired than the output of this humble automated tool. Dragon Age? Advanced Warfighter?? Come on. Are you going to sit there and argue that you wouldn't pre-order My Little Indian Terror or Miracle Hobo Joe, like, yesterday?

Whether matching randomly-generated titles to existing games or trying to imagine what nonexistent titles might play like, the Generator is good for literally minutes of fun! What miracles of nonexistent nomenclature have you come up with?

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Witcher 2 sparks debate over mandatory ratings, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings PC News

Good Old Games may have inadvertently kicked off a ratings revolution when it made changes to its online location controls that effectively allows an untamed version of Witcher 2 to bypass Australia's strict censorship rules.

Taking the incident as a sign of things to come, UK's Video Standards Council, is now saying there may soon come a day when mandatory ratings are no longer effective. Assuming that day hasn't already arrived.

In its interview with Edge Online, the non-profit video and video game monitoring group said the advance of global online distribution channels has made it a challenge for individual countries to regulate incoming content, despite their best efforts, saying,“The more benign censorship/ratings organizations will probably move away from the mandatory model and replace it with an advisory systems which puts the onus on consumers to make informed buying decisions through the provision of detailed consumer information."

Recently, GOG made location-specific IP tracking voluntary on its online ordering site, thereby allowing gamers to be less-than-honest about their home country in order to circumvent censorship restrictions. In a follow-up interview with GOG's head of PR& marketing Trevor Longino, he said such workarounds were par for the course in a global market, stating:

"The flat nature of the Internet means that it is virtually impossible to censor information by domestic region...I don't think it's a question of 'are digital distribution systems circumventing domestic censorship,' but rather, 'does the internet allow people to circumvent domestic censorship?' The answer to that is an unequivocal yes, and as quickly as governments can come up with new ways to enforce censorship, free-thinkers will circumvent them."

Still, despite his further sentiments that consumers should have the final say as to the content they're allowed to consume, Longino said GOG does not outright support the kind of abuse its website update allows. Furthermore, he said countries had every right to form their own rules as long as said rules are enforced responsibly and in accordance with public opinion.

“What one country considers crucial, others may thinks is trivial. Neither country is right, of course, and each is entitled to its own way of doing things,” he said, adding,“If a country feels that a censorship agency is important for its people, then there's no reason why they shouldn't have one, even if it makes things inconvenient for those of us who don't live there. If enough people decide that needs to change, then it's an outdated concept for them.”

This is exactly the question VSC is now posing to countries like Australia; that is, do mandatory ratings still work? Either way, it stated there still exists a place for ratings in some capacity, adding:

"We believe {local certification bodies} remain very relevant even in this age of global distribution. As stated previously, it may be that the nature of censorship and ratings will change to a more advisory-centered system, but ratings systems continue to provide consumers - particularly parents of children - with very useful content information which we know they find very helpful indeed. We believe the public tends to trust the judgement and advice of the more independent, established and respected ratings organisations and will continue to do so."

One has to wonder if any form of censorship is effective when consumers now have the resources to experience pretty much anything they want. Is it time to re-open the censorship debate, or has current technology already rendered the issue moot?

{Source: Edge Online}

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Modern Warfare 3 officially confirmed with trailer (UPDATED with two more trailers), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 PC News

What a day, huh? We began with the giant leak ofvery credible rumors surrounding the unannounced third game in the Modern Warfare series. Representatives for Call of Duty’s publisher Activision were quiet for most of the day, but it looks like they decided that if it was front page news anyway, they may as well announce Modern Warfare 3 now instead of waiting any longer. So here’s the official reveal trailer:

This trailer at least confirms the reports of the game’s story taking place in America, New York City to be exact. Whether the rest of it turns out to be true, including a planned November 8 release date, remains to be seen. But at least we can start our weekend safe in the knowledge that a sequel really is being made to one of the best-selling games of all time. Guess we better start the line at Gamestop tonight.

UPDATE:Activision kept the hits coming with two more trailers featuring a couple additional battlegrounds, Germany and England.

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The Witcher 2: GOG update bypasses censored Australia version, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings PC News

There will be blood in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, the follow up to developer CD Projekt’s RPG adaptation of the fantasy series by Andrzej Sapkowski. But more importantly, The Witcher 2 will have sex– so much sex that CD Projekt opted to tone down the mature content in the Australia version of the title to avoid an outright ban. However, a recent change to the privacy policy of digital distribution service Good Old Games (GOG) will allow anyone in Australia (or the rest of the world) to pre-order or purchase the uncensored version.

