NPD Group has released the market performance results for May 2008, and already the PR armies at Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have began to churn out their reformatted versions of the results. Of course, each one talks only about what they've achieved so far in the fifth month of the Year of the Rat, but what happens when we put them all together? Yes, we get the full NPD May story.

It's never too early to speculate about what games we'll be having this year, and if you're among those who want to play Nostradamus, the latest trademarks gaming giants like Square Enix and Namco Bandai secured may catch your interest. Find out what titles have been stamped at the full article.

It's an endless debate when talking about girls playing the same video games guys play. They say girls only like MMORPGs, then follow up with "there are no girls on internet." Others believe female gamers stick to casual games, but Mario and Pokemon titles have more fanboys than fangirls.

No matter what your stand is, here's a list of non-girly games that aren't Barbie, Bratz, or any of those glamorous stuff.

Everything makes sense now as to why HP was intent in acquiring Voodoo PCs in the last quarter of 2006. It's on its way to embarking on a big quest to eat a portion of the online gaming pie.

Boldly, the company most recognized for its work with printers and laptops announced that its "Game On" project will go head to head with the console giants - Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Analysts are skeptical as to how HP will pull it off, pointing to the fact that the console market grew by a third last year as compared to only 1 percent in growth for PC gaming.

HP's gameplan is to invest on Voodoo and use next-gen PC gaming software and hardware resources to gain a competitive edge. HP says that in the era of the broadband connections, people can easily jump online and enjoy the games there.

That's not to say HP has no prior experience with game development. HP Labs has shown a bit of what it can do by bundling demos of small games with HP and Compaq laptops in the recent years.

So, will the masters of printing ever dominate the PC gaming online community? That we don't know, but the more the merrier, right?

It's a one-two hit combo for Western Australia as the Asia Pacific region celebrates gaming over at Perth. The GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo, or GO3 Expo for short, was launched by the Minister for Industry and Enterprise Francis Logan at the Perth Convention Exhibition Center, as detailed from an official press release.

 

With the Asian, Europe, and Oceanic game industry's gaming icons to participate in the event as guest speakers, the three day affair will showcase the industry's games, game hobbyists' leisurely activities, network communication and computer technology. So from March 30 to April 1, expect attendees to be able to try out games from the promotional demonstrations sported by game developers.

Not just focusing on computers, consoles will also be making a scheduled arrival at the event, with Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation 3 demo booths to be available to excited Aussie gamers. So you could expect their little handheld cousins aren't far behind either. The region's industry celebrities, government officials, and high profile media, including but not limited to MTV and Famitsu, will be joining gaming giants in making this uniquely positioned event a great success. Guest speakers include:

• Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid)
• Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Sega Rally Championship and Rez)
• Masaya Matsuura (Parappa the Rapper)
• Goichi Suda (Killer 7)
• Feargus Carroll (LucasArts)
• Nicklas "Cece" Cederström (World in Conflict)

Aside from the Fury MMORPG PvP showcase, guests can also expect other events to tiptoe their way in the busy weekend. First up is the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) 2007 qualifiers showcase, who will be representing Aussies from the world over in the Grand Finals at Paris later this year.

The GO3 LAN Party will also take place at the event. For 30 hours, over 600 attendees can relive the glory LAN party days and boast their talent against their seatmates' hand-and-eye-coordination skills. This is probably one of the largest network gaming setups ever attempted in Australia.

Also making a peep show is the GO3 Cos-Play Competition just to showcase the huge subculture phenomenon in the Asian region. The competition will allow the best game-character to win an all-expense paid trip to the 2007 Tokyo Game Show. Next up is the Nullarbor Game Development Competition, where budding game dev enthusiasts and serious students around Australia can present their work to a large crowd.

Visitors interested will be able to demo the games and vote for their favorite ones, allowing the best ones to bring home cash and prizes. And last but not least is the Dance Dance Revolution Competition, where Australia's best footwork masters duel it out to win more cash and prizes, plus get immortalized as the GO3 "DDR Champion 2007."

This next article is about prestige games. While we were quite sure already what point we would like to drive at, we wanted to be sure. So we went to our mini library, picked up a Webster's and looked up the meaning of the word.

Prestige: reputation or influence arising from success, achievement, rank, or other favorable attributes; distinction or reputation attaching to a person or thing and thus possessing a cachet for others or for the public.

Before we proceed, pardon us first this bit of explanation: In the movie industry, prestige films are those that are not expected to do blockbuster numbers but brings pride to those who are part of it. They are funded by various studios and actors are asked to accept lower rates. Book publishers likewise, also support books that are award-worthy but not necessarily top sellers. Both of these art forms gained prestige, so to speak, because of their favorable attributes (read: content).

