Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog notes that the Writer's Guild of America stepped back from the picket line long enough to nominate a few 2007 games for great writing. Unfortunately, their nominees suck. The list of nominees consists of: "Crash of the Titans, Written by Christopher Mitchell, Sierra Entertainment. Dead Head Fred, Written by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan, D3 Publisher. The Simpsons Game, Lead Writer Matt Selman, Written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, Dialogue by Jeff Poliquin, Electronic Arts. The Witcher, Lead Story Designer Artur Ganszyniec, Dialogue Sebastian Stepien, Additional Dialogue Marcin Blacha, Writers Sande Chen and Anne Toole, Atari. World in Conflict, Story Design Christofer Emgard, Story Consultant Larry Bond, Script Consultant Ed Zuckerman, Sierra Entertainment." No Mass Effect? Nothing at all from the Orange Box? No BioShock? For shame, WGA.

From Angry Boulders to Wormux, 1up and Games for Windows magazine offers a massive list of 101 free games. "While you're waiting around for the next Orange Territory: Biogate Crisis-- Tournament in Conflict to appear, hundreds of little independent and free games piling up unplayed. And believe it or not, saving pennies can put you on the cutting edge, as today's freebies are résumés for tomorrow's gaming greats: The team that created Portal cut its teeth on Narbacular Drop; the PlayStation 3 downloadable hit Everyday Shooter got its start as potential PC freeware--until Sony scooped it up after a gangbusters Game Developers Conference showing. So make a new Year's resolution: Let 2008 be the Year of Freeware."

Stephen Totilo, at the MTV Multiplayer blog, recently put up a piece that asked a number of notable games industry folks all about their first time gaming. Several had some unique answers, with Peter Molyneux (Black and White, Fable) probably taking the cake: "It would have to be the original Pong. I can clearly remember seeing it in a shop window on Guildford High Street and being utterly transfixed - I had never wanted anything so much - in fact I stole money from my grandmother's purse to buy it. I got it home, took it apart, and never got it to work again - but from that moment on I was hooked on all things to do with computer games." What was your first experience with gaming? d20s on a kitchen table? A Nintendo Entertainment System under the Christmas tree?

Veteran actor John Rhys-Davies sat down with GameDaily Biz to talk about his role in Uwe Boll's latest failure of a movie, 'Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King'. Davies is surprisingly candid about his interest in the role, and pretty much nails the numerous problems of making film adaptations of games. "One or two may succeed, and I hope this is one of them, but the structure of a game is completely unlike the structure of a film. And it shows the despair of the studios and producers that these movies even get a look at. If we had good writing, it would not happen. I think that right at the moment, the film industry in Hollywood is in a crisis because we have successfully excluded young and able talent for so long that now there is nothing left."

Gamasutra reports that Rise of Nations (and Catan) developer Big Huge Games has been purchased by publisher THQ. Last May we discussed their RPG alliance, and the Gamastura article notes that this 'getting to know you' period was instrumental in the purchase. "We asked THQ's [executive vice president of worldwide studios Jack Sorensen] if, when working with developers to publish a title, they regularly consider bringing those developers in-house. 'We're not unique there," he conceded, "but yeah, every external group that we work with, it's always in the back of our minds. Rather than it being purely financially driven -- although that's a big component -- it's more about [finding] the next group of game developers that can really add a unique take on the studio system, either from a genre or platform perspective, but also fit in well so that we can continue the culture that we built.'" Additional commentary from RPS.

After several delays already, Next Generation is reporting that the much-anticipated Wii title Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been pushed back yet again to early March. "The launch date for Super Smash Bros. Brawl has shifted a few weeks to March 9. The development is taking slightly longer than expected. As we're sure you have seen the game contains an unprecedented number of characters, options and experiences. Be sure to keep an eye on the Dojo site for the latest information."

Tolkien writes "Source code for SimCity has been released under the GPLv3. For legal reasons the open source version was renamed Micropolis, which was apparently the original working title. The OLPC will also be getting a SimCity branded version that has been QA'ed by Electronic Arts. Some very cool changes have been made by Don Hopkins, who updated and ported what is now Micropolis. (Here is an earlier Slashdot discussion kicked off by a submission Don made.) Among other things, it has been revamped from the original C to using C++ with Python. Here is the page linking all the various source code versions. Happy hacking!"

BoingBoing is reporting that Steve Eaterbrook, McDonald's UK CEO, says that video games are leading the charge in obesity. He does have the decency to at least admit fatty foods are a part of the problem, but points the finger at interactive games for keeping kids indoors and not out burning off energy. "According to The Times, McDonalds UK is 'on the brink of its best year for two decades'. The firm has enjoyed six per cent like-for-like sales growth in the last year. More than 88 million visits were made to McDonald's restaurants last month, up 10 million on the previous year." Don't forget, we have known for ages that video games make us fat and mean.

Brett "Buzz" Dawson writes "Seeing all of the Guitar Hero guitar mods I thought it would be an interesting change of pace to mod a full-sized drum kit for use as a Rock Band game controller. With everything that I build I take lots of pictures to document the build process so here is the full build of my drum kit." Fortunately at my house Kathleen has been doing the drumming, so I don't think I need to go to these extremes to handle the abuse. I'm more interested in mods that let you use the original drums as a real instrument like the guitar mods that are floating out there. The tiny bits of drum solo time in Rock Band don't satisfy my internal Keith Moon.

