The other bundle includes a slightly older game in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, which is considered to be the best game available on 3DS. It comes with a special edition, Zelda-themed system previously announced by Nintendo of Europe; it has the same color as the Cosmo Black 3DS that’s been available since launch but with a special gold trim and and the Hyrule emblem.

Both bundles go on sale in the United States on Thanksgiving, this Thursday, November 24. They’ll each be priced at $199.99, a minor discount over buying the system (which is $169.99 post-price drop) and a new copy of either game. Nintendo describes the bundles as "limited edition," although we don’t know just how limited either will be. With Friday being one of the biggest shopping days of the year, those who wish to ensure they get their hands on either one (especially that nice Zelda system) will want to purchase it as quickly as possible.

A bonus for this game is your young boys and girls will really enjoy it.  I’ve had a hard time finding games that are simple and straight to the point for my young son.  When we are on a road trip, he’s constantly asking if he can play “shooting games” or “boy games.”  Duck Carnage has been a life saver for those trips!  The game also helps develop motor skills as they have to follow the ducks on the screen and press quickly in order to shoot them.  The sound effects are easy on the ears, but if you are really in a quiet spot, there are options to disable sound effects.

The name of the game is a little misleading – no real carnage takes place.  No blood or excessive violence, just fun cartoony play time.  Check out Duck Carnage now in the Android market.

The iconic gaming company’s much-buzzed-about hand-held 3-D device will go on sale in Japan in February, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said at a Tokyo news conference.

It will sell for the equivalent of about $300.

Iwata said the portable gaming console will be released in the United States and Europe in March.

The 3DS, which was unveiled at E3, lets the user play games, including updates to the "Legend of Zelda" and "Mario Kart" series, in 3-D without using special glasses.

The model Iwata displayed Wednesday looked slightly different from the one demoed at E3 in June.

Iwata highlighted several new features. Gamers will be able to take pictures of themselves and automatically convert their image into “Miis,” –personalized in-game avatars like the ones from Wii console games. The 3DS will allow multi-tasking and have a Wi-Fi connection that will allow it to download updates and new software, even while it’s "asleep."

“Tag” mode will be available using the 3DS’s Wi-Fi, which will let gamers share information from one console to another without needing to physically link the devices.

Nintendo had not announced a release date for the 3DS at the E3 expo. But many observers expected the company to follow the path of most major gaming releases and hit the market in time for the holiday shopping season.  Unfortunately, it will not make it in time for the holiday season.

Most gaming reviewers who have spent time with the Nintendo 3DS have given it high marks. Because hand-held 3-D is new, Nintendo is hoping to change the atmosphere of portable gaming.

The beautiful city of Seattle was taken storm by gamers, geeks, freaks,and entrepreneurs over labor day weekend.  This was my first gaming convention and PAX definitely did not disappoint.  My picture says it all – a whirlwind of people demoing games, hardware and competing with others.

Here’s a list of my top five experiences at PAX 2010.

People Watching

Thousands of people swarmed the Seattle Convention Center.  Friday wasn’t busy but Saturday was crazy!  I was amazed by all the moms who brought their babies and kids.  It was really neat to see them very excited about a wide variety of games.  The Kinect stations were very popular, but not just with women!  I saw lots of men dancing and working out in the Kinect booths.

The Myth of the Gamer Girl

Besides fantastic demos and competitions, PAX puts on multiple sessions.  I took in the session entitled “The Myth of the Gamer Girl – True Demographic or Anthropologic hooha?”  The panelists were very entertaining and posed questions to each other on the whole concept of the gaming girl.  The panelists were esteemed professionals in their fields and were very intelligent and clever!  The stereotype that only men game is old and archaic.  The men and women who attended the session seemed to get that.  One attendee posed the point that it is almost ridiculous to separate women from men in gaming.  I tend to agree with this as it was very apparent to me that the audience at PAX was compiled of at least 50% women.  Women are a great target for marketers and game developers.  Overall, the session was a great place to meet  like-minded women and men.

Drum Skulls

A lot of little indie game booths surrounded the main areas.  One game in particular was very sweet.  Not so much the game itself, but the people working the booth.

