•Fifteen Games that Defined the PlayStation Brand [Joystick Division] On the 15th birthday of the original PlayStation, Joystick Division looks at 15 games that helped cement the brand's place in modern gaming, beginning with Final Fantasy VII.

•The Year's Most Cinematic Games [Independent Film Channel] If this were a video game site, this list would be old news. But it's interesting to see what independent film enthusiasts think of the medium. Uncharted 2, of course leads the list, followed by Red Faction: Guerrilla. But Flower?

•Suggested New Titles for EA Sports [Ripten] Not really a Top-10 (or three), but Ripten's Chad Lakkis puts together an amusing three concepts for EA Sports, grappling with Tiger Woods' infidelity scandal and whether to keep him on the title of their golf game.

•Seven Christmas Games that Make You Hate Christmas [GameSpy] A compilation of dreadful holiday-themed shovelware and the hideous The Santa Clause adaptation for Game Boy Advance. Elf Bowling is the dishonorable No. 1.

•Top 8 Most Insulting Gifts for Gamers [The Kartel] Nothing sucks worse than to be typecast as the family gamer, and to get a cheap and completely out-of-it gift from a well intentioned but clueless relative. The usual collection of knockoffs populate this list. That cardboard arcade cabinet cutout for your PSP is humiliating for both giver and receiver. The Xbox 360 Arcade is a pretty shrewd choice (as you'd have to drop another $250 on the XBL the hard drive, the HD-CVI cables, another controller, it's the gift that keeps on taking.)

•Top 10 Video Game Weapons [AskMen] Haven't we been over this already? Yeah, yeah. BFG-9000, blah blah spread fire from Contra. Where's the dead-cat silencer from Postal? What about the plasma cannon in Dark Forces?

•Top Seven Games That Should Get the New Super Mario Bros. Wii Treatment [The Kartel] Sonic the Hedgehog is the obvious and undisputed No. 1 for a side-scroller reboot. Super Star Wars is a brilliant choice at No. 3. My sentimental favorite? Bubble Bobble. Not a sidescroller, but still fun as hell and worth the reboot.

•The Five Greatest Football Games [Top o' the Pigskin] Ah, here's a list to get my blood pumping. Top 5 games? San Diego 41, Miami 38, on Jan. 2, 1982. Or State's 30-27 triumph at Virginia on the day after Thanksgiving, 1994, dumping those overrated bastard-ass bastards from the Fiesta Bowl to the Weedwhacker. I actually taunted Tiki Barber, about that five years later, to his face. Wait? Greatest Football Video Games? Well, uh ... NFL 2K5, Tecmo Super Bowl, NCAA 2004 - NCAA '04 isn't on this list? What?

•The 10 Ugliest Main Characters in Video Games [Video Games Zone] Our German friends tackle the subject of homeliest protagonists, and as much as I loved Bully, Jimmy Hopkins was a butt-fugly lead. Guy looked like one of those fetal pigs you carve in the biology class minigame. But ugliest? This guy hasn't seen what I can do with Fallout 3's character creation engine.

•Top 11 Most Overly Hyped Games [Baxy-Z] Baxy-Z boldly goes where 4,921 sites have gone before, loudly proclaiming which titles have been the recipients of the most insufferable marketing campaigns in the past. Here would be an amusing list: Predicting the five to get it most in the future. Modern Warfare 3. Grand Theft Auto V. Wii Motion Fit Plus Resort II. Discuss.

•Top 10 Games That Got Canned [Brave New Gamer] Duke Nukem Forever, Battlefront 3 and Perfect Dark 2 are the sainted martyrs atop this list; for me, I always shed a tear knowing how close we were to a Taxi Driver video game.

•12 Games You Must Play This Christmas [TechRadar] At first, I was gonna say, "This reads like a big free ad for the top releases of the last two quarters." Then I saw Wii Fit Plus at No. 12, so I know it's a big free ad.

•The REAL Top Ten Games of the Decade [Destructoid] The fact "True Crime: Streets of LA" isn't on this list is a travesty and a disgrace to video games journalism.

•Top 10 Gaming Controversies [IGN] You know all the parts by heart - Mass Effect sex, Manhunt 2, Hot Coffee, etc. In all seriousness, I think the exclusive NFL license EA Sports secured in 2005 should make this list. Nothing pisses off gamers more than a monopoly, or a company with any kind of power over any of their choices, really. These foofaraws are largely the outside world taking umbrage (sometimes misinformed) at what we otherwise wouldn't even bat an eye.

