Next Generation notes the results of a study into the health benefits of playing the Nintendo Wii. According to the University of Liverpool research, Wii Tennis can't compare with the real thing. "The result showed that the youths burned 60 calories (in nutrition terms) more an hour playing Wii, a 2% increase in the amount of energy burned versus the Xbox 360 players. The study is quoted as saying that 'these increases were of insufficient intensity to contribute towards recommendations for children's daily exercise,' and that active gaming using the Wii is no replacement for actual sports."

Daniel LeBlanc writes "Just in time for the Christmas Season, I drew an NES 8-Bit styled mural on the side of my high school. The mural consists of Yoshi pulling a sled with a Santa Mario and an Elf Toad." Here are both the video of the mural coming together a full photo gallery of the mural.

jedie writes "After reading about different Wiimote hacks on Slashdot I decided to make a video with some demos of my motion-detection library. You can watch the video here. There's a link to the sourcecode (GPL) as well, but the demo is win32 only. It's basically a webcam and some software in python to track LEDs (preferrably IRs). In the demo video, you see the software (albeit badly because of the webcam's IR filter being removed) tracking two differently colored LEDs, so multiplayer is possible. The software can track multiple points easily, and when combined with IR-LEDs, it's easy to simulate one Wiimote (i.e. calculating the distance and angle between two IR-LEDs to determine where the remote is relative to the webcam). I want the code to get some publicity, because I don't have time to work on it (dissertation, blabla) but I don't want the code (however messy it is) to go to waste."

Mearlus writes "A Wisconsin lawmaker is proposing a law to add an additional tax on video games and equipment in order to help cover the costs of moving 17-year-old criminals back into the juvenile system." (According to the article, 17-year-olds are at present treated as adults by Wisconsin courts.)

mrneutron2003 writes "This guy just doesn't know when to stop. Johnny Chung Lee graces us with yet another one of his inventive Wiimote projects. This time it involves using the Wiimote and a pair of inexpensive LED safety goggles (with the standard LED's replaced with InfraRed ones) to allow positional head tracking , achieving an effect similar to what is experienced with three dimensional displays and CAVE systems. The video dramatically illustrates the effect. Game developers take note. This simple little variation on infrared tracking could allow for some seriously immersive gameplay in the future." This guy deserves a medal.

thefickler sends us word that Hilary Clinton has taken a public stand in favor of shielding children from game and other animation content that she deems inappropriate. Quote: "When I am president, I will work to protect children from inappropriate video game content." Politically, this puts her in company with Republican Mitt Romney on the subject of game censorship. Her fellow Democrats are content to let the industry self-regulate.

C0rinthian writes "ArsTechnica reports that the games retailer Slackers has been keeping their stock of the Nintendo Wii off their store shelves, and is instead selling the system on eBay for $400-500. (A $150-$250 markup)" This follows their look at the other side of the coin: why some retailers insist on Wii Bundles.

Stephen Totilo, as he did last year and the year before, has put together a piece looking at the finest gaming moments to be had in 2007. From the high-jumps of Portal to the Colossus battle in God of War 2, he's got a lot of gaming goodness packed into this one article. My favorite moment (the end of Mass Effect) isn't on there, but this is a close second: "Late in the much-praised first-person shooter BioShock, the player is required to don the outfit of another character in the game. Saying much more about this moment would ruin the effect. But rest assured, this transformative sequence changes the way every character in the world reacts to the player's presence. Plus, it might just give a BioShock player some pause about what they had been doing for the dozen hours that preceded the moment. Saying anything more would be a spoiler."

Gamespot, to accompany a piece on the art of pitching a game has up a companion article on a few good pitches from talented developers that never quite made it into games. My favorite of the three, from Will Wright: "I've always been fascinated with airships, and I wanted to do a game about the Hindenburg. And it was originally conceived as a cross between Myst and a flight simulator, if you can imagine that. You basically wake up on the Hindenburg. You're all alone. It's flying toward Lakehurst, New Jersey. You can walk anywhere on the ship. You can turn lights on and off. You can steer. You can adjust the engines. But every time you come into Lakehurst, it blows up. And you have to figure out why, and it becomes like this weird mystery flight simulator thing. I'd still love to do that."

It's that time of year again. Last year's response to our Game of the Year post was so enthusiastic that I thought it would be worthwhile to give it another go. So, once again, some of the Slashdot folks have come together to offer up our 'games of the year'. Scuttlemonkey, Scott Collins, Chris Brown, CmdrTaco, and myself have all put together quick blurbs about the games we couldn't get enough of this year. When you're through reading those, it's your turn to speak up. What was the game you couldn't put down? The next-gen consoles really came into their own this year; was it one of those games, or something for the PC? In your opinion, what was the best game of the year?

smithtuna33 writes "As of today there is a teaser up for Duke Nukem Forever at 3dRealms. It's up on Youtube as well, since the site is already slow. Not much actual game-play, but still ... might this game actually see the light of day after so much talk?" 1up, GameTrailers, and Voodoo Extreme have it too.