GuruBuckaroo writes "Virtual Ponzi schemes — pardon, "Banks" — have finally been given the boot by the policymakers at Linden Lab's Second Life. According to the company's latest blog post: 'As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest or any direct return on an investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter. We're implementing this policy after reviewing Resident complaints, banking activities, and the law, and we're doing it to protect our Residents and the integrity of our economy.'"

Joystiq notes that a game based on the excellent Iron Chef television show on the Food Network is apparently in the works. Apparently, because the game was listed and then pulled within the last few weeks. "The game appears to be on the brink of an announcement, with a listing appearing and disappearing on Gamestop's website for DS and Wii versions of the game, and Siliconera's Spencer Yip indicating that an IC game was being created at Destineer. (Yes, that Destineer). We're already sharpening our knives in anticipation, but we have to ask: [how do we get] Alton Brown in the game?" Their post includes a great animated spot for the show.

Gamasutra notes that the announced deal, where Electronic Arts was to purchase BioWare/Pandemic, has now been formalized. This arrangement will fold ten new franchises into the EA family, from the just-released Mass Effect all the way back to BioWare's classic titles. "EA Games president Frank Gibeau will oversee both studios within his organization, and BioWare's Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have each been named as vice presidents of EA and co-general managers of BioWare. Similarly, Pandemic's Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick have each been named vice presidents of EA and co-general managers of Pandemic, while Greg Borrud has been named vice president of EA and chief production officer of Pandemic Studios. "

Wired's Game|Life blog, and the site of gaming academic Henry Jenkins, discuss sandbox games and the impact of Assassin's Creed . The relevant discussion on Jenkins' site is actually written by GAMBIT lab supervisor Matthew Weise. He argues that open-ended worlds, by their very nature, require some restraints on the player's avatar. Otherwise, the game's meaning is diluted. Likewise, if you're going for a 'sandbox' world, allow that limited character unlimited opportunities. "When I think of open-ended world design I tend to think of worlds that don't involve such limitations. Call it the result of a childhood playing Ultima. I think of worlds in which, if you need to kill the dragon in the cave and you happen to have a drill, there's no reason you can't just drill straight down, bypassing all his little traps, and kill the bastard. That's open-ended to me. That's sandbox. The pleasure of such incredible agency is much more satisfying than any forced narrative structure."

CES has brought out quite a bit of news, for subjects across the tech industry. The future of the Xbox 360 seems to a subject Microsoft can't talk enough about. Gates' keynote touched on new media partnerships for Live Marketplace, like the collaboration with Disney/ABC. A post-keynote email to several games writers noted that 2008 will be the company's year to capitalize on strong hardware and software sales from the holiday season, and that several as-yet-unannounced exclusive 360 titles are in the works. Fans of the platform might still have some anxiety this year; a rumour on the 1up site indicates Microsoft is already working on a game for the next-next-gen console to bear the Xbox name.

This past August, big news dropped in the tabletop gaming community: 2008 would see the release of a fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Since then the official D&D Insider site, and communities like the excellent ENWorld, have been doing their best to keep us up to date on the ins and outs of the newest way to dungeon-delve. With the release just five months away, we've been given a chance to put some questions to the team developing the game. One question per post, if you would, and we'll make sure to pass the best questions on to the designers. Don't forget to ask about the online version of the D&D tools as well! We'll get their answers back to you as soon as we get them, so fire away.

Kotaku notes that the report from the New York Times, that full DS games would be downloadable via the Wii, wasn't entirely accurate. "That's right, according to Nintendo, the Wii will NOT be able to transmit or download full DS games. Apparently the New York Times confused DS demos with WiiWare titles. So you can download full on Wii games (which we knew), but only wireless DS demo games (which we also knew)."

Croakyvoice writes "Sony has finally officially announced that Skype is coming soon to the PSP. The VoIP service is slated to hit the company's handheld at the end of January. The application will be available via a firmware update and is only compatible with PSP Slim & Lite Consoles. After the announcement the PSP homebrew scene released a new application called Furikup which will allow you to make phone calls with your PSP and is compatible with the original phat PSPs."

Earlier this week we covered the Xbox Live outages over the holidays. Several users have pointed out that Microsoft has acknowledged its lack of performance, and is now offering a free game to compensate its users. Unfortunately for Microsoft, disgruntled patrons have already filed a class action lawsuit over the recent difficulties. Quoting the PC World article: "Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten said that the problems with Xbox Live downtime were caused by an influx of new users who had gotten an Xbox 360 over the holidays. It's been a record-setting season for Xbox Live. 'This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service,' said Whitten."

An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports: In addition to Apple, Warner Brothers is now going to throw its weight behind the Blu-ray format for high-definition disks. Warner has been the only major studio to publish its movies in both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. Today, the studio announced that from now on, it would only issue movies in Blu-ray. Richard Greenfield, the media analyst with Pali Research, wrote that this marks the end of the format wars: "We expect HD DVD to 'die' a quick death.""

An anonymous reader writes "Back in 2004, Slashdot posted about computer solitaire being patented. It was a ridiculous patent and made it onto the EFF's list of worst patents. However, not much had been heard about that patent until now. It turns out that the patent holder, Sheldon Goldberg, is now using that patent to sue a bunch of different online publications, including Digg, eBaum's World, the NY Times, Cnet and the Washington Post. He's also suing Google, Yahoo and AOL (why not?)."