German Gamer Admits to Brutal Murder

Classic games like Super Mario Brothers actually 'NP-Hard'

(NEWSER) - Science has confirmed what you already knew as a 10-year-old: Super Mario Brothers is hard to beat. But the paper by a team of international computer scientists uses actual math to come to that pointy-headed conclusion, the Washington Post reports, and focuses on not just the Mario series but also Donkey Kong, Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. The title of the paper? "Classic Nintendo Games are (NP-)Hard." More»

Online game's accessibility and simplicity turns busy man into addict

(NEWSER) - The online city-planning game CityVille is meant for “casual gamers,” and there are plenty of them: 92 million active monthly users, to be exact. But such simple gameplay and basic graphics would turn off any sophisticated player, right? Wrong—as JP Mangalindan, writing in Fortune , found out. A lifelong “hardcore traditional console gamer,” he tried out the game to research an article; now he’s completely hooked, playing “at least an hour a day.” More»

'It's on like Donkey Kong' has become liability

(NEWSER) - Nintendo’s trying to trademark “It’s on like Donkey Kong”—so we need a new video-game based catchphrase. Contenders from Unplggd :

• I Got Mario Karted: Someone’s beaten you at the last minute, which often happens in Mario Kart. Example: “I almost got with this girl/guy, but then my friend Mario Karted me by buying her/him a drink!”

Nintendo's 'stunning' 3DS can also take 3D pictures

(NEWSER) - Nintendo made a deep splash at E3 last night with the 3DS, a 3D version of its portable system. The device doesn’t require any glasses to produce the illusion of 3D, and can turn the effect off if your eyes ever get tired. It can also play 3D movies and, maybe most impressive of all, take 3D pictures with its built-in camera, the New York Times reports. It also boasts an analogue stick (finally), and iPhone-esque motion controls. Wired is wowed , calling the roll-out stunning. More»

He plotted revenge after his character's killing

(NEWSER) - A Frenchman—possibly so divorced from reality that he failed to realize there's no respawn option in real life— hunted down a player who "fatally stabbed" his virtual character in online game Counter-Strike and plunged a real knife into the game rival's chest. The victim survived after the knife missed his heart by less than an inch. A court was told how Julien Barreaux, 20, spent 7 months tracking down the victim and plotting revenge for the online killing, the Telegraph reports. More»