A support group for people that claim they have see aliens.

This couch has a kitten living in it.

Electronic Arts’ EA Sports label has announced the only official NASCAR title to be launched in the Nintendo Wii—NASCAR Kart Racing. Players can take on one of 10 animated characters—or one of more than a dozen real-life NASCAR drivers—and compete in 24 challenging courses that span deserts, freeways, back roads, canyons, junkyards, and more, including areas surrounding the well-known NASCAR tracks at Talladega and Daytona, as well as the Dover International Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway. Courses can be raced forward or backward, and as many as four players can compete against each other simultaneously in split-screen mode.

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In recent months, game publisher Activision has been all about building its franchise juggernauts, announcing it would be killing off games series it didn’t think had to the potential to become long-running franchises in favor of long-running titles it can iterate (and sell) over and over again. At the same event where the company announced its Blizzard unit would start running ads from Microsoft subsidiary Massive, Activision also announced it plans additional sequels in its Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and Tony Hawk franchises, even as it kills off fo

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In recent weeks, AOL has been better known for shutting down operations than starting up new ones (what with Xdrive, AOL Pictures, and BlueString all going dark), but today the company has announced the launch of PlaySavvy.com, a site designed to help parents keep informed about the world of PC and console games…and what exactly their kids might be getting into when they buy an innocent-sounding title like Skull Grinder VII: The Exsanguination. The site aims to offer parents information so they can make informed choices about buying games

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Over the course of five years, Microsoft’s original Xbox video game console sold some 25 million units. Earlier this year, the company forecast that sales of its current Xbox 360 offering would surpass the 25 million mark by the end of November, 2008, and the CFO of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division Mindy Mount re-iterated the prediction just last week. But now the company has confirmed privately that Xbox 360 sales have indeed surpassed those of the original Xbox. And there’s one big difference: the original Xbox took five years to reach the milestone, while the Xbox 360 did it in three years.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console has seen a surge in sales following a

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There are plenty of kids under 18 who spend a lot of time playing video games. But just because they’re compulsive about it doesn’t mean they’re addicted, according to Keith Bakker, head of the Smith & Jones Center in Amsterdam, Europe’s only gaming addiction clinic.

Instead, he feels, the problem might well be social, and the clinic has begun changing its treatment accordingly. The more usual abstinence therapy has worked where the young people have also displayed other addictions, such as alcohol, but that’s only 10% of the patients. For the other 90%, Bakker feels, activity-based and social skills are more effective.

He told the

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In civilian society, debate might still be raging on about whether violence in video games contributes to violent tendencies and actions among children, but the U.S. Army is betting video games can help make a more-prepared soldier: according to Stars & Stripes, the U.S. Army has created its own video game unit, and plans to invest $50 million in it over the next five years to procure and design systems that will help prepare soldiers for combat duty.

According to Lt. Col. Gary Stephens, product manager for air and ground trainers at PEO-STRI (Project Executive Office—Simulation Training and Instrumentation), the Army doesn’t want to compete with commercial gam

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We all know that the casual gaming market is booming, and Real Networks is eager to expand its share. So it’s now offering customers a free download of a full version of a different game each day as part of a larger site re-design that includes a new pricing structure.

John Barbour, the new president of the Games Division at Real, said:

"Today’s customers are dramatically more value conscious, and we’ve seen a growing demand for top-quality games at great prices. This new value pricing gives existing customers more ways to enjoy popular games, while providing an even better experience to attract a broader audience."

In addition to the fre

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If the streets seems remarkably clear of pedestrian traffic and loiterers the last few days, we may have found the reason:. Blizzard Entertainment reports that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich Kin sold more than 2.8 million copies during its first 24 hours of availability, making it the fastest-selling PC game to date.

Many of those sales were fulfillments of pre-orders stemming from months of anticipatory hype surrounding the title, but also owes to the game’s simultaneous launch in North America, Europea, Russia, Chile, and Argentina, with additional international releases following close

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