I love you Spaghetti Cat. I mean if I weren’t allergic to all felines, you’d definitely be at the top of my house pet list. But unfortunately, if you were around, I’d start sneezing and coughing. My eyes would get all watery and my face would swell up as if Mike Tyson punched me in the face.

But aside from Spaghetti Cat, there have been other things going on at Gamester. Here’s what caught our eye during the past week.

1. Danny is over at the Penny Arcade Expo, doing the PAX thing. He’s covering it casually. There’s nothing structured about it; he’s doing the thing freestyle. So far, he’s written about the game train, waiting in lines, his man-crush on Jonathan Coulton and how the city of Seattle is booked. Oh, he kindly put in some some screenshots from the floor. Enjoy.

2. On the review front, we have two guest reviews. One is from Patrick Cant, who is quickly becoming a Gamester regular. He took a look at International Track and Field and Carnival Games, both titles are on the Nintendo DS.

The other reviewer is from Tim O’Rourke, another staffer at the newspaper. He’s a gamer who is still on his original NES and never quite left the whole 8-bit scene. He writes a retro review of Tecmo Bowl, a game that never goes out of style, especially when there’s a new one on the way for the Nintendo DS.

3. There have been a couple of rumors this past week. The biggest one is that Gearbox is reportedly doing Halo 4 for a next-gen system. But hey, we did get a look at the Halo Wars box art.

A few hints of a Wii 2 is popping up but most of it is speculation.

4. By far, the most interesting bit of news I’ve seen all week is this new Guitar Hero clone called Guitar Praise, which brings up the question what would Jesus rock out to.

I think it’d be something a little harder than Whitecross.

5. Lastly, I’d like to call to attention the Sore Thumbs blog. It’s an interesting site written by game journalism vets Dan Hsu and Crispin Boyer about life in the industry. It gives an inside look at how the enthusiast press works and I have to say, it’s illuminating.

The InterWebs has been running rampant with speculation about a inevitable possible Halo 4. The source of the rumor seems to be a blurb from the Official Xbox Magazine, and it’s drifted through the normal fanboy gantlet.

Kotaku, Joystiq , etc. all have the same tidbit: Gearbox, the maker of the upcoming Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway is tasked with making the next Halo on Microsoft’s next next-gen console. Ooooh.

But it’s a rumor. Destructoid made a call to the folks over at Gearbox and the only thing they confirm is that the rumor is just a rumor. I’m sure it’s getting the studio some noteriety. Stay tuned.

Protesting Cheerleaders by Flickr user markbaard under Creative Commons license

The Olympics are winding down and the political season is heating up. There are cheerleading protesters in Denver as the Democrats get ready for their national convention. Meanwhile, the games industry is having a little shindig of its own at Leipzig, Germany. I’m half-paying attention to what’s going on down there, and mostly girding myself for the flood of games, and without further ado, here’s the best of week.

1.

This may not be the biggest piece of news, but it’s the one that caught my eye. Sony had three big pieces of hardware to show off. The first is a 160G PlayStation 3; the second is a new PlayStation Portable (PSP-3000); and last, they introduced a fugly looking keypad.

2.

We’ve been following the Electronic Arts merger-dance with Take Two. Earlier in the week, the two allowed EA’s unsolicited bid to expire and they signed a deal seeking “strategic alternatives.” On Thursday, the FTC weighed in and said it had no problem with a EA-Take Two deal. It’s already been reported that the head honchos for each company have been talking last weekend? Do you think they can be talking more this weekend? We definitely think so.

3.

I wrote up a couple of more hands-on impressions from the EA Studio Showcase. The first is Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure. It’s a compelling mix of platform and puzzle and has no relation to Professor Layton. The second post is on Need for Speed Undercover. The game takes a couple of elements from the past game and tries to marry it to a narrative. The jury will be about on whether it works, but I do appreciate the gameplay. The third piece is on Lord of the Rings: Conquest. The folks of Pandemic Studios bring the winning gameplay formula from Star Wars Battlefront and puts it into a fantasy universe.

