Gamertell

Title: Game Boys (aka Game Boys: Professional Videogaming’s Rise from the Basement to the Big Time)
Author: Michael Kane
Price: $24.95 (hardcover)
Release Date: June 23, 2008
Publisher: Viking (part of Penguin Putnam, Inc.)
Pros: Conveys the excitement, personality and seriousness of competitive gaming in a readable tone. A good book for gamers and pro gaming skeptics.
Cons: Starts a bit slow and has some overly simplified explanations of gaming and gaming terms.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up; 90/100; A-; * * * * out of five.

Kane’s Game Boys is so much better than the pop-catchy name implies. It is instead a well-formed, personal and serious look into select groups of pro gamers.

Click through for the full review…

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To celebrate the release of its latest game, Soulcalibur IV, on July 29, 2008, Bandai Namco held a tournament at the Metreon’s Sony Playstation Store, located in San Francisco, CA. The tournament required no prerequisites and eligibility was based on one simple rule: first come, first serve.

While many of the initial registered fighters failed to commit, there were more than enough over-enthusiastic bodies present just hopping at the chance to show-off their skills in Soulcalibur IV, or lack thereof.

In the end, only one would be the grand prize winner of a brand new 80GB Playstation 3 console. This particular PS3 was far from ordinary…

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The ultimate Pokemon finals are ongoing, and you may have a chance to enter. See, The Pokemon Company and Pokemon USA teamed up to create this super challenge, the Pokemon Video Game Showdown 2008, where 16 US players and 16 Japanese players of Pokemon Diamond/Pearl would duke it out for glory. While the official entry period for players closed, additional players who attend the Qualifier Tournaments. 

There are two Qualifier Tournaments being held in the US, and they’re on both coasts. The California Science Center in Los Angeles will be having one on July 12, 2008, and the Altman Building in New York will be having one on July 19, 2008. Both tournaments start at 8am. People will be broken into Junior (born after 1996) and Senior (born before 1995) divisions, and up to 128 alternates from each division will be chosen to participate.

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I recently learned that GameJunkie, perhaps the last independent videogame store in the Cincinnati, OH (USA), area, is closing for good on June 29, 2008.

Damn recession. Damn retail chains. Damn through-the-mail game services. You are all crushing the life out of privately owned, independent videogame shops.

GameJunkie, which opened five years ago, took a refreshingly intimate approach to videogames and…

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Here’s great news for Gamertell readers who own a Nintendo Wii. Titanstrike has organized a Super Smash Bros. Brawl Tournament with cash prizes over at SmashTournament.com. And Gamertell readers get an exclusive discount on the entry fee…

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As the scalding heat blows across the east coast, Xfire predicts cooler weather for June 2008 due to three events with Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Meet Team Millenium, a broadcast of the Sunwell Raid Redux and the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris…

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Guinness is giving any gamer the opportunity to break into the record books by breaking arcade gaming records at the 10th Annual International Classic Video Game and Pinball Tournament scheduled from May 29, 2008, to June 1, 2008, at the Funspot Family Entertainment Center in Laconia, NH.

Gamers who successfully tumble established arcade gaming records at the event will have…

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The American leg of US World Cyber Ggames 2008 will take place at the Samsung Experience in New York, NY, on May 31, 2008, and June 1, 2008. At stake are cash and prizes worth more than $20,000 along with a place in the WCG USA National Final. The first leg or the WCG 2008 US Open will include some of the best gamers in America who have their sights set on qualifying for the WCG 2008 Grand Finals in Cologne, Germany, in November 2008.

The Grand Finals will have…

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This past February 1982, Twin Galaxies started releasing to the public its list of new high scores achieved on arcade games. If you are lucky, you can find the complete list of updated scores posted at your favorite arcade.

Otherwise. here are the latest entries in the Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard for this year…

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Titanstrike online is proud to host this year’s Miss Video Game 2008 (MVG 2008) online tournament.

I recently caught up with Francisco Diaz the co-founder of TitanStrike to find out what it is about all about.

“Titanstrike, a platform for gamers that seeks to blend the best of social networking with cutting edge gaming services including a tournament engine that allows sponsors to create and manage events,” Diaz explained. “The Titanstrike platform also has flash forums, gamer profiles and instant chat to power interaction within the community. The goal of Titanstrike is to provide an ideal environment for online competitions so the Miss Video Game event was a natural fit…

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