Have you heard of OnLive? It’s a service that lets you play games remotely, including some of the most recent ones. Powerful servers are used to run the games, which you control over the Internet as you normally would, with either keyboard and mouse or, if you are of the console persuasion, with your controller. The video output is streamed right back to you, and is displayed either on your computer screen or on your TV. Naturally this setup requires a high-speed, low-latency connection to work.

A few years ago, something like this would not have been possible. But now, as broadband connections become more and more common, services such as OnLive can be viable, at least in theory. And so, after years of development, OnLive went live on June 17. If you live in the continental US and have a PC or a Mac that meet the service’s hardware requirements, you can sign up and begin racking up gaming hours at your leisure.

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The UK Daily Telegraph reports that Russian lawmakers are going after some foreign video games for committing “ideological sabotage” by painting Russia as a country of spies, villains and bears riding unicycles. Russian Members of Parliament plan to hold talks with domestic game makers to counter this “threat” in exchange for tax breaks and grants.

“What we need is more programmers who have a patriotic education, who are on the right ideological level,” remarked Pavel Zyryanov, a member of the Russian parliament’s committee on youth policy. “Computer games today are part of a vital ideological platform that effects the consciousness of our young people. They learn history, they adopt values, and it’s important that this process is given a pro-Russian background.”

If they want to be seen in good light, perhaps they could try becoming a little less evil.

Last week’s rumors about the cancellation of Beyond Good & Evil 2 and Michel Ancel’s departure from Ubisoft Montpellier appear to be incorrect. In a statement to Eurogamer, an Ubisoft representative confirmed that Ancel is still with the company, and that the game is still in development. “There are no changes on the horizon,” was, however, all they had to say on the matter.

Recent research presented at an NYU conference indicates what while you’re playing video games, you may also be improving your vision and other brain functions.

Sigmund Tobias of SUNY Albany spoke of an Israeli air force study that found students who played Space Fortress had better rankings in their pilot training than students who did not. He then added that students who played games that promote cooperation were more likely than others to help out in real-life situations where people required assistance.

Daphne Bavelier, an assistant professor of brain and cognitive science at the University of Rochester, focused on the FPS, and presented evidence from her studies of Unreal Tournament and Medal of Honor. She showed how playing these kill-or-be-killed games can improve peripheral vision and the ability to see objects at dusk. In addition, she provided data on these games can even be used to treat amblyopia, or lazy eye, a disorder characterized by indistinct vision in one eye. Professor Bavelier also believes that games can improve math performance and other brain tasks, and will one day become part of school curriculums.

Source: New York Times

According to LifeScience, playing video games before bedtime may give people an unusual level of awareness and control in their dreams. This ability to shape the alternate reality of dream worlds could provide an edge when fighting nightmares or even mental trauma.

Dreams and video games both represent alternate realities, but while dreams arise biologically from the human mind, video games are technologically driven by computers and gaming consoles. Past research on games has shown several parallels between lucid dreams and video games. Both lucid dreamers and gamers seemed to have better spatial skills and are less prone to motion sickness. The two groups also demonstrate high levels of cognitive focus.

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Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Gas Powered Games
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.6 GHz CPU, 256 MB DirectX 9-compliant graphics card with Pixel Shader 3.0 support, 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB for Vista/Win 7), 4 to 5 GB hard-drive space, broadband connection for multiplayer
Genre: RTS
Release date: Available now

Supreme Commander 2 continues the tradition started by Total Annihilation in 1997. TA was a game of vast spaces, gigantic hordes of units, novel resource gathering and an interesting approach to construction dynamics. It was a technological marvel for its time, and looks fairly reasonable to this day. In 2007 it was followed by a spiritual successor, Supreme Commander. Most of the ideas behind TA remained, but an amazing graphics engine was introduced, as well as an actual storyline. This year, the series has received its most current update. We published a preview a few months ago, and now that the game is out, it’s time to give it a closer look.

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The Humble Bundle is a great deal for gamers for a number of reasons. The games work on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, you can pay as little or as much as you want, and you can donate some or all of the money to the included charities. There also isn’t any DRM on any of the games. So why does it look like one quarter of the people enjoying the games have pirated them? Plain and simple stinginess.

Ars Technica spoke to Jeffery Rosen, co-founder of Wolfire Games, about the piracy rate of the Humble Bundle.

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StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, will arrive in stores on July 27!

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will focus on the clash between the protoss, terrans, and zerg, with each side deploying legions of veteran, upgraded, and new unit types. Online play will be available through a new version of Battle.net that has been redesigned from the ground up with several enhancements and new features such as voice communication, cloud file storage, leagues and ladders, achievements, and stat-tracking.

The solo campaign will continue from where it left off in StarCraft: Brood War. The story chronicles the exploits of marshal-turned-rebel-leader Jim Raynor and features both familiar faces and new heroes. Players will be able to tailor their experience, choosing their own mission path and selecting technology and research upgrades to suit their playing style throughout the 29-mission campaign. Several challenge-mode mini-games will also be included, with focused goals designed to ease players into the basics of multiplayer strategies.