4.

In the just plain weird category, Japan is coming out with a Mega Man energy drink. It looks exactly like those energy tanks that boost your energy in the game. I kinda want one. I just hope it doesn’t taste like Red Bull or have any of its effects.

5.

Lastly, I wrote a review on Braid this week. I also wrote up a critique on its narrative elements and how it relates to the gameplay. There was also an interesting conversation up at the Brainy Gamer over Braid’s impact. There was a lot of thumb sucking about how Jonathan Blow’s game does or doesn’t succeed.

Photo by ninjapoodles

Like everyone else, we’re thrilled to see Michael Phelps win eight gold medals. We all know that the guy is half dolphin, half man and all American! While we’re glued to the TV watching America’s dominance at the Olympic Games, we also had some time to play some video games. Here’s the best of last week.

1. The biggest thing to drop last week was Madden NFL 09. We blogged about it endlessly. We were there for a launch party in downtown Berkeley. Danny is trying to put together a league. We even wrote a feature about 20 years of Madden. Now that we’ve written all that we can about Madden NFL, we’ll try to keep off the topic for the next month or so … or until the start of the season.

2. The big piece of news was the EA Studio Showcase 08. We had a chance to stop by the Electronic Arts campus and check out some of their more casual games. These are the titles that probably wouldn’t have played to the hardcore crowd at E3, but still, there was some noteable things such as Grasshopper and Epic partnering with EA to do two separate titles respectively.

Meanwhile, the three big games announced at the event were The Godfather II video game, which includes an interesting real-time strategy element. It kind of reminds me of the old text game Dope Wars. It also has a cool card game behind it. The other announcement was Need for Speed Undercover. The lovely Maggie Q was there to talk about the game. Lastly, I was impressed by a puzzle-platformer that was not named Braid. Henry Hatsworth is something worth keeping an eye on. We’ll have a preview of the game on Monday.

3. In the e-sports realm, there was big news coming out of the Championship Gaming Series. The league is introducing a Pro-Am division with $40,000 worth of prizes. The other big news was the departure of CEO and Commissioner Andy Reif. He was replaced by Dale Hopkins, a former G4 exec.

4. Meanwhile on our guest review front, devoted sports game reviewer Wes Schwengels played MLB Power Pros 2008 and he loved its depth.

5. Lastly, Spore made some major strides. The game went gold last week. EA showed the first disc fresh off the press at the studio showcase. Meanwhile, Danny found a rumor that a Spore film may be in the works (It should be a documentary.) and that there’s a backlash from — of all people — atheists regarding the game. You can’t win ‘em all I suppose.

It’s a great week to be a sports fan. There’s the Olympics that started on Friday. I was up until 3 a.m. watching badminton and equestrian events of all things. If you go to nbcolympics.com later on in the day, you’ll be able to check out some of the events live. You have to download Microsoft Silverlight (which isn’t that bad) and you get nice little buffet of sports to choose from.

Personally, I like to watch some of the weirder sports that you don’t get to see every day like women’s team handball or judo.

But this is a video game blog (that’s Sega’s Beijing Olympics 2008 pictured up there) and without further ado, here’s this weeks highlights.

For more on Gears of War 2, Madden NFL and Project Beauty, hit the jump

It’s been a pretty good week for fighting games. First off, Soulcalibur IV arrived this week. It’s good solid fun so far, and we’ll have a review in the paper in a couple of days. Second, the Street Fighter film is coming along and it doesn’t hurt that it has Kristin Kreuk in the lead role. Lastly, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is moving up my must-play list even with an overpowered Superman.

1. Great news! The San Francisco Optx made it to the Championship Gaming Series World Finals. The bad news? The team, featuring Dublin resident Chad Neil, lost to the Birmingham (U.K.) Salvo. On the bright side, the team does get to take home a $150,000. Hey, it’s not a bad pay day for a professional gamer.