•10 of the Most Extreme Controllers Ever [Games Radar] PediSedate is enough to make any mother crap a statue of herself and vow never to let her daughter out of her sight again until she (the child) reaches age 50. I don't care if that's ostensibly meant for anesthetic uses in a licensed medical practicioner's office, it's creepier than a DVD full of To Catch a Predator. Close second: The PainStation, which reminds me of the gom jabbar test from Dune. Yeeeesh.

•15 Super Cool PlayStation 3 Case Mods [GamingBolt] These aren't necessarily the top 15, but they do form a list, and most of them are cool, but I'm sure at least one is too garish, simple, under or overdone for everyone's taste here. If it were my PS3, I'd go with the seteampunk (pictured) or the ghost. All the others look like marketing commissions.


•Ten Reasons We Don't Want the Next Gen [IGN] I dunno about you, but my reason is, "I haven't played all the good games in this gen yet." Nor, frankly, on the PS2.

•Top Ten Games for People Who Hate Thanksgiving [Destructoid] The giant robot lays waste to timeless traditions of the harvest season with a lineup of games for the most antisocial, turkey-hating, horn-of-jack-shitia toting grinch with a controller and a headset. Custer's Revenge, MLB 09: The Show and Modern Warfare 2 make the list, for the vaffanculo they represent to Squanto, football and civilized conversation, respectively.

•Top Ten Dumb Video Game PR Moments [VGChartz] How the Danté's Inferno "Sin to Win" fiasco didn't make this list, I don't know. Obvious targets include the PS3 launch, everything Microsoft said in response to the RRoD, and EA sending illegal weapons as Godfather II swag.

•Top Ten Alternate Uses for the Tony Hawk: Ride Skateboard [Gamervision] It's bad enough to be saddled with a dud game two weeks after it releases - at least you can unload that somewhat painlessly, even if it is just store credit. A dud with a useless peripheral is even worse, as it just sits there in the corner, mocking you. Here's some hints from Heloise for salvaging the Tony Hawk: Ride skateboard, accompanied by a few hilarious shoops.

•Eight Reasons Why Fanboys Deserve Some Respect [GamesRadar] Despite doing nothing to earn it? Well, GamesRadar is merciful, even to the lowest of the low, saying the type of person that no one and yet everyone is at the same time provides unintentional comedy gold and keeps relevant issues debated in the mainstream. I like fanboys because they're easy targets, anonymous scapegoats, and convenient straw men.

•10 Kick Ass Video Game Clowns [Unreality magazine] I thought the clowns from Left 4 Dead 2's Dark Carnival would have either inspired or made this list, but apparently they did neither. Adam the Clown from Dead Rising and Sweet Tooth are the most deserving of "Kick Ass," unless you take the Kickman clown literally. The Joker was someone else's creation, first, and Insane Clown Posse is just a joke.

•15 Things That Have Happened Since Mario's Last 2D Console Game [TrueGameHeadz] "Mega Man has released at least 68 games," although "Mario has appeared in 149 games, 117 of which had his name in the title," so top that, buster. The video games industry has shifted from cartridges to discs, and its revenues have more than quadrupled. Also, we've seen three different presidents, a bunch of wars, the Red Sox winning the World Series, the invention of Internet porn and the birth and demise of Crystal Pepsi. Plus, like, everything.

•40 Various Styles Artworks of Lara Croft [The Design Inspiration] Guns. Bewbs. Nuff said.

•The 9 Most Suggestive Mega Man Boss Names [Topless Robot] Wood Man, Junk Man, Uranus (snicker) and Beef Man (OK, OK, I made that one up) all grace this list. No. 1 is, indisputably, Split Mushroom. Which makes me chortle like a seventh-grader and grimace at the same time.

•Top 7 Tasteful Game Heroines [GamesRadar] Faith (Mirror's Edge) and Zoey (Left 4 Dead) are the newcomers; Alyx Vance (Half Life 2) and Cate Archer (No One Lives Forever) are the classics. Samus Aran is the legend, and she's No. 1.

•Top 5 Most Incredible War Scenes in Gaming [MSNBC] Do they mean "incredible" as in "not believable"? Or do they mean "impressive," or "amazing"? If so, they should say that. Death From Above in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare takes top honors, over Halo and Gears of War 2.