Previously, customers purchasing a game on GOG.com would have their region automatically determined by the website based on the user’s IP address. So, if your IP address says you live in Australia, you’d be stuck with the censored version of The Witcher 2.

Above: GOG changed its privacy policy just before the release of The Witcher 2. Sex scenes for everyone!

An announcement on GOG.com explains why customers suffer when digital distribution services use geo IP to set their region.“For example, customers may be travelling when they want to purchase or download a game from GOG.com. In this case, automatic IP address capture might change the price or the content of the game they’re ordering (such as the default language of the installer). Further, geo IP data collection is not always right. IP addresses are not a perfect or unique identifier of location, and can report the incorrect region of users, particularly ones who are not using standard Internet connections.”

GOG also stresses the importance of honoring its users’ privacy.“Effective privacy protections for our users means that any data that we don’t need to collect, we shouldn’t,” reads the announcement.

Seeing as how The Witcher 2’s gameplay emphasizes the importance of choice, it seems fitting that GOG has seen fit to give its customers the ability to choose their region if they pre-order or purchase any titles. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is set to release on May 17.

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Skyrim interview: You ask, Bethesda answers, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC News

Want to know more about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim? Join the club. Better yet, visit Bethesda’s official Elder Scrolls forums where the developer is hosting its first fan interview for the latest installment in the epic, open-world RPG series.

So, if you’ve got any burning questions for the folks at Bethesda Game Studios who are developing the game, visit the forums and ask your question. You never know, it may get answered! And if you feel intimidated by the extra hardcore questions posed by the sorts of fans who’ve finished every Elder Scrolls game in history no less than five times, you can never go wrong with a lighthearted query. Take user Swarley Swazenoskie, for example, who asks,“Will there be dragons?”

Our favorite fan question so far:"Will there be dragons?"

Above: A gameplay trailer for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. You should definitely watch it. If you’ve already seen it, we suggest that you watch it again anyway. It certainly can’t hurt

Answers to fan questions will be posted in the coming weeks on Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls forums as well as on the official Bethesda blog.

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Mass Effect 3: Beautiful new screens show intense combat, dramatic staring, Shepard's big butt, Mass Effect 3 PC News

Mass Effect 3 then. Exciting? Yes. Pretty? Definitely. We know that latter point as fact because of this fat slab of new screens that have appeared from Russian site Igromania. Showing off some tight close-quarters combat, they also feature some beautiful environments and the mandatory dramatic, reflective staring required for the third part of any epic trilogy.

Oh, and a bad dude gets Shepard's butt shoved right in his face.

Happy with these?

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Super Meat Boy level editor released, Super Meat Boy PC News

Super Meat Boy: 307 stages of meticulously-crafted old-school platforming, where the challenges appear nigh-impossible, but are built so you feel really, really good when you beat 'em. Hell no, son! This is the internet, where if we don't have the opportunity to mod something until it's absolutely, 100% player-proof, we're going back to I Want To Be The Guy! Well, relax, because with the newly-released official SMB level editor, now anyone can turn Team Meat's creation from“challenging” to“you have to be shitting me.”

The editor, which is free with the game's latest Steam update, is automatically added to Steam's Tools menu. Team Meat's blog contains some basic tips for using the program, together with words of gratitude for the fans who hung out for the addition and a less-than-charitable pro tip–“{don't} update your game, burn in hell”– for anyone who bemoaned the wait with ungrateful hate-mail. Well, if you're between building a free toy for PC players and porting your signature title to Mac (currently in development,“done when it's done”), it's understandable you might not have all the time in the world for haters.

Will you be building new levels for Super Meat Boy? How impossible will they be, exactly?

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Portal 2: LEGO ATLAS and P-Body ready for testing, Portal 2 PC News

Cool stuff alert! Check out these LEGO versions of ATLAS and P-Body from Portal 2. The attention to detail is impressive and these miniatures look like they’re ready to replace inferior LEGO humans for testing in a LEGO Aperture Science test chamber for the good of science.

The photos come from Flickr user Legohaulic. These ATLAS and P-Body figures aren’t the only impressive pieces created by Legohaulic. If you’ve got a moment, we highly recommend that you check out his photostream on Flickr for more cool stuff. In particular, we’re big fans of his life-sized recreation of the ARC gun from District 9 below.

