Insomniac Games has kept to the Ratchet series' tradition by making the newest installment on the PlayStation 3 aware of players' activity in the older ones. Having played — and reviewed — the new Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time using a final retail copy, I was able to see how my save files for the last two games, 2007's Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and 2008's Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty, affect the new game.

I had completed both previous PS3 Ratchets and had the following perks activated automatically when I started the new game:

-My Tools of Destruction save file classified me as a returning customer when I visited A Crack In Time's weapons-vending kiosks. I was given a discount. Thanks to the lower prices and my collection of new bolt money throughout the new game, I found myself lacking money to buy the next available item in the game only once.

-My Quest For Booty save unlocked the pirate hat you see my Ratchet avatar wearing atop this post. The avatar appear in the game's community section, which displays a variety of player accomplishments and stats, shows leaderboards for many of those accomplishments. Players can customize their Ratchet avatar or look up the records and avatars of their friends. The avatar is essentially a visual shorthand for some of the things you've accomplished. For example, the pistol that Ratchet is holding in that shot looks as it does in the game, where I attached mods and selected its paint job.

Those are the unlocks I found so far that relate to the earlier Ratchet games, confirmed by a Sony representative. If I find any more I'll let you know.

"Sputnik burned up in the atmosphere, Berlin is now one city," Time writes, "but 25 years later, the Soviet-designed Tetris remains one of the most popular and ubiquitous video games ever created."

Its retrospective trods much of Tetris' well known history, including how its creator, Alexey Pajitnov, didn't see a dime for his work for years - until the rights to it reverted to him five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and 12 years after first writing the game. But they place the game in a broader context, too, including how it nearly singlehandedly made the original Game Boy a success (with 35 million copies sold).

"I believe there is some basic psychological pleasure sensor that Tetris has found that other [games] don't," said Henk Rogers, the Dutch video-game designer who secured the console and handheld licensing rights for Nintendo in 1989, in a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. "The balance is so good, it feels like you can always go a little more."

If there's another game that's been available on nearly every platform, the world over, since its release, it doesn't come to mind. If you figure its birth date to be 1984, instead of 1989 when Nintendo first licensed the rights to it, it might be the longest active franchise without any origin in the arcades. (I'm willing to be wrong about that. But since 1984 was smack in the middle of the first crash, certainly nothing's coming to mind yet.)

And yet just now, visiting Tetris.com (the game's official site) and glancing at a GameBoy port, I found myself unable to leave it until I'd cleared 37 lines. Maybe Henk Rogers was right.

Tetris: From Russia with Fun! [Time]

I couldn't tell if Sam and Dan together count as one influential person, or if they took two whole spots on the list. But this is their write-up, penned by Matt Selman, the executive producer of "The Simpsons." He portrays the Housers as social commentators whose work is, for its time, as meaningful as Dickens.

But what makes the Housers' creation unparalleled is that their games have a take on American cultural history. A smart take. A take that solidifies the culture's vision of its recent past. Was it a prominent film or book or record that defined how we look back on gang-era Los Angeles? No, it was a video game that uses movies, music and writing to a greater effect. Who better summarized and satirized the drug-dealing Miami of the '80s? Or the New York City of now? The Housers are doing the work of Tom Wolfe, creating tapestries of modern times as detailed as those of Balzac or Dickens.

Next week: Time publishes 100 letters from gamers who wonder if they're the only ones who thought Grand Theft Auto IV was overrated.

Sam and Dan Houser - The 2009 Time 100 [Time, also Time illustration. Thanks Mike M.]

That's one spot behind pop star Miley Cyrus, which might sting a bit for Mr. Miyamoto, but many, many spots ahead of people who have actual influence. Miyamoto scored a spot much higher than folks like Pope Benedict XVI, the Dalai Lama and United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The creator of Donkey Kong and Mario sits far below 4chan founder "moot," however, who crushed the competition thanks to people who know how to use the internet really, really well.

The only other gaming personality to rank was Will Wright, who missed the Top 100 by a good 47 spots. Better luck next year, Will.

For Time's 2008 version of the publicly voted list, Miyamoto landed at numero uno. Clearly after the release of Wii Music, the man's good faith with the teeming masses has dipped.

Your TIME 100 [Time.com]

It's not that PlayStation Home isn't worthy of the praise; it very well could be. After all, it is a fine service, and my time in the closed beta for the service has been relatively painless. It's just that there really isn't much to it right now. We don't know what the stores will be selling, what kind of sponsors will be popping up, or how stable it will run once all PlayStation 3 owners can access it. It's as if they've given the number 10 spot in their list to an idea rather than an actual product.

Who knows? Maybe we'll find out if the service really deserves the accolades in 10 days or so. Till then this just feels a bit too early.

Top 10 Gadgets #10 - PlayStation Home [Time - Thanks Xiong]

So crazy they've attempted to list 2008's ten best games. And by "they", we really mean "Lev Grossman". And Lev...you did OK, son.

The ten games Grossman selected were:

1. Grand Theft Auto IV
2. Braid
3. LittleBigPlanet
4. Rock Band 2
5. Gears of War 2
6. Dead Space
7. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
8. Hunted Forever
9. Fieldrunners
10. Spore

Yup, that's Braid at #2. Curious about some of the others? Hunted Forever you actually know about. Fieldrunners is for the iPhone. And yup, that's Braid at #2.

Top 10 Video Games [TIME]

Oh, and deviant commenters will be thrilled to see that disemvowelling came in at #42.

50 Best Inventions 2008 [Time]

Time Magazine's Person of the Year [Something Awful]

1. Halo 3
2. The Orange Box
3. Rock Band
4. Super Mario Galaxy
5. BioShock
6. Call of Duty 4
7. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
8. Mass Effect
9. Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
10. God of War 2

Now go ahead and do the obligatory duking it out for the honor of your favorite games in the comments.