•Six Major Wars Overlooked by the Shooter Genre [GamePro] This of course is a very U.S.-centric list, covering everything except the Spanish-American War and the Mexican-American War. I guess they have something against the Rough Riders and Santa Anna. Oh, and the French and the Indians, as that one isn't here either. What is? Well, every armed conflict except for World War II.

•Controversial Games Dealing With Fan Backlash [Industry Gamers] Modern Warfare 2 released under a cloud of stink raised by PO'd PC gamers over the end of dedicated servers. Industry Gamers notes that it's not the first time fans of a series have gotten their panties in a bunch. The reaction to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a particularly intense example.

•7 Achievements That Will Make You Cry [ScrewAttack] This list digs up the seven most inhumane achievements - including Mega Man 9's Gamer's Day (beat the game five times in a single day) - that even the most masochistic gamer would regret pursuing. Capcom also gave us the Seven Day Survivor cheev in Dead Rising, which would require 14 hours (plus, like, surviving.) Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter's world champion - getting the top of the universal leaderboard - is No. 1.

• 13 New Xbox Achievements Aimed to Make You Feel Bad About Yourself [Hardcasual] This satire piece cuts a little close to home. If these existed, I'd have unlocked about six of them, including, sadly "Friends Are For the Weak: Play a single-player game on a Friday night." I'm surprised there aren't any regarding junk food or booze, however.

•Ten Classic Games That Did Not Age Well [Destructoid] This list doesn't look at the evolution of an IP, just how the original game holds up over time. And Destructoid finds plenty to complain about, even in Mortal Kombat, Metal Gear and Half-Life. I'd throw in one of the early console Maddens, too. At the time, they were profoundly groundbreaking, but if I have a choice of something on an emulator today, I'm playing Tecmo Super Bowl.

•7 Horrible Videogames with Awesome Soundtracks [Topless Robot] If I've played any of these, I can't recall it, although Silver Surfer does seem familiar. The list seems to bend toward Japanese RPGs. I have little to add to this, although Activision's Master of the Lamps on Commodore 64 had a killer soundtrack and mind numbing boring-ass gameplay.

•Top 10 Terrible Videogame Novelizations [GameSpy] Another list that catches me out of my depth because, come on, who buys books about video games? (*Shamefacedly eyes his Uncharted 2 strat guide*). I thought that Pac-Man novelization kind of sucked. "Pac chowed down a line of 17 dots, wondering if he'd have enough room in his guts - and time - to consume Pinky, who was just a few steps ahead and frantically flashing blue and white."

•Top 10 Guilty Pleasures [GameTrailers] GameTrailers' countdown admittedly could have gone straight for the bizarre, but they kept this list to the mainstream, perhaps to enhance the "Yeah ... you got me, I played that," factor. It's not on the list, but I'll admit I got Playboy: The Mansion from Gamefly, but God was it boring. And this was after I got the U.S. senator to pose nude for the July issue. Not that I still remember or care about this game at all.

•Top 10 Biggest WTF Games of All Time [Brave New Gamer] Back in the 1980s I remember reading an ad for early arcade ports that pooh-poohed the byzantine nature of some PC games. Which would you rather play, Moon Patrol, or "Manholes of Venus"? It asked. Actually, I think Manholes of Venus sounds more intriguing. And less than half as bizarre as Space Giraffe (pictured).

•Top 10 Most Ridiculous Video Game Mascots of All Time [The Kartel] "Mascots" might be overstating these characters' rank - many just look like weird characters, although Elbo, the Electronics Boutique skateboarding hipster, definitely is a mascot. Number one is Pac-Man, who is both.

•10 of the Most Creative Video Game Deaths Ever [Wired] Game deaths used to not be deaths. Popeye spun into the air and fell into the water. Pepper Pete in Burger Time rolled around on the ground throwing a kicking tantrum. These sanitized depictions represented our collective discomfort with death at the time - at least death administered by an anthropomorphic fried egg. But as we've matured, we can handle more intense depictions. Such as being turned into a snowman in Mortal Kombat.

•10 Sequels That are Better Than the Original [Den of Geek] People complain about sequels as the day is long, but lets remember some unoriginal IP that was, in fact, pretty damn good. Street Fighter II, Grand Theft Auto III, God of War II. Hitman: Silent Assassin is not on this list but should be; much better execution than the original.

•50 Games That Sound Vaguely (or Not So Vaguely) Like Adult Films [Crispy Gamer] Wait, where's "Manholes of Venus?"

