Simon and Schuster will bring us a thoroughly modern RTS. Soldiers of Anarchy has you playing through a slew of levels to eradicate an evil group trying to let the AIDS virus run rampant. What\'s cool about it is the serious support for modders that allows you to do everything from creating maps to scripting cutscenes. Click here.

It\'s an innocuous little screen at right, but Dave Mirra BMX XXX promises to open up a whole new hornet\'s nest of protest and rage from the more conservative videogame watchdog groups. If you don\'t want to play a game with full, video, nudity, then stay away. If that kind of thing interests you, then wait until you hear the rest. Click here for the whole story.

Welcome our newest GF! member, Todd Allen, to the fray. He gets things kicked off with a very nice review of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Slangin\' lightsabers and flingin\' force lightening never felt, looked, or played so good. This has been the PC hit of the spring (pre-GTA3 of course), so check it out. Click here.

Nintendo wowed the crowd at E3 with their wireless WaveBird controller. If you\'ve ever tried a wireless controller, you know two things: First, it\'s the wave of the future because cords just plain suck. Second, it\'s never been quite up to snuff, and controller cutouts in the middle of your game suck, too. But count on Nintendo to do it right later this month. Click here.

Based on the French comic series of the same name, XIII brings the unique look of cel-shading to the next-gen Unreal engine, creating a first person shooter that looks unlike anything else we\'ve seen. The concerted focus on narrative and interactivity will make it a very popular game. Get the details here.

One of the ubiquitous topics of E3 this year was online gaming. Specifically, online gaming for consoles was in the air and not since Sega announced SegaNet has there been more interest in the topic. Of course, SegaNet taught us quite a few things “ most importantly that it is possible and enjoyable to play console titles online. It also taught us that a lot can be done with a 56.6 Kb connection and that it is essential to allow groups of local players to take on groups of remote players. SegaNet gave us so much, and many of us Dreamcast fanboys felt more than a twinge of sadness at the death of the system, which didn't wither into old age, but was rather sacrificed for the greater good of the parent company. I can picture the Dreamcast kneeling before a row of Sega execs, knife poised at his chest, "I am sorry I have failed to bring Sega out of the pit it had dug well before I was conceived. Forgiveness, please?"

Capcom\'s other latest offering is a revolutionary take on their established Breath of Fire series. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter does two things very differently: First, it incorporates a way-cool cel shaded look. Second, the game structure and replay system are unlike anything we\'ve seen in console RPGs. Read all about it here.

PlayStation2, the words still sound like honey in my ears. Like the culmination of some grand epic, the PlayStation 2 is now a reality and I'm still giddy with excitement. My zealous desire to own a PS2 reached a fevered pitch this week and had me compared to everything from an irrational fanatic to a crack whore looking for a fix.

So, as I was standing in line at 6:00 a.m., waiting for Big K to open and deliver me my PS2 booty, the hot topic amongst the fellow first-come-first-servers was DVD. None of us doubted the PS2 game system would be hot, but for many people DVD playback was what brought them out to brave hypothermia, and risk social rejection for years to come. (Hey, camping out for a PS2 is a hell of a lot cooler than doing the same for a Furby”you can't even give those things away anymore!) I have to admit I was skeptical.

My wife hates it whenever I make a significant electronics purchase; she doesn't mind the money spent as much as the buyer's anxiety I always experience after plunking down a few hundred dollars for something I know will be obsolete within a few months. The DVD player, the stereo, the camcorder are all sources of great anxiety to me whenever I think about them. Should I have waited for them to go down in price? Could I have gotten a better deal if I had looked around a little more? Did I get the right brand? Because of this tendency to second guess myself, I try to avoid making major purchases of things new to the market. I waited a year to see if DVD would really take hold, and it did. I had intended on breaking the waiting restriction with the Playstation 2. I didn't think that there could be a surer bet. At the beginning of the summer I started putting pennies away in anticipation of October 26th. I would be the first one on my block to own it, and it would be glorious. There was no doubt. After all, Newsweek even ran a cover story on it. Sure, there were rumors about an X-Box and a Dolphin, but what were they in the face of Sony?

I want to be a kung fu fighter. I want to dance like Jackie Chan
and flip like Jet Lee on wires. I want to have a wise old kung fu master that says things
like, "You fight well for one so young, but you must learn to let go of your anger
and become like the stream. When you can do this, you will be invincible.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time with my copy of Norm Koger's The Operational Art of War, and I have a lot of nice things to say about it. It's deep, it's fun, it's got a great interface”well, OK, it's just a great game. In any case, I was happily playing along in the spiffy 2D mode, feeling nice and comfortable with the familiar board wargame look of the game, when my son looked over my shoulder and suggested we try the 3D view of the game, "you know, the one where the tanks look like tanks instead of chits of cardboard." Figuring it wouldn't hurt to humor him, I switched over to 3D, and”Great Patton's Ghost!--we were confronted with a sight to freeze one's very soul”that of the ugliness that lies at the heart of wargaming. We witnessed wraith-like infantry, indistinct vehicles, Germans wearing green uniforms, Allies grey. It was like World War II on food poisoning.

Summer is the perfect time to skateboard. I should know, I love to skateboard. School is no longer a factor and there is far less to worry about. The sun is high (as well as the temperature), and the amount of time available for pure skateboarding is great. For me summer is a good time for skateboarding, not for playing video games. And although I would prefer to roll around with my friends with the sun overhead instead of staring blankly at a television screen, there are just some video games that you have to play, no matter the time or the place. The game that I set my precious time aside for was ironically based on the same thing that I yearn for the most -- skateboarding.

Yesterday, the arcade nearest to my house officially sold its soul”not to the devil, the government, or even a special interest group with some less diabolical agenda. No, it sold out to the thirteen year old mall crowd and their perceived need for franchise-like arcade huts and the seemingly infinite series of genre clones that go along with them. Don't get me wrong, one of the best things about arcades is the fact that they provide you with the opportunity to play games months before they make it to a console, and generally in better versions.

As you are by now no doubt aware, the stateside release date for the PlayStation 2 has officially been announced as October 26, 2000 at an unexpectedly low (although I did win a bet on this one against Rick) $299. As you are also by now aware, Sony is not going to ship an unlimited number of these babies. While I can\'t seem to find my notes as to exactly how many units it was, I do recall shifting a bit uncomfortably in my chair and fighting off the urge to run to the nearest phone and preorder. And why? Because every damn PSX owner in the country is going to get one of these things (unless they are completely insane or financially strapped) as soon as they hit the shelves. If you saw any footage of the Japanese release, perhaps it reminded you of a business suit version of the Cabbage Patch riots of ?84\"mobs of drooling fanatics hopped up on barely concealed consumer rage and nearly bursting bladders, refusing to leave their space in line for any but the most dire of emergencies.