Top 10 Video Games [TIME]

One more nail in newspapers' coffin.

Time Magazine has an interesting piece up on the changing face of comic strips and how they no longer need a newspaper to survive.

Webcomics have been around since the late 1990s, and today there are thousands of them. The diversity of artistic styles is astonishing: anime, clip art, crude scribbles, beautiful finished drawings and everything in between. The Web also frees comics from the iron cage of the traditional strip format. "Being online, there's no reason our strip has to be three panels right next to each other," says Mike Krahulik, half of the team that produces the webcomic Penny Arcade. "It often is. But there's nothing keeping us from making full-page comic-book-style layouts. There's nothing stopping us from doing whatever we want." Webcomics aren't shackled to the grinding schedule of the daily paper either; Penny Arcade publishes three times a week. And Penny Arcade is always in color. On the Web, every day can be Sunday.

The story goes on to talk about the artistic freedom, both in the art style and writing, that web-based comics seem to embrace.

It wraps up with some quote from PvP's Scott Kurtz and this bleak declaration: At a certain point newspapers just aren't worth the hassle.

Unfortunately, I think that's a growing sentiment. Brian Crecente

New Zip for the Old Strip [Time]

Big plastic Pokémon watch, I choose you! Priced at ¥3,129 (US $26), these digital numbers come in red pink and blue. There's Pikachu on the display. I would say you gotta collect 'em all, but you don't really. Brian Ashcraft

Pok&eactue; Watches [Plastic Bamboo]

It may not have the lasting appeal of Final Fantasy XII or The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, but that's precisely why Time magazine gave it the coveted number one spot in their top ten of 2006.

Here's why:

Perfect Dark Zero looked like a Titian, but it was a snooze. Wii Sports—a mini-sports anthology that includes golf, boxing, tennis, baseball and bowling—looks like Colecovision. The little guys on the screen don't even have arms. But it's hilarious, and it shows off the power of the motion-sensitive Wii controller to put you right in the game, sweating and yelling and trying crazy spins and lunges and angles.

That sounds about right. While the hardcore scratch their scalps and wonder, "What about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?!", the casuals will go "Wuzzat?! Wiiiiiii!!!" Michael McWhertor

Time Magazine's Top 10 Games of 2006 [Time]

If you picked Nintendo's chief game designer Shigeru Miyamoto you also get a cookie.

The Donkey Kong and Legend of Zelda creator made the short, esteemed list and was honorably profiled by Simscreator Will Wright. The feature, along with Will's glowing praise of the "Walt Disney of electronic gaming", is available online.

Other things I learned from the feature include discovering that Freddie Mercury (aka Farrokh Bulsara) is Parsi and that Chinese actress Gong Li is smokin' hot at 41. The more you know... Michael McWhertor

Shigeru Miyamoto: The video-game guru who made it O.K. to play

A broken 360? Awww mom, that's the same thing I got for Christmas last year! Michael Fahey

Update - Yes, I realize now that four red lights means the AV cable is unplugged, but I realized it far too late. Imagine, if you will, one of the lights being out. I'll be under this here rock if you need me.

Time's Tech Buyer's Guide 2006 [Time - Thanks Ryan!]

Wired's Clive Thompson puts forth a burning question: Who are these mythical 40-hour gamers? Thompson, like most, wants to tear through an involved game title, but doesn't have the time to play for 8 or 9 hours at a stretch in order to finish it. A job, family, etc. make only short bursts possible for most, and gaming comes an hour at a time. Thus, the problem writes Thompson:

The demographic schism over 40-hour gameplay is gradually becoming a big problem for game designers. Their options are unenviable. If they develop a game aimed at the hard-core crowd, a wuss like me will almost certainly never finish it. If they do the opposite, the power cartel will blow through the game in afternoon and feel justifiably ripped off: I paid $50 for this?

At Sakaguchi's TGS press conference, I remember the famed game creator saying it took him 40 hours to finish Blue Dragon. And that's the guy who made it, so it will take normal players longer. That's supposed to be a good thing? Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Wired]

The Dreamcast isn't dead. It's hibernating. One day, Sega will wake the machine from its deep, cryogenic slumber and reclaim its position as the #3 console. Count down that moment with the Dreamcast wrist watch. The timepiece is shaped like the last console Sega produced. Under the disc cover is an analog watch. Exporter Play Asia has it for pre-order for US $129.90. The watch ships September 29th, but when the Dreamcast resurrects is anybody's guess. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [i4u]

Know what time it is? Neither do I. That makes me in the market for a clock. Toy maker Banpresto has released three wall clocks inspired by retro Nintendo themes. There's a red Famicom console clock, a blue Famicom logo and a Donkey Kong start screen. Made of 1/16" thick PVC, each clock retails for US $20. I've got my eye on that blue Famicom one, and hopefully, it's got its eye on me. Brian Ashcraft

Order Here [National Console Support] via Wonderland

Over at Game Set Watch, we had our attention diverted from a series of posts we were going to do on why the Playstation 3 is not going to deliver on Ken Kutaragi's recent promise to be a fully functional time machine by this crazy speed-run of Ico for the Playstation 2. We had no idea you could swat the penumbric wraiths away from swarming about an ethereal princess so damn quickly.

As always, it's interesting to read the speed-runner's thoughts on what it takes to beat a game so implausibly fast. The runner actually thinks the EU version of the game could cut the run down from 1:45 to an hour flat, thanks to the two player mode that allows a second player to possess Yorga and break her free from her brain-dead, shamble-into-wall shenanigans. Florian Eckhardt

PS: Don't you just love that guy in the red shirt back there? "Hyuk! DURRRRR...."

Ico Speedrun [Speed Demos Archive]