•The Top 10 Cosplay Look Alikes [PerezStart] This is the one-year anniversary of the infamous Top 50 Cosplay Cleavage meltdown when I posted bewbs and you horndogs Kotaku'd poor Mr. Juandrful's server. In commemoration of that fateful day, here's Juan's Top 10 Cosplay Lookalikes. Note, in many the video game connection is not obvious, or even existent.

•12 Awesome Things Tetris to Know, See and Play [Joystick Division] This list comes up with 12 fun facts about the world's most-played video game; the piece is worth it just for the video Tetris being played on the side of a high-rise in Japan, which you've probably seen, but it's always mesmerizing.

•Top Ten Best Wrestling Video Games of All Time [WrestleZone] Less than three weeks away from WWE Smackdown! vs. RAW's North American release, this rasslin' enthusiast site compiles the best games preceding it. This list honors the more realistic (well ... as real as rasslin' gets anyway) titles, as opposed to arcade games. I would have liked to seen some love, or loved to seen some like, for Data East's Tag Team Wrestling, or Mat Mania, or Pro Wrestling for the NES.

• Five Amazing/Terrible Video Game Console Knock-Offs [Default Prime] The PXP-2000 that we told you about earlier makes this list as the only knockoff of this bunch marginally worth owning. Not here is the Wii quasi-knockoff that people keep seeing in Radio Shacks and other fine retailers and sending us. Most egregious: The SuperJoy III (left), boasting 75,000 games, but really more like 25 when you consider that every possible gameplay combination of the NES ROMs aboard it are considered a separate game.

•The 7 Silliest Videogame Fighter Backstories [Topless Robot] I don't know that I've ever played a one of these except for Virtua Fighter, but then, arcade fighters weren't my bag back when I was a teenager or in college. Karla Keller from 1994's unreleased Tattoo Assassins - an homage to Nancy Kerrigan from that year's Olympics beatdown soap opera - takes No. 1

• Five Regrettable Music/Video Game Moments [OC Weekly] Really only recently have the duet between games and current, popular music hit their stride. OC Weekly looks at some of the five worst combinations from the past, although last year's 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand shows the genre's not out of the woods yet.

• The 10 Worst FPS Games Of The Past Decade [Joystick Division] For a premise such as this, you'd expect to see fanboy hate piled on the usual overrated or overhyped targets. This is actually a well researched piece that truly does dredge up some awful, unfortunately conceived and disastrously executed FPSes. And some screenshots (like Elite Forces: Navy Seals) tell the story by themselves.

• The Ten Worst Console Games of the Generation (So Far) [Joystick Division] JD had a king-sized mad-on for crappy games this week. Here they go after the 10 most miserable failures on the current generation of consoles. Honestly, I don't know what I'd do if it was my job to review a game this bad, because my cognitive dissonance usually tells me I'm the problem - that no one could build something this sh—-y. Then again, I haven't played a single minute of Ninjabread Man or Vampire Rain: Altered Species.

• Six Things About Games that Aren't True [Games Radar] Less a mythbusting piece and more one battling misconceptions and stereotypes, Games Radar points out that all gamers are not slobs, all Wii games are not for babies, and that Pong wasn't the first graphical video game, and that all Koreans are, in fact, good at Starcraft.

• Top 15 Most Badass Video Game Weapons [Heckler Spray] Let's wrap up on a positive note, the 15 biggest, baddest, ass-kicking-and-blowing-uppest armaments we've been blessed to handle in video games. Half Life 2's Gravity Gun and Doom's BFG-9000 make their expected all-star entrances here. I was always partial to Dark Forces' plasma cannon and, just to be an old-school douche, spread fire from Contra and the flaming oil slick from Spy Hunter's hydroplane boat.

•10 Worst Ways to Spend Your Time in a Game [TechRadar] Grinding, grinding, and grinding. And sewer levels. Also farming or mining any resources. And being Mister Best Friend in Grand Theft Auto IV. To this I would also add any escort mission of a basically helpless NPC/ship that always runs toward gunfire, and spending an hour in any pro sports game analyzing and proposing trades rather than playing.

•The Truth Behind 10 Great Videogame Myths [Crispy Gamer] All but two of these myths are busted; only one - the great Atari landfilling of Pac-Man and E.T. in 1983 - is confirmed. Mario leaping over the flagpole was rated "plausible." All others are crap - including nude Lara Croft. Too bad.

