Gaming

Coming to a beverage aisle near you: the "Final Fantasy XII" potion. Square Enix, maker of the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, says it will team with Japanese drink maker Suntory to concoct an energizing brew timed with the March 16 release of "Final Fantasy XII" in Japan.

According to a story on 1up.com, the drink will come in blue crystal-themed bottles and will bear the taste of various mystery herbs. A few swigs may or may not help you accumulate hit points.

View pics of the potion at Gamebrink.com.

Parents concerned about the kind of material their children are exposed to should be resting a little easier today.

All Headline News reported that Sony has decided to implement parental controls on its next-generation video game console, PlayStation 3.

That device is expected to hit North American shores (and stores) in the fall of 2006. It appears it will have some sort of toggle to enable parents to restrict which games their children play by using the Entertainment Software Association's rating system.

All Headline News has written that Microsoft has already implemented such a parental control system for the … Read more

Given that thousands of people stood in long lines for hours the night before the Xbox 360 launch to get their hands on one of the hot new consoles, one might expect a frenzy to actually start playing with the machine.

But to a group that spent 55 hours in a tent in front of a Best Buy to get an Xbox, play wasn't the point.

Unless, that is, you temper your definition of the word "play." This group got its console and then--surely to the shock and dismay of the other nutcases who stayed overnight to … Read more

Bloggers and forums are buzzing this morning with reports that Microsoft's eagerly anticipated Xbox 360, released yesterday, is prone to overheating and crashing. Gamers are reporting freezes in the middle of playing, and some say that they've gotten email back from Microsoft customer support that says a flashing orange screen (what happened to that pretty Microsoft blue?) means the box is running too hot.

No word yet on how widespread the problem actually is, or whether Microsoft plans to do anything about it.

PALMDALE, Calif.--Since Microsoft's Zero Hour launch event for the new Xbox 360 is a non-stop, 32-hour shindig, it stands to reason that even the hardest of the hard-core gamers here might need a little sleep.

To be sure, some of the many motels and hotels in the Palmdale and nearby Lancaster areas were full up with Zero Hour attendees who needed the comfort of a real bed. But a whole lot of the 2,000 or more gamers who made their way to this desert town an hour outside Los Angeles couldn't be bothered with leaving.

Which … Read more

PALMDALE, Calif.--It's 4:20 on Monday afternoon and deep inside the hangar where Microsoft is holding its Xbox 360 launch event, the hard-core gamers are separating themselves from everyone else.

At 9 p.m., the many people on hand who have purchased one of the next-generation consoles will finally get their machines. Or at least, the people at the front of the line that began forming at 1 p.m. will.

Indeed, the line began when Norm Edwards, a 33-year-old game writer from Brentwood, Calif., sat down on one of the hundreds upon hundreds of beanbags here. And … Read more

Okay, so you don't have your new Xbox 360 yet. No one does, after all, since they don't hit the market until next Tuesday.

But actually, some of gamer and gadget sites got their hands on a few (sadly, I can't say the same for those of us at CNET News.com). And one of those sites, AnandTech, decided to do something pretty interesting with their 360.

Sure, they could have plugged it in and played games on it. But that would have been soooooo conventional. No, these guys don't roll like that.

Instead, they decided … Read more

If you're the kind of person who dreams about "Tetris," can play "Diner Dash" while you work, and can outright destroy the computer opponent at hearts, SkillJam just might have $1 million for you.

The company, a subsidiary of Fun Technologies, on Monday announced that it is giving away that cool million to the world's best casual game player. If that's not incentive to sneak in a little solitaire while your boss isn't looking--or hey, even when she is looking--I don't know what is.

The competition will pit the very best … Read more

If you happen to find yourself near the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, N.Y., on Saturday, it would be well worth your while to stop in, plunk down 10 bucks and spend the day at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival.

Machinima--which the festival's Web site defines as "animated filmmaking using 3D video game technologies"--is cool. Really cool. It may have a long way to go before it's recognized for the art form it is, but, well, it's cool.

After all, what's really happening here is that artists are using the … Read more