Computer Games

  • Playing games in a recession

    Computer game giant Electronic Arts is getting blitzed by the bad economy. But if you cater to 11-year-old boys, you're still doing alright
    By Andrew Leonard December 10, 2008

  • Gary Gygax's final quest

    The co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons is dead. Let's all stop playing World of Warcraft for a minute, and remember him.
    By Andrew Leonard March 4, 2008

  • Grand Death Auto

    Two kids, 13 and 15, killed an innocent highway motorist. Was a violent computer game responsible -- or their sad lives?
    By David Kushner February 22, 2005

  • The year in games

    Developers, critics, gamers and analysts weigh in: What they loved, what they learned, what they worried about.
    By Wagner James Au December 22, 2004

  • Santa's sweatshop

    Electronic Arts developers work night and day to crank out hits like "Madden NFL 2005." But now the elves are revolting.
    By Katharine Mieszkowski December 2, 2004

  • Why we keep killing JFK

    The controversial video game "JFK Reloaded" plays to our inner sociopath. But it also shows how government scandals fester in the national psyche until the truth comes out.
    By Jefferson Morley November 30, 2004

  • No boring fighting parts

    Rich and evocative, "Myst IV: Revelation" is a worthy successor to one of the greatest computer games of all time.
    By Laura Miller November 23, 2004

  • John Kerry: The video game

    In "Battlefield Vietnam," a new version of one of the most popular games in the U.S., you too can try to win a Silver Star saving your buddies in the jungle.
    By Wagner James Au April 13, 2004

  • Learning to love mass murder

    I'm not a violent guy. But I just cheerfully burned an entire marching band to death, then kicked a woman's head downstairs. OK, it's all virtual slaughter, but I'm starting to scare myself.
    By Peter Olafson March 31, 2004

  • 14th century video games

    In Lev Grossman's "Codex," an investment banker manages the neat trick of simultaneously getting lost in medieval England and a 21st century computer game.
    By Andrew Leonard March 4, 2004

  • Stopping al-Qaida, a quarter at a time

    Eugene Jarvis, legendary creator of "Defender" and "Robotron," is still making computer games for arcades. But his new bad guys aren't aliens -- they're terrorists who want to crash a plane into the White House.
    By Mitch Borgeson March 2, 2004

  • Video game fame

    Long after Bo Jackson retired, the legend of Tecmo Bo lives on. For today's gamers, digital athletes are even realer than the real thing.
    By Jon Azpiri February 5, 2004

  • The gamer of Baghdad

    While missiles crashed around him, Zeyad struggled to keep Crash Bandicoot alive. Today, he continues to play, even as Baathist holdouts rage on and his frustrated countrymen demand a better future.
    By Wagner James Au January 20, 2004

  • Video gaming and its discontents

    Was 2003 the year of the great online multiplayer gaming flameout, or the year when a whole new approach to computer games finally gained real momentum?
    By Jane Pinckard December 23, 2003

  • Raking muck in "The Sims Online"

    What happens when a virtual newspaper covering virtual events runs afoul of a real corporation?
    By Farhad Manjoo December 12, 2003

  • Deathmatch, Julia Roberts-style

    America's most bankable female movie star confesses that she is a hardcore shoot-'em-up gamer. What does this mean?
    By Wagner James Au June 23, 2003

  • Ensign Crusher vs. the video-game Borg

    Former "Star Trek" star Wil Wheaton was the main attraction on G4, the fast-rising video-game TV network. Until he quit, embroiling the network in a 21st century "Quiz Show" scandal.
    By Bob Calhoun May 8, 2003

  • Lord of the Geeks

    Tolkien provided the blueprint for one generation of computer games after another. But have today's whizz-bang graphics brought us any closer to Middle Earth?
    By Andrew Leonard December 30, 2002

  • It's fun to kill guys wearing acid-wash and Members Only jackets!

    Grand Theft Auto: Vice City goes where no video game has gone before -- into the dark heart of the 1980s.
    By Wagner James Au November 11, 2002

  • Weapons of mass distraction

    A new breed of computer games is teaching today's teenagers how to wage, and win, the war against terror.
    By Wagner James Au October 4, 2002

  • Coming up next: Ambushed on "Donahue"!

    More dangerous than Grand Theft Auto 3 -- a defender of video games is given the trash talk-show treatment. Here's what he really wanted to say.
    By Henry Jenkins August 20, 2002

  • Age of Nvidia

    Keep the gamers happy, and the world is yours: How one 3-D graphics company shrugged off a recession and vanquished every foe.
    By Daniel Drew Turner May 15, 2002

  • Playing games with free speech

    A federal judge says computer games don't deserve First Amendment protection. His decision is wrong, stupid and dangerous.
    By Wagner James Au May 6, 2002

  • "The beauty contest"

    Bill Gates presides as Microsoft's WebTV and Xbox development teams duel for the honor of attacking Sony.
    By Dean Takahashi April 25, 2002

  • Inside the Xbox

    Sales have been disappointing, and the co-creator of Microsoft's game console just quit his job -- a day before a book portraying him as a hero hit the bookstores.
    By Dennis McCauley April 25, 2002
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