Since it’s clear that we’ve still got Portal 2 on the brain, be sure to visit GamesRadar this weekend. We’ll be giving away a TON of cool Portal 2 stuff from our friends at ThinkGeek.

{Source: via Reddit}

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New Tomb Raider movie gets Iron Man writers. Olivia Wilde denies rumors that she’s the next Lara Croft , PC PC News

It's a fact so obvious it barely needs repeating that not all videogames make for good movies. InFamous' Brian Flemming, for instance, just this week stated that a screen adaptation of his open-ended, good-or-evil title is“infinitely far away.” However one property with proven screen chops– even if one out of two ain't great– is Tomb Raider, whose 2013-scheduled reboot just picked up two of Hollywood's hottest writers.

Screenwriter Mark Fergus and possible Megaman boss Hawk Ostby's previous work together includes the original Iron Man and the inventive thriller Children of Men, whose script earned them an Oscar nomination. They've just been added to the credits for the new Lara film, with producers GK Films modestly announcing their ambition to bring Croft to“her place alongside Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor in the pantheon of great female action heroes.”

Above: Iron Man writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby say"Yes"to the new Tomb Raider film. Actress Olivia Wilde says"No."

Above: Actress Olivia Wilde (Tron: Legacy, Cowboys& Aliens) denied rumors that she’ll be playing Lara Croft in the 2013 reboot

Meanwhile Olivia Wilde, who worked with Fergus/Ostby on their new Cowboys and Aliens, tactfully denied rumors she was a frontrunner for the role of young Lara even while sticking her hand up for the role:“As far as I know right now, I'm not playing Lara Croft. That would be so awesome.” The movie, much like Crystal Dynamics' upcoming restart of the game franchise, is said to focus on Lara's youth and origins as a raider of tombs. Who'd you like to see in the lead?

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Bethesda confirms 3 new DLC packs for Fallout: New Vegas , Fallout: New Vegas PC News

Bethesda has confirmed the arrival of three new DLC packs for Fallout: New Vegas, as well as its affinity for naming post-apocalyptic adventures after depressing country songs.

Entitled Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road, the New Vegas add-ons will arrive in May, June and July respectively, and will release simultaneously on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC via Steam and Direct2Drive.

The first pack, Honest Hearts,  tells the harrowing tale of a wastelander forced to navigate the wilds of Utah's Zion National Park after their expedition party is ransacked by tribal raiders. To survive, players will be required to pick sides in a brewing conflict between aforementioned tribesman, a New Canaanite missionary and the so-called Burned Man. It's out on May 17.

Old World Blue appears to offer something of a twist to the“go to this desolate settlement, kill this destitute enemy” formula in that players will assume the role of a mangled human test subject seeking revenge on the scientists responsible for his/her monstrous condition. It will have players digging around the Big Empty (aka more sun-baked Nevada desert) in search of technology that will enable them to achieve said vengeance or join teams to take down a bigger enemy. Wait, can't we do both? I'm doing both. That'll teach you, science.

Lonesome Hearts is the last of the announced DLC, and looks to tie up some loose ends when it is released in July. In it, players are contacted by Ulysses, the Mohave courier who originally turned down the job to deliver the Platinum Chip at the onset of Fallout: New Vegas; a device which is revealed to be central to the entire New Vegas story. Offering truth in exchange for help on one last job, Ulysses sends players on a mission into an environmentally ravaged part of Nevada called the Divide. Bethesda has not confirmed if players will be entering the Divide as a brand new character, or if Lonesome Hearts is intended as an extension to the main story.

All combined, the DLC aims to flesh out the Fallout: New Vegas mythos, as well as answer any lingering questions. Assuming you had any lingering questions. This isn't exactly Lost we're dealing with.

Each pack will be available for $9.99 / 800 Microsoft Points apiece.

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EA franchises get Simpsons treatment, The Sims 3 PC News

Wolfenstein 3D may have re-invigorated an unknown 8-bit franchise and introduced the world to the concept of"a shooting game, in the first person;"but while paving the road for Doom, Halo and Modern Warfare is well and good, the title was, until recently, lacking in the one area universally recognized as the sign of having Made It in the world of entertainment. We're speaking, of course, of having an officially-sanctioned Simpsons parody drawn of you; but thanks to newly-released concept art from EA's 2007 Simpsons Game, the title is among those finally receiving this ultimate honor.