2. We had a couple of reviews last week. Casual Games Maven Rosanna Chea had the task of reviewing Cake Mania 2. And unfortunately, it didn’t take the cake. Meanwhile, Danny has a review on American McGee’s Grimm and (sticking with the food cliches) it wasn’t his cup of tea.

3. The weirdest news of the week has to be that Lord British item. Richard Garriott, the game designer for Ultima and more recently of Tabula Rasa, wants to take players’ DNA and preserve it in space. This isn’t science fiction; this is real. And this man is going to do it.

4. On the social networking front, Scrabulous was finally put down in North America. It was replaced by a then-nonworking Scrabble. As of this Sunday morning, EA and company has fixed the problem and Scrabble is now working on Facebook.

5. And last of all, in terms of announcement, Lionhead Studio seems to have had the biggest one. There are more Fable sequels on the way. Meanwhile, Wallace & Gromit are making their way to the video game screen via episodic adventures. And finally, PopCap Games is bringing Peggle to the Nintendo DS. Now, maybe someone can beat that 18-million-plus Peggle shot.

Well, there was some non-E3 news that broke this week, but really, I couldn’t remember it. Most of this week was spent writing up preview after preview. For a full list, check out our E3 2008 index page. It’s chock full of previews, impressions, announcements.

But the most important news this week is that New York passed its video game law calling for labels on violent titles. Judging by how similar laws have fared, it doesn’t look like it has a future.

Daniel posted a trailer for The Sims 3. It’s the same trailer EA showed at E3. There’s a party. There’s screaming girls in skimpy outfits. It kind of looks like Desperate Housewives.

Meanwhile over at Sony, it seems that there’s been a development in the “I Love Bees”-style game that goes along with Resistance. On Tuesday, folks got a strange e-mail that gave hints to the U.S. situation in Resistance 2.

Not to be upstaged, Electronic Arts also released its box art for Spore and eh, I was hoping for something a little bolder. But it works. You definitely get a sense of out the game is just by looking at the cover.

And if you missed it, our Guitar Hero expert, Wes Schwengels, posted a review on the latest edition to the series — Guitar Hero Aerosmith. In short, he like the game but it’s way to short.

While I was on vacation, Danny picked up the pace, dishing out a double dose of features.

1. The first was his Madden NFL 09 fantasy cheat sheet, where he used the ratings for every player in creating a list of the best quarterback, running back, tight end, etc. It could help fans choose players in their upcoming fantasy drafts.

2. The second feature focuses on PAX 10. Danny sent questions to the 10 finalists and got nine answers. For those interested in indie games, it’s a great way to see what makes these developers tick. Personally, I’m a fan of Audiosurf.

3. In other gaming news this week, a little device called the iPhone 3G came out. There were long lines and minor — OK big — hiccups with activation. For those who were able to actually get their iPhone started/upgraded, they had a chance to try out some of the new apps.

We were fortunate to do so, and immediately downloaded Super Monkey Ball and iPint. Both were surprisingly good. We can’t wait to see the other titles coming down the tube.

4. When it comes to reviews, we’ve handed off a few titles to some of the newspaper staff, and they’re becoming regulars when it comes to writing about games. On Tuesday, Patrick Cant, soccer fan extraordinaire, posted his review of Pro Evolusion Soccer 2008. Big surprise: He liked it. But he delves into the nitty-gritty of all these footy leagues and such.

5. On Wednesday, fellow staff member Wes Schwengels tackled Top Spin 3 for the Wii. Suffice to say, he didn’t like it too much. He felt that PAM should have put more effort on the sim aspect of the title. But he did like Maria Sharapova. Did he mention that she’s quite lovely?