•10 Game Ads That are Horribly Up Their Own Ass [GamesRadar] Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Halo 3, Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST make up half the field of what is more or less a rehashed Top 10 of overhyped games. I'm not sure if it was an advertisement on mass media or just a game trailer, but this Call of Duty: World at War ad struck me as excessively macho and undeservedly self-glorifying.

•10 Video Game Women Who Don't Use Sex to Sell [The Game Reviews] Next time someone complains that video games do nothing but objectify and dehumanize women, point them to this list. Really. It's a nice reminder that some games not only offer playable female protagonists, they're compelling characters, proving a triumph of design over jiggle physics. But I am absolutely floored that Samus Aran is not on this list - her armor in later designs might accent feminine curves, but it's battle armor, and not all that shapely. Is it because she ran around in a bikini after you beat the original Metroid? Also, my obscure contrarian pick: Annie Stoakes from Red Dead Revolver.

•Top Ten Best Game Over Screens [VG Chartz] I simply cannot accept a list such as this without the unforgettable "THE END" from Missile Command. Remember, nuclear annihilation was the emotional fulcrum of the Cold War, and for a game that made, in its own way, a hell of a statement about the times, nothing said it better than "THE END."

• Top 10 Most Overhyped Games Ever [VGChartz] Is it just me, or is this Top 10 list subject overhyped? Seriously, am I the only one who thinks this Top 10 list of overhyped games didn't live up to the hype? Top 10 Overhyped Game fanboys, flame away while I go ban myself.

• The New Gaming Clichés [Joystick Division] I'm down with bald space marines being lazy thinking and design. Then again, as a bald guy, I'm proud to see my people represented in gaming. Yes, quicktime events and antiheroes are more cliché strewn than SportsCenter at 2 a.m. But the rest of these, just because they're common doesn't mean they don't make games enjoyable. Not on this list: The Top 10 List.

• Top 10 Uses for the $50 You'll Save on the Wii This Holiday [Monroeworld Forums] This boils down to "Use it to buy more stuff from Nintendo," which was no doubt figured in during Nintendo's skull sessions on the price drop. For me, the $50 equals two bottles of Early Times thanks to the socialist monopoly known as the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Otherwise, it's gas down to Yreka, Calif. to buy a case of it for $8 less a handle.

• Our 10 Favorite Gaming Soundtracks [The Bits, Bytes, Pixels and Sprites] Well, both Halo 2 and Goldeneye are here so everyone can have a war over those two FPSes, not that much provocation ever is needed for that. Sacred cow Ocarina of Time gets the obligatory No. 3. Zero love shown for Full Throttle or Bionic Commando: Rearmed.

• Ten Dreamcast Games We Want on PSN [IGN] I am convinced that in the year Fifty-eight-eleven-thousand, when we play video games inside of our eyeballs and fanboy wars have become full fledged genocidal campaigns against those with the wrong chip installed in their brains, we will all lay down our arms, shake hands, and declare peace at the mere mention of the sainted Dreamcast. Here are ten previous-gen titles everyone bought and played. Except they didn't. Because if they had, maybe the console wouldn't be dead.

• 12 Advertainment Video Games [oobject] Not really a ranking, but a look back at a dozen nutshots to gamers' intelligence over the years, beginning with the atrocious "Pepsi Invaders" which probably violates some marketing law of not featuring your competitor's product more times than your own. Even if you are shooting at it in a video game. Where's Yaris, though? It's what I think of first when I think of these abominations.

• Gaming's Would Be Innovators [GamesRadar]Well, Pac-Man on the 2600 is a real good call, as it sent video games into the wilderness for a few years. Dragon's Lair, Shenmue, Enter the Matrix and Star Wars: Galaxies make this list of disappointments that set out to do something big and different, but ended up not doing much at all. So does Fable, the second week someone's taken a swipe at Molyneux. Don't worry, Will Wright also gets slapped for Spore.

• Top 5 Videogames That Think You're Fat [1up] Essentially a roundup of exergames, notably led by Wii Fit, which had nooooo problems telling everyone to mix in a salad.

•Top Five Foods to Avoid While Playing Video Games [Smooth Harold] I suppose that, yes, since I'm not goddamn Doctor Octopus, it might be a little tough to eat crab while playing video games. Cheetos are this guy's number one, because of the orange fuzz it leaves on everything. My top pick: stay away from chitlins. Cause they're intestines.

• Six Games That Really Should Have Fighting in Them [Crispy Gamer] "DEAR NINTENDO: You should include a mode where I can box an anthropomorphic dolphin named 'Honey,'" writes Crispy Gamer. They also want pugilism in Animal Crossing: "We need to be able to give Tom Nook the beating he deserves. 'That's for the 20,000 Bells you made me overpay for my tiny, cute roach-filled house!' POW!" I say, why stop there. Put up your dukes, Flower.