I came upon this booth and stood and watched people play on drum sets, very similar to Rock Band.  Instead of making music though, the drum action kills zombies.  The kids who were marketing the game were very excited and attentive to everyone who visited.  I heard one of the guys say to another, “This is the greatest day of my life!”  My heart warmed hearing that they were doing something they loved and it was a dream come true for them to promote their game at PAX.  One of the kids(ok I say kids, but these guys were probably in late teens, early 20s) very politely told me about the game and that I should give it a try.  They had some really cool t-shirts to give away for just trying the game, so I sat down at the drum pad.  The zombies had their own colors and to kill them you had to hit the corresponding color on the drums.  I can see little kids really getting into this, but also it was fun for me!  I completed my demo and then another one of the young men went and got a t-shirt for me.  The pure innocence of the men running this booth was very sweet.

About an hour later, my party had a meeting scheduled with the Civ 5 people.  It was a limited showing, so I decided to go sight see around PAX.  A bathroom break called me so I found the nearest restroom.  As I passed the hall to the restrooms, I saw the guy from the Drum Skull booth who gave me the t-shirt.  I smiled at him and continued on my way.  The door to the bathroom was wide open and I went into it with gusto.  As I walked in, I recognized one of the Drum Skulls’ kids going up to wash his hands…then I saw another guy going up to a urinal!  It felt like time slowed down until I realized “OH I’m in the wrong bathroom, not them!”  I quickly left before I was seen, but the first Drum Skulls guy was still waiting outside.  “Why didn’t you stop me?” I said to him and he gave me the biggest deer-in-headlight eyes I’ve ever seen.  At this point, I was lmao!

Demos

A media pass has some awesome benefits.  One of them is priority demos.  I have a lot of reviews to write for the products I demo’d at PAX.  Ironically, my favorite game at PAX was Super Hero Squad.  This mmorpg comes out this Fall and its geared for 8-12 year olds.  It was so easy tho, I’m sure my 3 1/2 year old will be able to enjoy this game.  They gave out free card decks that coincide with the game.  Marvel must have some marketing genius’s working for them!

Meeting New People

We met so many wonderful people at PAX and in Seattle.  All of the presenters, exhibitors, staff, and attendees were friendly and happy to be there.  If there were any crabby people around, I didn’t see them!  Seattle is amazingly clean and friendly.  We are thrilled to go back again next year.

I have so many product reviews to write now!  Up next – a first glance at Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 and it’s integration with Xbox Live!

Atari from WomenGamers.com talks about these challenges in her article “Gaming with a Newborn.”

Gaming with a Newborn

By Ismini "Atari" Roby

"For months leading up to my son’s birth, I heard seasoned parent gamers who play on the upwards of 30+ hours a week say, "Be prepared for your entire life to change. You’ll be lucky if you get any time to game." Frankly, this scared me. Gaming has always been a great tool for me to wind down and de-stress. With a kid on the way, I couldn’t imagine getting rid of one of my most effective relaxation techniques. I knew had to figure out a way to balance out the baby’s needs with my own, but with little knowledge of what the days ahead would be like, I really didn’t know how difficult it was going to be.

I thought the childbirth was going to be the hard part. In fact, when I was in labor, I remember thinking, "My god that is the hardest physical thing I think I’ve ever endured." A couple of days later I changed my mind. The hardest part was, hands down, the week right after.

Just because something is natural and has been done since the dawn of time does not make it intuitive. With all of the sophisticated features of the human body that help facilitate motherhood, there is still a learning curve for both mom and baby. Breastfeeding is probably the most surprisingly difficult feat to overcome. Not only are you learning how to do it, but the baby is struggling to figure it out as well, and with new feelings of hunger you can bet he was getting frustrated too. Compound that with an inevitable lack of sleep and crazy high hormone levels that make you cry at the drop of a hat, and you easily have the most stressful week of your life.

I couldn’t even think about games or WomenGamers.Com. All I could think about was how I wanted him to hurry up and grow a couple more pounds so he would start sleeping through the night (technically a 4-hour stretch of sleep). I was miserable. I was tired. I was frustrated. I was stressed. And the baby blues were making me an emotional basketcase.

The only real consolation to the first week is that it can only get better. By the second week, things started to look up and as my wits came back to me, I began planning how to make us both happy. World of Warcraft was coming and I was determined to play. But how can you play an MMORPG when you have to get up every two hours to attend to your son?