Blizzard has announced details of their $99.99 collector’s edition of StarCraft II, so it just might be time to start saving your money. In addition to the game, the collector’s edition includes The Art of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (a 176-page book of artwork from the game), a 2GD USB flash drive replica of Jim Raynor’s dog tag that contains both StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War, a behind the scenes DVD, soundtrack CD, comic book issue #0, a WoW mini game, and some Battle.net DLC. This bonus material will only be available at retail stores, so you may want to get those pre-orders in before supplies run out.

Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Fatshark
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 5200+ 2.6 GHz CPU, 1.5 GB RAM, 2.0 GB free hard-drive space, GeForce 7800 series or ATI Radeon X1900 graphics card with Shader Model 3.0 compatibility, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card, DirectX 9.0c
Genre: Team-based shooter
Release date: April 8, 2010

I have been known to complain endlessly about there being too many games set in World War II. I just find it incredibly irritating that game designers seem continuously unable to dream up interesting settings, or to simply use a historical period that isn’t 1939 to 1945. Often one of the reasons cited is that there was no other time when firearms were widely used. Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West, a new game from Swedish developer Fatshark, is a great example of the fallacy that is the above statement. It is set in the Wild West, and is a most welcome break from the excruciatingly overused WWII theme. Setting up a bear trap to catch a gunslinging outlaw seems novel and fresh when compared to planting a land mine to frag a Nazi.

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In case you missed part 1.

It’s been roughly 30 days since I first wrote about Starcraft II. During the course of this month, I played many matches, improved my tactics, settled on a favorite faction, and even found some problems with the game. Also, so far there have been five patches, two surveys, a second wave of incoming beta participants and so on. A few days ago Blizzard announced that they are going to wipe the beta database, thus destroying any rankings, friends lists, account profiles and other items. This is to test battle.net’s capacity to handle a mini launch, when everyone is going to be simultaneously creating accounts, etc. So let’s talk about these things in more detail.

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After we ran the King Graham murdered by Activision story, a member of a newly created Save The Silver Lining movement contacted us to let us know that as far as true fans are concerned the game is far from over.

STSL is a group of fans who are doing their best to organize people in order to protest Activision’s policy of cultural destruction. The ultimate goal is of course to get Activision to go back on its decision, which is not impossible, considering the fact that a few years earlier an identical movement was able to secure the fan license for the game from then owners, Vivendi.

At this point, however, STSL needs every vote they can get if they are to be noticed. If you are interested in contributing your voice to their cause, you can do it in a number of ways. You can learn more at their web site. They encourage people to send both paper and electronic mail to Activision and provide the templates that you can use to do so.

Manufacturer: Able Planet
MSRP: $129.99

Back in the day, I never wanted to play games with headphones on. Instead, I invested in an awesome (and supremely expensive) 7.1 Cambridge Soundworks gaming set. It was pretty spectacular, came with a lot of stuff, produced excellent sound quality, and garnered me bragging rights. Over time, however, it became less and less of what I wanted in a listening device. The speakers were bulky, the subwoofer gigantic, there were wires everywhere, and the connectors didn’t work with the new sound cards. Proper configuration was also a challenge, as people and cats routinely knocked my investment to the floor. After about eight years of service, I gave the entire setup to an audiophile friend of mine, and replaced it with a crummy set of no-name speakers. It was shortly thereafter that I realized that owning a good set of headphones was essential. When Able Planet’s True Fidelity (NC300B) headphones arrived at my doorstep, my dream of world domination via gaming finally began to come true.

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The Silver Lining, a fan-made sequel to Sierra’s classic King’s Quest saga, has been shut down by Activision/Blizzard, the new owners of the IP. There was a similar setback in 2005, when Vivendi Universal sent a Cease & Desist letter to the developers. At that time, however, thousands of people petitioned Vivendi to grant a fan-license to the game, and after a while the company agreed. The game was not allowed to call itself King’s Quest anymore, but the development was permitted to go on. It took the team a while to recover from the loss, but as of late it looked like the first episode was about to be released.

Meanwhile, Activision/Blizzard came to own the rights to King’s Quest. Instead of allowing development to continue, they decided that the project was to be killed. Not only did they force The Silver Lining‘s site to be taken down along with all artwork, information, and the demo, they also insisted that all of the forums be taken down as well. Nearly ten years of discussions (some non KQ-related) are now gone.

Good-bye King Graham. Who would have known that one of the most beloved gaming characters of all time would end his life on the tip of some corporate suit’s pen?

This week, Ubisoft Entertainment has once again decided to spit in the face of every PC gamer in the world. They have announced that, in order to play their games, you will be required to be connected to the Internet. Should a connection be dropped for any reason, your progress in the game will be lost. This applies to at least three of their upcoming titles.

What this means to you is that you will not be able to play these games on a plane without paying for an in-flight connection (assuming one is offered). You will not be able to play them if a squirrel chews through your cable. You will not be able to play them while you are waiting for the phone company to install your connection after you move to a new house. You will not be able to play them if your wireless is spotty. Of course you will not be able to play them where there is no wireless access (assuming a wired connection is also not available). Should your Windows have a networking hiccup, should your kid pull a cable, should there be a power surge…yeah, you will lose your progress.

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