No, you're not seeing things. We moved the Top 5 of Top 10s to this day and time to free up some space on Saturday, which was getting crowded with standing features.

•Top Eight 8-Bit Hotties [Asylum] Apparently when you work for an online lad-mag you have to rank your video game sprites before you can fap to them. Nothing too surprising here, with the Super Tecmo Bowl Cheerleaders rating a strong No. 3, likely for the notorious upskirt shot. The cheerleaders in original Tecmo weren't that bad, too.

•Ten Games That Didn't Live Up to the Hype [The Bits, Bytes, Pixels and Sprites] Haze, Too Human, Bionic Commando and Doom 3 take their expected, and deserved beatings. So does the Fable series, which I find to be a bold call. But is it just me or am I the only one who thought Grand Theft Auto IV was overrated? Because we've never ever discussed that here.

•Top 10 Problems with MMOs [IGN] 1. The subscription fee. What? It's not on this list? OK, 2. They're MMOs. Kidding! But bitching about elves, a lack of story, a lack of consequences and the vortex into which all of one's free time - and more - disappears comprise this list of common complaints.

•Fifteen of the Most Memorable Lines in Video Game History [Unreality Magazine] Yes, AYBABTU, Do a Barrel Roll, and But Our Princess is in Another Castle! are in this lineup, as surely as USC, Texas and Florida always make the preseason Top 25. So is "You Have Died of Dysentery" and the opening to Bad Dudes, both memorable and great calls. There is no "Intruder Alert!" from Berzerk, which I found odd, as it was one of the first synthesized lines in a video game, ever.

•Ten Dreamcast Games Still Worth Playing Today [bitstream, blog of Sound & Vision magazine] And with this, let us all heave our last great sigh of regret for the Dreamcast on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. We'll of course revisit the subject on the 10th anniversary of the console's official demise. Remember for now the good times, with games such as NFL 2K1, Soulcalibur, Dead or Alive 2 and Crazy Taxi.

•Advertising 101: 10 Awesome Game Trailers to Learn From [The Bits, Bytes, Pixels and Sprites] Game trailers have emerged as a kind of art form to themselves, the same as theatrical trailers did around the late 1980s and early 1990s, when people lined up to see Batman's. The BBPS rates the best hype-builders, as a model of effective advertising. Really though, most of these are relying on past reputation for impact. Fallout 3's trailer (No. 8) was just a re-edit of the game's opening cinematic. Probably took about 20 seconds to make.

•Top 20 Mario Power Ups [Official Nintendo Magazine] There are more than 20? ONM's ranking covers pretty much every performance enhancer in the Mario continuity, beginning with the hammer from Donkey Kong. No. 1 is The Tanooki Suit. No-brainer. But just because I'm a contrarian old school bastard, I'd have thrown in the POW bumper from original Mario Bros.

•The 5 Best Console Wars [GamePro] Son, let me tell you about the old wars. Genesis versus Super Nintendo was epic, sure. But in my day, it was Intellivision vs. Atari VCS. It was 5200 vs. ColecoVision, right there on the pages of Consumer Reports. It was Commodore 64 vs Apple ][. It was fistfights in the recess yard. It was Bill "Dynamite" Douglas tossing a missile at Tom "The Bomb" Bethea's face and knocking his mouthpiece into Madison Square Garden's third row. Wait, wrong nostalgia. But let's not pretend console wars started in 1991. It's been around as long as there's been consoles. And wars.

•Five Consoles We'd Like to See Get Slim [MTV Multiplayer] MTV lays down a wildcard with "Capcom's CPS-2 Arcade Board." But for consoles currently in production, there's only one that can take a rightsizing, and it's the 360, and Microsoft's shot that down. Everything else before it - including original Xbox - can have its architecture jammed into 1/5th the space, sure. You can play Genesis games on an iPhone. How's that for slim?

• Top 10 Best Video Games for Couples [SF Weekly] I like anything that gets the qualifier "for couples" because it usually means porn. Man, this one time in my Rocky Mountain News days, my girlfriend and I were driving back from a date and she suggested we get "a movie," and then I had to waste 15 minutes pretending I didn't know where the porn store was, when if I had let go of the steering wheel the car could have probably driven itself, like goddamn Knight Rider, to the nearest spank booth and parked in my assigned space out front. Where was I? The selections here are mostly cute, non-core stuff, with Contra on the NES as one counterintuitive pick and House of the Dead: Overkill as a surprising No. 2. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved gets No. 1.