The answer: make sure you have a good pillow and computer chair with armrests that lift and descend. I found this wonderful pillow that snaps around your waste and is made of a hard foam. By using the armrests of my computer chair, I was able to recline the baby in my lap and easily feed him while on the computer. By tilting the keyboard at a 45 degree angle and sliding part of it on the pillow for support, then positioning my chair so that my right arm is closer to the mouse, I was able to accomplish two-handed computer access. Prior to discovering I could do all this, I would wake up in the middle of the night, sit in a rocking chair and be completely bored to tears staring at the clock. By being able to sit at my computer and play games, the time it now takes to feed him seems to fly by. In fact, on a number of occasions since World of Warcraft came out, he’d fall asleep in my lap while I would keep on playing. As a plus, because I’m playing at 4am on weekdays, I get to play relatively lag-free and without fighting people for overly-camped spawns.

And since mom was happy, baby was happy. Not only can your baby sense your stress, but your milk production will suffer if you can’t relax. If gaming helps you achieve mental and physical wellness, then don’t deprive yourself and your child by giving up activities that can benefit you both. Yes, your life will change, but with a little creativity, gaming can still be a part of your life.

This article was republished with permission from WomenGamers.Com.

WomenGamers.com

Atari from WomenGamers.com talks about these challenges in her article “Gamer Mom to Be.”

Gamer Mom to Be

By Ismini "Atari" Roby

"So can you guess what it is?"

I squinted at the ultrasound dumbfounded. I had no idea what I was looking out. "Ok, you got me. I give up."

"It’s a boy. See this right here?" I didn’t see it. I still don’t see it even after she drew an arrow to it and printed it out for me. All I see is a white blob next to a bunch of other white blobs. But the nurse seemed quite certain.

I really didn’t have a preference on sex. Having grown up mainly around girls, I knew a girl would be at least easier to understand (although not necessarily easier to raise). On the other hand, a boy would be quite an adventure for the very same reason. As a kid, I barely understood boys. As an adult, I now have a chance to see that same timeframe from a different perspective.

As we left the doctor’s office, something unexpected happened as I was thinking about the sex of my baby. I started thinking of all the crap that can happen between now and… well lets see I’m up to when this kid gets married and has kids of his own. I prepared my "talks" in advance from day 1, knowing full well that what I am going to say will completely depend on the personality of the kid and will likely change dramatically. I started thinking of things like:

• Fighting off the monsters under the bed
• Finding porn on his computer
• His first girlfriend
• His first black eye
• Teaching him about strangers
• Teaching him about drugs
• Instilling good eating habits on him
• Dealing with depression
• Dealing with loss
• Breaking down stereotypes
• Respecting women while not getting his heart torn up
• Showing him good strategies for playing FPS games

And the list goes on. You also start to worry about stuff like whether you should go to a flat screen monitor so your kid doesn’t become ADHD (new studies have shown that the refresh rate in TVs and monitors effects a child’s brain increasing their chance of getting ADHD during the first couple of years), and whether I should be writing this article right now knowing that the radiation from this 21" monitor might be affecting my kid. Hm, good reason to get that flat screen now… I wonder if my husband will go for that…

Of course, the worrying didn’t end there. Does it ever end I wonder? As I was going maternity clothes shopping today (staring through the cheesy racks of pastel pink clothes that were about ready to make me gag), I started thinking about the kid’s clothing section and how I found both the boy and girl sections to be nearly as frustrating. The girl’s section is riddled with flowery designs in pastels and hot pink, and the boy’s clothes look drab and washed out with images of sports and cars on just about everything you see. Looking at the clothes reminded me of those idiotic Barbie and Hot Wheels computers for kids. It’s so difficult to find things that aren’t stereotyped to a certain sex when you are shopping for a child. Especially when shopping for boys. Girls have far more options as they can cross over with little reprecussions. For example, a girl playing with Hot Wheels is far more acceptable in today’s society than a boy playing with a Barbie. How does one broaden a kid’s choices when so many of the toys and images available are so narrow in vision? All I gotta say is, thank god for Legos.

