Carnival of Video Game Bloggers

"Good evening and welcome to the very first edition of the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers! Tonight we pay tribute to the brightest stars in the world of game blogging and honour their achievements in categories such as Best Soapbox Post, Most Thought-Provoking Post and Best Post by a Sibling or Blood Relative."

The Rarest Atari 2600 Games...

"Finally, of course, there's Pepsi Invaders - the first ever anti-advergame! 'Coca-Cola commissioned a game from Atari to give to their Atlanta employees. In this case, Atari redesigned Space Invaders so that you shoot the letters 'P E P S I' instead of space creatures. There were 125 copies of this game made. There is no real box for this one, just a flimsy Styrofoam shell. So it isn’t really a prototype, but it wasn’t a commercially available game either. And no, Coca-Cola does not have any copies left."

What Type of Game Cheater Are You? -

"What exactly are the 'rules' in a single-player game, anyway? You're not competing against another human -- you're battling the computer, and, in a sense, yourself. On top of that, the game industry has actually co-opted the idea of 'cheats' -- by hiding secret power-ups inside the games that publishers slowly, teasingly leak to the public as a marketing tactic."

A tribute to a much missed part of gaming culture

"They welcomed me into a whole other life for the very first time, and behind their doors impacting upon me sights, sounds, and experiences I had never imagined before. They hooked me in, showed me just how good it could be, and made sure that I’d be a gamer for the rest of my life. And it’s only recently that I’ve started to seriously consider just how important a phenomenon they were. Unfortunately though, as with a great many of the best things in life, that realisation has partly come about due to their loss."

Great write-up on the glory days of the Arcade.

Why art thou n00b?

"Numerous factors impact a player's performance, and the requisite skills can vary greatly by genre. In the early days of gaming, ruled by classics as Pac-Man and Galaga, pattern recognition (and, yes, a bit of reflex action) gave the champs their deserved place atop the high scores list. In games that become increasingly fast, giving the human mind less and less time to evaluate and decide upon a course of action, the ability to unconsciously react based on previous experience becomes paramount."

An interesting write-up on what it takes to overcome being a gaming n00b.