Now, here comes the serious question: Why are there no prestige titles? The problem, unfortunately, lies in the big companies' metric of success. For them, a game is successful whenever it brings high revenues.

Reviews are important only before and during a game's first weeks in the market. In the event that sales wouldn't pick up, they abandon the title. Abandon, in the sense that they try to distance themselves from it. You don't believe us? Look at these:

• Capcom dissolves Clover Studios because of disappointing sales for their last project. The latter's last project happened to be Okami, a title that received high reviews and commendations across the industry.
• Last year, Microsoft dropped Psychonauts because of being unpopular. The game was then picked up by a much smaller company, Majesco.
• UbiSoft released Beyond Good and Evil. It was supposed to be a series. But because of disappointing sales, the planned series was dropped all together.

These are just the recent things that readily comes to mind. Given the time, we are sure we'll be able to find a lot of other similar cases out there. A good number of excellent titles but because of economic reasons, are lying at the bottom of the heap, dusty and forgotten.

The solution, as easy and as naive as it sounds, lies in inner values. Until the day publishers and developers take pride in content rather than revenues, things wouldn't change. And until the day the triumvirate (giants Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft ) takes the industry into this direction, it would remain an unpaved and crooked road for prestige titles.

This weekend's biggest news story was that of the death of the Electronic Entertainment Expo; it's replacement, the new "E3 Media Festival," will be happening in July next year. Now, the best part of E3 for many is the face off between the three hardware giants - Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft - in their annual Pre-E3 Press Conferences. We don't know if that will still be happening, but what's their stance on the E3 Media Festival?

Nintendo's PR manager in the UK, Rob Saunders, said, "I can confirm that Nintendo will be involved in the E3 expo next year," so at least expect to see them back. Not too surprising considering the success they had at E3 2006 with Wii.

Microsoft is riding the fence as the official word from the UK office was, "We're supportive of the move ESA has taken. It's still early days, and we're not in a position to talk about what Microsoft will be doing in regards to next year's E3, but we'll be making an announcement nearer the time." Take that as you will.

Sony's UK office doesn't seem to want to deal with it at all. David Wilson, the SCEE PR manager, says "we generally view E3 as a 'US' show. That isn't to devalue or deny its significance to us, it's just that because it's based in the US: SCEA 'own' it." Good mentality to take.

It's not too doubtful that all these guys will be back for next year's show. However, we'll definitely miss the fun and excitement of their press conference wars if it doesn't happen again. They're one of our favourite parts of E3!

Tolkien's masterpiece was said to have been immortalized by the movie some years back. With the magnitude of success it has gained, not a few doubt that the feat will never be achieved by any franchise in any field of entertainment. Well for people who learned to love fantasy via LOTR, it would have done them good to "fantasize" more. Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II is scheduled for release this July 5, and judging from these gameplay videos, EA, for once, may have earned their 'ring'.

It has long been mentioned how rich the gameplay of this title will be. With the abundant set of characters, a lot of story to delve into, and deep history, it's hard to go wrong with this one. Well for some, that strength might be the very source of the game's weakness. The hardest people to please are fans (have you ever seen a fanboy succumb to the views of an opposing fanboy?), so Battle for Middle Earth might be in for some serious bashing from hardcore middle-earthlings; but for the rest, it may be smooth sailing for them.

The game revolve around strategy-based moves, much like disciplines in chess where each formation suits a different type of creature, army and terrain. You can create caves to attract goblins, fissures to beckon trolls, then dig tunnels to make a path for both armies. If you're the girly type and like pretty elves, then set up woods or glamorous castles set in nature to gather their flock.

The game is a test to determine the gamer's ability to build, manage and lead armies. Numerous tactics can be used, proving that game is much more than violence and pointless enjoyment (take that Jack!). You are truly the captain of every battle, only this time with detailed orcs swinging scintars, trolls wielding clubs, giants hurling boulders, elves springing arrows and slashing elven knives, dwarves making killer cuts with their axes, and high elven heroes summoning  powerful magic. Got the picture? Yeah, all out warring chaos with a middle earth flavor!

I can go and on, but I think I've already talked too much. If you can't bear my writing (don't worry, you're not alone), just click on the links below and immerse yourself to the warring world of middle-earth.

Download: [LotR: Battle for Middle Earth II Gameplay Video 1]
Download: [LotR: Battle for Middle Earth II Gameplay Video 2]