6. In the continuing saga of Mega Man 9 release, Capcom now says that the DLC title is coming to the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. So here’s the score: Capcom said it was a WiiWare exclusive, then Capcom said it isn’t. And now, IGN is reporting that Mega Man 9 is doing the console DLC hat trick. Very confusing.

7. Lastly, there’s this event called E3 going down in Los Angeles this week. We obviously haven’t said this enough so we’ll say it again until your ears bleed. We’ll be down there covering the upcoming games for you, our dear readers and we’d love your input. If you want to check out a list of games were expecting/hoping to see, check out our E3 2008 index.

It’s a long list and we’re expecting it to get longer as the week moves along.

It’s July 5 and we’re stuffed with barbecued, seared by fireworks and popping aspirin for that *ahem* morning headache. (Yes, we did a little too much partying.)

Things have been pretty quiet on our front. It looks like the studios are gearing up for E3 in Los Angeles. We’ll be there in a couple of weeks bring you folks the low down on the latest games and announcements.

But before that joyous future, we have to take a look at the past week. Here’s the best of what dug up:

1. It’s rare to find books about video games. It’s rare still to find an entertaining one about e-sports. That’s why reading Game Boys by Michael Kane is such a treat. It gives readers an inside look at Counter-Strike world and brings some of the more-talented names in the sport to life.

2. Meanwhile, Sony and the PlayStation 3 had an up and down. First, the big news was that the v2.40 update — aka PS3 gets trophies — would be arriving Wednesday. Then, the firmware upgrade started messing up folks’ PS3s and Sony took it down. Infinite sadness. It’s still down but I guess while some folks are waiting, they can check out Qore Issue 2.

3. On the music-rhythm front, Harmonix was making some noise with two announcements. The first is that July’s album will be a collection by The Who. The other bigger news is that Rock Band 2 is coming. Oh joy!

4. On Tuesday, we managed to fit in a demo session with the folks at GameTap and played American McGee’s Grimm. It’s fairly polished title with a Katamari Damacy feel. McGee twists the Disney-fied version of fairy tales and makes them a little more gruesome and little more wicked via the main character Grimm.

As for the upcoming week, I’ll be in Las Vegas for the first half, but we’ll have a couple more reviews and E3 features as the big week approaches. Hope you had a happy Independence Day.

With a feature in the pipes and Danny busy, there wasn’t much original content this week. We had the weekly stuff like the Time Waster and an occasional series called Grading the Box Art, but other than that, this is the best of odd ball video game news we could find on the Web.

Danny found a hiliarious World of Warcraft machinima about what WoW characters do when they aren’t slaying dragons. It’s one of the funnier videos I’ve seen.

Meanwhile, there was some Wii Fit news. Blogger Mickey DeLorenzo lost 15 pounds over the 41 days that he was on his Wii Fit Experiment. This is the same guy who lost some weight on his Wii Sports workout. On the completely unnecessary side, someone made the girls’ answer to the Wii Fit girl video*.

On the e-sports/sports side, there was big Madden news. First off, the San Francisco Optx clinched a playoff spot in the North American division of the Championship Gaming Series. Meanwhile, Madden NFL 09 just went gold so fans should rejoice and wait until Aug. 12 for it to go on sale.

As for the most interesting posts this week, we have the New York Times reporting that the “Hot Coffee” lawsuit isn’t as lucrative for the plaintiffs or the lawyers. Apparently, they sued Take-Two and Rockstar North expecting everyone to jump on the case. Instead, they had a 2,676 folks sign up for their class action lawsuit, which comes up to less than $30,000.

Maybe they can try to win that million dollars from Clay Mathematics Institute challenge on “Minesweeper” to cover that $1.3 million tab.

We didn’t post on this, but it’s important we do. The New York legislature is advancing a bill that would put more regulations on video games, according to GamePolitics. It seems fairly strict, requiring “new console systems to be equipped with parental controls.” (some already do.)

*Warning, you risk blindness by watching this.