The Next Generation site has up an article looking back on the 50 biggest gaming events of 2007. From the launch of Burning Crusade in January all the way through to 'Gerstmann-gate', the list is highly eventful ... it's been a big year for games. "The removal of Super Columbine Massacre RPG from the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker competition sent shockwaves through the independent game community, but the event did bring two very important things to light. Firstly, it showed that even the independent art community has a clear delineation between how it treats games and how it treats other mediums. But even more importantly, the voluntary withdrawal of many other entrants in the competition showed the solidarity of the independent community, and emphasized their dedication to the progression of the medium."

Nerds made Futurama. You probably already knew that. As you can imagine, these nerds played a lot of games during the making of the show. Games ended up in the show a lot, too. Game|Life's Chris Kohler delves deeply into this connection over a series of articles; for example, did you know that Zoidberg was named for a variant of Qix ? Or that the creators of the show were big pinball players? Probably the most obvious combination of games and the show was the amazing episode Raiders of the Lost Arcade. "The evil alien is joined by his evil arcade comrades: Donkey Kong, a fried egg from Burger Time, a robot from Berserk, a brain from Robotron. Q*bert is also there, and he spouts some characteristically garbled dialogue which, when played backwards, is revealed to be "Where can a guy get some pants around here?""

Well-known action film and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer has teamed up with MTV Games to make games. Stephen Totilo and the MTV Multiplayer blog had a chance to speak candidly with the director himself, as well as the MTV executive behind the deal, Jeff Yapp. "Bruckheimer: I think the same kind of stuff we bring to television and films, we always want to look at things a little differently from other people. Pirate films were dead for a long time and we put Johnny Depp in it and created an unforgettable character. We did the same thing with fighter pilots in "Top Gun" and dancers in "Flashdance." So we're just trying to see things a little differently."

00_NOP writes "Dreamcast lovers' hopes were raised earlier this month when it came to light that Sega had extended trade mark protection on the console's name. But hopes have now been dashed that we'll ever see another Dreamcast console, as even GameDaily's optimistic take on Sega's motivation makes clear. 'SEGA has no plans to get back into the hardware business, but we also want to protect our past and current brands. The trademark application was filed to protect our current and potential future use of the word DREAMCAST and to prevent other parties from using it in a way that could be confused or linked with SEGA.'"

Kotaku notes that the E3 Media Summit will be heading back to LA in 2008. Complaints about the long walking distances last year prompted the move, but the invite-only business-oriented nature of the event will remain. "In the press release sent out this morning the ESA said the event will 'continue to focus on the business of the computer and video game industry, with an emphasis on press events and small meetings with media, development, and other key sectors. While there will be opportunities for game demonstrations, the 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit will not feature the large trade show environment of previous years.'"

Along with the news that more than half of the US is playing games, the November NPD numbers offer an interesting insight into the games industry. The ongoing console war was white hot, with record hardware sales. The Wii outsold the PS3 by half a million systems last month, and is quickly gaining on the Xbox 360's total sales figures. The big winners last month were software publishers, though, with a record $1.3 billion in sales. "Obviously Call of Duty 4 performed well on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. It is now second only to Halo 3 for first-month sales numbers on the Xbox 360. On the PlayStation 3 no other game has launched as well as Call of Duty 4 in November. Super Mario Galaxy performed extremely well for its first month. Two new properties - Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect - sold well enough to make the top 10. Across both platforms, Assassin's Creed was actually the second best selling game of the month. It is amusing to note that despite the unprecedented Nintendo DS and PSP sales, no game for either system sold well enough to make the top 10 software list for November."

jillduffy writes "The GameCareerGuide site has up an article on playing to learn. Folks who make games play them differently than you or I; they're looking at the mechanics from a first-hand perspective. James Portnow's article attempts to relay some of the essence of that experience, to allow us to play with a more critical eye: 'Playing games in order to study them is not what most people would consider "fun." This doesn't mean it isn't fun at all; it just means you have to think a different way. You have to find joy in discovering mechanics and watching their emergent properties unfold. You have to be willing to endure a certain amount of tedium in order to glean clues about the inner workings of a game. Most of all, you have to be able to enjoy playing bad games as well as good.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Julian Murdoch over at GamersWithJobs.com has what can only be described as a piece of liturgy, proclaiming a religious experience at his local Best Buy as he watches someone beat 'Through the Fire and the Flames' on Expert in Guitar Hero 3. 'At 6 minutes in, a small crowd has formed, perhaps 15 of us. His sravaka — his disciples — look nervously at us, absorbing the distractions, protecting him a bubble of calm. There is complete silence. Even my son is staring slackjawed, like he does in church during communion, not understanding the content of the ritual but understanding the tone and sacredness of the space.'"

mrneutron2003 writes "Sega has announced that Sonic the Hedgehog will be a new gaming option on the iPod. They're looking to charge about 4.99 for the classic title. 'Support is slated for the iPod nano with video, iPod classic, and fifth generation iPods ... Sega hopes that tremendous install base of the iPod family will lend to exposing a whole new audience to the old time wonders of Sonic The Hedgehog. The game has apparently been redesigned with the iPod in mind and should provide good port experience.'"