•Seven Reasons Why a District 9 Game Would Be Awesome [Film School Rejects] Being a derivative FPS movie tie-in? Didn't make the list. Warning, there are some spoilers on this list, if you haven't seen the film. Not on this site: Seven Reasons Why a Halo Movie Would Be Teh Suck.

•Eight Enemies Who are Just Jerks [Crispy Gamer] I vote the Rodians (pictured) who were the most aggravating pests in SW:STFU. And for life, I will always have a deep-seated, racist genocidal hatred for those dustbuster-attachment mouth MFers, formed by playing Jedi Outcast, where their snipers shot me to pieces on Nar Shadaa. But number one - the birds from Ninja Gaiden. And deservedly so. They were Fahey's pick in our Video Game Character Draft from 2008.

•Top 5 Actors Who Could Play Solid Snake [Koku Gamer] Kurt Russell. Scoop of chocolate, scoop of vanilla. Don't waste my time.

•The 10 Best Shopkeepers in Video Games [The Bits, Bytes, Pixels and Sprites] The BBPS looks at an underappreciated NPC, namely, those who supply us with all the crap we need to kill and blow things up, and who readily pay hard cash for the utterly useless weapons dropped by our foes. If you've played Assassin's Creed, you can probably recite from memory the pitches of the hawkers on the po side of Damascus. They're not here, because they never sold us anything. But Moira Brown is. So's the Merchant from Resident Evil 4. And while Jacob in GTA IV was quite the character, I'm a bit disappointed that the militia nutjob from San Andreas's Ammu-Nation ("Thuh reva-LOO-shun is comin'!") didn't make the cut.

• Top Ten Sexually Awkward Video Game Moments [VGChartz.com] "Otacon, pretty much all the time," is a good choice; so is discovering Birdo's gender ambiguity in SMB2. But for sheer WTFery, the between-rounds blowjobs in Ring King take the cake. To this day I still cannot figure out what the hell that corner man is supposed to be doing.

•Fifteen Classic Game Console Design Mistakes [Technologizer] Many of these fixate on poor controller design, even the good ole lovable Duke from the original Xbox. The Virtual Boy owns two of the 15, but one of them is not "That The Thing was Even Made." Notable absence: Uh ... the ... 360?




• Top 25 Most Explosive Video Games [GameDaily] GameDaily bravely tackles the subject of stuff getting blown up in games, somehow managing to barely find a scant 25 of them that feature explosions. This would be like putting together a "Top 25 Most Shootiest Games." Your number one pick is Crysis. Mine is Pole Position II. I love how the car exploded and flung off its tires.

• The Most Accurate/Inaccurate Comic Book GamesNot a top 10 per se, but Games Radar does examine which comic book games took the most liberties with their stories, which by nature, take liberties with everything from U.S. geography to particle physics. My most inaccurate game? Spider-Man for the Atari 2600, because you couldn't wall crawl without shooting a web.

• The 10 Worst Video Game Systems of All Time [Network World] Seems like every week someone does this, but Network World hauls up some really obscure failures to populate its hall of console shame. The Apple Pippin? Oh man, I totally forgot about that horrid excretion from the Gil Amelio days.

• Classic Novels Turned Into Games [IGN] Since Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy just got its game adaptation with Dante's Inferno, IGN turns its eye toward other deserving classics of literature. I like it that Of Mice and Men is a beat-em-up for some reason. The Catcher in the Rye as a DDR game - "If you fail to keep Holden's interest meter above a certain point, he shrugs his shoulders and goes to his parents' house." - is likewise inspired. Me, I'd go for Slaughterhouse Five, as a kind of SCUMM-based adventure through time. The Tralfamadorians for some reason remind me of the Purple Tentacle.

• Seven Best-Selling Games that Totally Suck [Joystick Division] The writer vents his spleen at group of titles unworthy of the scads of money they reaped. Leading the list is Wii Play. My choice? Gotta go with either Gun or Scarface.

• 10 Games to Save 2009 [Videogamer.com] Every major upcoming release is on this list, except for the one that will, actually, save 2009. That's Brütal Legend.