Speaking of toys, I’ve also come to the conclusion that my kid will probably hate video games since his parents play them rather religiously. It’s Murphy’s Law after all. Besides, my hobbies are somewhat different from my parent’s hobbies. I wonder what he’s going to find interesting and fun? Hrm, there goes my aspirations to make him my crafting mule when he gets old enough to use a computer. Ok, I’m not that mean. And according to one of my Dark Age of Camelot friends up in Montreal, it’s more likely that my kid will put me to work by making me powerlevel him.

Well that’s the beauty about individuality. You never quite know what you’re going to get. For now, maybe I should just stick to figuring out how to change a diaper and leave the ulcers for another day.

This article was republished with permission from WomenGamers.Com.

Video Game Devs are the secret celebrity:  they develop, strategize and create new gaming concepts and bring together thousands of people to provide gaming experiences.  They are the unseen faces who work hard to bring their babies to life.   TGN Personalities is on the forefront of giving the dish on these gamers and the games they produce.  It is as if we are in the 20s and the first movie stars are being born:  the media just hasn’t caught on to the Gaming celebrities.  Can’t wait to see what develops in the future for this side of TGN.

Check out their channel here and subscribe!

"The new FFXIV engine plays like a rendered movie"
- George Vanous

17 FFXIV videos show off the new engine powering Final Fantasy XIV!

See all of them
http://www.youtube.com/tgnFinalFantasyXIV

Half Life 1 & 2 – Half Life and its spin offs all rely on a physiques engine that borders on perfect, inspired level design, fantastic action set pieces and solid story line that makes this series a popular number one on all PC count downs. This is one of the few games to truly make you feel as though you are playing a movie and effortlessly bends genres and raises the medium to a higher level of art.

Command & Conquer – The strategy genre has to be one that belongs to the PC, and Command & Conquer is the series that is perhaps most associated with those games. This essentially created the genre in fact, and has since seen countless incarnations.

Halo – So Halo didn’t start on PC technically (though Xbox is arguably the closest console to a PC), but nevertheless it is one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences to be found on one mixing a solid first person shooter with great sweeping set pieces, vehicles and excellent physics.

Duke Nukem – If the PC were to have a mascot in the vein of Sonic the Hedgehog or Mario, you could well make an argument for that mascot being Duke Nukem. While being instantly identifiable and highly popular, the series also has some very solid entries and a range of mediocre spin-offs (a hallmark of any mascot). Few people realise that Duke Nukem actually started life as a 2D side-scrolling platformer from Apogee software which a lot of the people at the time owned as shareware. It’s the brilliantly funny and subversively risque Duke Nukem 3D though that most people associate with the character and which still survives today as a seminal example of a 1st person shooter. Sadly, since Duke Nuke forever was cancelled (after years in the making) the future of the franchise seems uncertain.

Jazz Jack Rabbit – Jazz Jack Rabbit is now old enough that many people will never have heard of him, but back in the days of 2D platformers he was one of the most identifiable gaming characters around. A fact helped by a sequel that outdid its predecessor and had one of the catchiest soundtracks in video game history. Rumours about a return for the rabbit are rife in internet chat rooms.

Medal of Honour – Despite strong competition from games like Crysis, Medal of Honour must be the most loved first person shooter of the last few years with incredibly atmospheric levels that make you feel like you’re really in a war zone and one of the most successful multiplayer modes ever.

The Quake Series – It was quake that pretty much designed the ‘deathmatch’ style 1st person shooter and dominated online games for years. While it has since lost its way a little, the first three instalments were all highly popular and continually improved on their predecessors.

Worms – Worms represents that type of ‘gaming gold’ that can genuinely appeal to all demographics. A turn based game that’s actually fun it was perfect fodder for parties and some versions have also featured popular online modes. Unfortunately it has recently struggled with an ill-advised transition to 3D.

Unreal – Unreal was the only series to really pose much of a threat to Quake, and the first game also boasted one of the first times a game would let you move seamlessly from the outdoors to the indoors. The Unreal engine would fuel many future games around this time, including a few others on this list.

Doom – Of course Doom needs to make the list of any top PC games countdown. As one of the first successful 1st person shooters (right behind Frankenstein) and also one of the scariest games of its time, this has a place in the hearts of many older gamers (and the recent Doom 3 wasn’t too bad either).