Tetris Creators Want It in the Olympics

(NEWSER) - Alexey Pajitnov was supposed to be an artificial intelligence researcher for the Soviet Academy of Sciences, but when he got his first computer 25 years ago, he used it to write games. He tweaked and translated mathematical puzzles he’d always loved, and one stood out right away. “The program wasn’t complicated,” he tells the Guardian. “But I started playing and I couldn’t stop. That was it.” That was the birth of Tetris. More»

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»

'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!”

Research could help PTSD sufferers

(NEWSER) - Playing Tetris probably isn't the first thing most people think of after a traumatic event, but researchers say doing so could reduce the risk of the flashbacks associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. A group of volunteers who played the shape-stacking computer game after being shown a video of traumatic images reported fewer flashbacks than a group who didn't play anything. A third group who played word-based game "Pub Quiz Machine" reported more flashbacks than the other two groups. More»

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»