• Eight Toys that Should Never, Under Any Circumstances, Be Turned into Video Games [Crispy Gamer] In case you're thinking that by "toys" the writer means G.I. Joe or Transformers-like toys - in other words, something with a lot of characters and a continuity - he doesn't. This is more like rooting around through a septaugenarian dentist's waiting room - slinky, rubik's cube, silly putty, etch-a-sketch, etc. Not on here, but should be - Betsy Wetsy: The Video Game.

• The Top 10 Most Disturbing Video Game Bosses [Spike] Pyramid Head, blah blah, the director from Manhunt, yada yada, Andross from Starfox 64 is a pretty shrewd choice, though. They go after Birdo as the first transsexual boss character. But where's Sinistar? "Run, coward!" That guy creeped me out.

• 12 Failed Gaming Consoles [oobject] Someone's put together a dirty dozen pictures of the familiar punching bags from the games industry's rises and collapses. My only quibble is the ColecoVision. It was the pre-eminent system of its time, with the best port of Donkey Kong for any console, and that absolutely drove sales to its brand. ColecoVision was victimized mainly by the industry crash at large.

• The 11 Biggest Frauds in Gaming [Crispy Gamer] Gizmondo, Atari 2600 Pac-Man, those are no-brainers. But MotionPlus and PSP Go already on this list? Where's the Power Glove? Where's ROB? Where's Duke Nukem Forever? And that No. 1 sounds like an awfully personal selection.

• Top 10 Games to Help Ride Out the Summer {MTVU oops, that's mtvU] Basically it's Madden, some old-school console classics, and then all the current big selling new releases. And, for some reason, The Conduit.

• Top 11 Video Game Worlds You DON'T Want to Live In [Bam! Kapow!] Post-apocalyptic settings are an easy call. So is Half-Life's City 17. And No. 1 - Second Life - is an absolute no-brainer. But my No. 1? Paperboy's city. That place had four Addams Family houses on each block, nonstop road construction, break-ins, nasty dogs, and breakdancers. God, the breakdancers.

• Top 10 Favorite (sigh, Favourite) Game Cube Games [The Bits, Bytes, Pixels and Sprites] Rogue Squadron, Wind Waker, Metroid Prime and two Resident Evils grace this list. I did not own this console so I do not feel qualified to comment.

• Top 10 Old PC Gaming Franchises We Want Rebooted [GamePro] Wing Commander? Fuck and yes. Descent, Heretic, and the unsurpassed X-Wing/Tie Fighter series? Gimme, gimme, gimme. But I got two words for you that aren't on this list, and they are Full and Throttle.

Each week throws off several new lists ranging from the humorous to the trivial - Top 6 Phallic Objects in Video Games; Top 12 Most Hated Non-Human NPCs from 1990s RPG, you get the idea. Rather than run one as a single post, I figured we can put together, in digest form, a roundup of the rundowns out there, ridiculous to sublime.

Here are five that caught my eye recently:

• 11 Downright Dirty Video Game Titles [The Bits, Bytes, Pixels and Sprites]
This list of dirty-talking game names, includes, of course, "Tongue of the Fatman," "Booby Kids," "Nuts & Milk" and even "GOLF Magazine Presents 36 Great Holes Starring Fred Couples," which sounds like gonzo porn I would never want to see.

• The Citizen Kanes of Video Games [Games Radar]
Games Radar spends about 3,000 words telling us that, yes, Donkey Kong, Tetris and Ocarina of Time were, in fact, important games. Most of the list of 25 games is predictable. Toward the end it heaps in a lot of sequels and shooters.The titles each game influenced are cited in making the case for their transcendent achievements.

• Top 5 Reasons Retro Games Beat Modern Games [MSNBC]
This gives equal time to the old school after MSNBC's Top 5 Reasons Modern Games Beat Retro Games of two weeks ago. Old games are definitely more of a challenge, but "they play longer"? Really? Longer than 100 percenting any of the Grand Theft Autos since III?

• 10 Recently Hyped Video Games that Disappeared too Quickly [Joystick Division]
Haze, Too Human, Mirror's Edge, we all sort of get why they flamed out sooner than their pre-release hype would have let on. But Assassin's Creed? Mass Effect? Street Fighter IV? By what measure are we saying they "disappeared"?

• The 10 Best Nuclear Explosions in Video Games [IGN]
This goes back to the beginning of the month, but it's still a big hit on Digg. Plus, who doesn't like explosions? Problem is, IGN serves up some tiny-ass pictures to go with the list. Anyhow the top 3, in order, are Fallout 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and World in Conflict.