EA concept artist Joe Spiotto, a pop-culture prankster who dreams upBattlestar Galactica concept albumsandwoefully nonexistent Nintendo gamesin his spare time, recently discovereda stack of artworkhe drew for in-jokey titles to feature within EA's Groening license.

“I'm not sure if these even made it into the game,” Spiotto writes. Working later on The Sims 3, he found that the team hadn't approved his image for that franchise. His Dead Space pic, meanwhile, was the result of moving from The Simpsons straight onto that then-young title. Spiotto cranked out the poster, he says, in homage to what he"knew was going to be a great classic."

And thus it was that Wolfenstein, The Sims, Half-Life, Mutant League Football and Dead Space joined the likes of Ricky Gervais, Flight of the Conchords and George Bush Sr in yellow immortality.Which one'syour favorite?

{Via:GameSetWatch}

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Have a gander at the new Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation maps, Call of Duty: Black Ops PC News

The most important thing headed your way in the Escaltion map pack DLC on May 3rd? Color! Or at least a couple that don’t stand on the tired shoulders of brown, grey and green. My interest in all things CoD has waned a bit, and I think a large part of that is due to each entry in the series looking damn near identical to the last regardless of location or era. But not the Escalation DLC, no sir!

Featuring four new maps (Hotel, Zoo, Stockpile and Convoy), plus an all new Zombie venture called Call of the Dead, Escalation looks to be bringing a little vibrancy back to franchise in a way that makes the whole shebang seem a lot more alive in a way that hasn’t caught my eye since CoD 4.

Stockpile and Convoy veer a bit more traditional, but Hotel boasts a pastel Cuban resort with all the garish visual panache of a Tony Clifton tuxedo. However, my favorite of the bunch would have to be the map that takes place in a post-apocalyptic Soviet beast sanctuary complete with derelict monorail perches perfect for sniping. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the inherent creepiness of abandoned amusement parks.

Not much is said about the new Zombie map, but the Treyarch fellas will offer a dickload of potentially useful tips and tricks in the vid above, so long as you can just stay your hand from bashing Activision in the comments for just one goddamned second! Escalation hits May 3rd, my darlings. A $15 price tag and 360 exclusivity are safe bet.

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New study prompts media to blame videogames for obesity epidemic, PC PC News

Videogames will turn you into a hopeless glutton, according to a new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition - or at least that's what the media seems to be implying. As usual, the media's interpretation doesn't quite match the study.

“When we play video games, yes, we burn few calories, but we also eat more,” says kinesiologist Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput, lead author of the study. Chaput recruited 22 young men and divided them into two groups. One would play games for an hour, while the control subjects would sit in a chair doing nothing for an hour. Afterwards, the subjects ate pasta. Those who played games ate on average 80 calories more. Blood tests indicated that hunger levels couldn't account for the excess consumption. Surveys the men filled out indicated that gamers ate on average 163 calories in excess of resting usage.

The researchers hypothesize that mental strain from playing videogames urges players to reach for comfort food high in fat and sugar. However, the actual conclusion in the study's abstract is far more conservative,“A single session of video game play in healthy male adolescents is associated with an increased food intake, regardless of appetite sensations.”

The conclusion as written in the study is hard to argue with. It's well documented that games (or any other cognitively taxing or exciting activity) cause all kinds of changes in the brain and body. The study itself notes,“Heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, sympathetic tone, and mental workload were significantly higher during the video game play condition than during the resting condition.”

The dubious science begins when the National Post uses the study to argue that video games cause weight gain. While the gaming group ate on average 80 calories a day more than the control group, there was no follow up later in the day or week to see if the excess calories were made up by a later calorie deficit.

While the study showed that gamers consume 163 calories a day in excess of their resting metabolic rate, there's no mention in the study as to whether these gamers were more or less active than the control group. It's possible that the gamers were actually more active than their non-videogame playing counterparts. According to a 2008 study, gamers are more likely to play sports, go out with friends, or even go on a date. The study did not show that gamers actually weighed more than the control group.

The body uses more energy while playing games for an hour than resting for an hour. However, gamers in the study ate an excess of calories well beyond the difference between resting and playing games. Whatever happens in the brain while playing games, it stimulates appetite. What's not clear is whether other sedentary activities would have the same effect. It's possible that watching a horror movie, reading a tense scene in a book, studying hard, or playing a board game could have similar effects.

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5 reasons to hate Portal, Portal 2 PC News

I’m sorry! It’s the

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