If you thought Darius Burst's transition from PSP game to old-school super widescreen arcade cabinet was an odd choice, Sega's arcade return to old school might blow your mind. That is if you've ever heard of Pengo before.

Of all the arcade properties to revisit, Pengo is perhaps the least expected. The arcade game, released by Sega in 1982 and later ported to gobs of other platforms, is getting an 8 player competitive update for a Japanese arcade release. Play as an ice block-pushing penguin, crush enemies and outscore your opponents to win.

Graphically, it looks identical to the Z80-based arcade original that ran at a blistering 3 MHz. It's running on Sega's new Ringwide system and will likely see limited release outside of Japan.

Pengo Returns to Arcades with 8 Player Combat [Andriasang]

Do you love computer adventure games? You know, Zork, Planetfall, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or anything that falls under the "interactive fiction" description or bears the Infocom label. Then get Get Lamp, a long-in-the-making documentary.

Jason Scott, who you may know from his BBS documentary, has been slaving away on this thing since 2005, interviewing adventure game luminaries and lovers of interactive fiction from Steve Meretzky to John Romero to others that only the most hardcore text adventure fan will know. I highly doubt you'll see a more interesting documentary about the meeting of computer games and literature this year, or maybe even ever.

Get Lamp: A Documentary About Adventures in Text spans two DVDs worth of "second person thinker" game history. It comes with a fancy commemorative coin and is 100% spoiler-free.

Get Lamp [Official Site]

The Cincinnati Bengals receiver scoured the used bin at his local GameStop today. I'll never again doubt his gamer bonafides. Seen via Twitter.

To: Ashcraft
From: Totilo
Re: TWO WEEKS, I HAVE MADE IT!!

Today was the day I was wondering if the PC Gaming Alliance had lost, been zapped by whatever Death Star they are fighting. Today was the day I wondered if the Games for Windows team are a bunch of sadists. Today was the day I was reminded that to visit the shores of high-end PC gaming is to step on the sea urchins of possible graphics-card incompatibility and to sweat under the sun of not knowing if, maybe, it's the drivers that are the problem?

My experience trying to get some new games to run well on my Windows gaming laptop today made me feel like the guy with the busted engine, pulled over to the left of the passing lane, the engine dead for who knows what reason. I guess PC gaming also made me think in metaphors today. At least that's a perk!

I despise the confusion of PC gaming and the need to constantly keep up with it in order to understand it. Earlier today, StarCraft II didn't recognize my graphics card. Really, StarCraft II?

My Nvidia GeForce 9800 appears to be well beyond the minimum spec for that game. It didn't recognize it, so it asked me to guess which settings would be best for running the game. My graphics card and my entire Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2.26Ghz, 4GB Ram laptop is two years old, and I haven't played a high-end PC game all the way through on it since Spore of two Septembers ago. I ran a little bit of Dragon Age on it without trouble last year, I think, but today I learned my drivers are two years out of date. Was it easy to get new ones? Only after I downloaded the wrong Nvidia updater (nope, I don't want the 9800 updater, but the 9800 mobile updater) — and after I downloaded the wrong one a second time (nope, I'm on 64-bit Windows Vista, not 32-bit).

Thanks to another high-end PC game I was trying to run, I also thought today that I needed to upgrade to DirectX 11. Nope, DirectX 10 would be fine. The good people of Twitter even helped me find the right program to ensure my DirectX 10 was up to date (I had to download two programs to update it and confirm that it was okay). These Twitter people made more sense than the results of the various searches I made today in Google. Thank you, Twitter!

I'm sure it is a sign of how powerful and manually-directed PC gaming is, but why today did I have to run a program called DXdiag to see what's going on in my PC, and why did it not make any sense? What was the point of Windows reacting to a crash in a new game I was trying to run by telling me: "Fault Module Name:d3dx9_42.dll" and not offering a solution?

To the people who make PC games and systems, I ask... why is this stuff not automated? Why does my hardware not keep itself up to date? Are there really that many variables in PC gaming set-ups that no computer can determine what it needs to run and then fetch that stuff from the Internet? If my computer can run Crysis, why can't it do that? If iTunes can update itself, why not Direct X?

I love playing independent games on my PC. Every year I play dozens of them as I judge them for the Independent Games Festival. I would be thrilled to play more games on this laptop of mine. But the confusion and stress I had of getting Sim Tower or Apache whatever-it-was-called to run on my 486 way back when I was a teenager is just as severe when I try to run new games on my computer today. Where's the improvement?

Ash, this is a long way of saying that if you want to make Mrs. Bashcraft's day, update her drivers.

What You May Have Missed
LittleBigPlanet Does Limbo
StarCraft II Takes A Shot At Apple
Forget Limbo, LittleBigPlanet 2 Might Be Able To Do Shadow Complex (And More)
Chinatown Arcade, An Unlikely Place For Tolerance
Madden NFL Doritos Impressions: Saltier. Cheesier. Orange-ier.

The creator of Half-Life, Team Fortress and Portal has a plan to increase the number of Mac games that are available through its digital distribution service, Steam. Valve plans on giving away* "some" of its Mac-specific game code to developers.

*The only real catch here is that Valve will be helping out those game creators who also sign on for Steamworks integration, the company's social networking, matchmaking and dev tools software.

The gratis graphics code that Valve plans on sharing with other is, Valve's Jason Holtman tells GamesIndustry.biz, "the real hard work in a making a Mac version."

Valve began shipping Mac OS X versions of its games in May, with Portal, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat now available for Apple hardware.

Valve to release Mac graphics code to developers [GamesIndustry.biz]

Madden NFL 11 strives to make your football video game experience "simpler, quicker, deeper." Not sure what dedicated Dorito support can add to this - maybe "more stoned?" - but two flavors "inspired" by the game have hit store shelves.

As the clear market leader with an exclusive license, Frito-Lay is dogged by knee-jerk consumer criticism that it has no incentive to innovate and simply releases a $3.99 ingredient update each year. Plus everyone knows Tim's Cascade Style Steak & Onion Potato Chips got like a 107 on Metacritic before it was discontinued.

The fact remains, this is the only EA Sports-licensed snack chip available, and by virtue of that it's guaranteed to sell every year. Does that still mean it's worth your money? Or should you just wait and pick up a used bag two months from now at GameStop?

Hated

(Secretly Loved)
Stadium Nacho: I was intrigued by what Frito-Lay intended to do with this because Doritos already has a nacho flavor - the good old red bag you've been cramming your hand into for the past 46 years. Give the devil his due, Stadium Nacho does capture that weird creaminess of cheese sludge that looks like it was melted down from about 24 pairs of polyester slacks. The watery jalapeno notes also are spot-on in their disinterested lack of heat. Plus, the whole thing's already on a corn chip, albeit more crisp than those final flaccid wedges buried under the orange goo. If this isn't snack foods' first virtuoso recreation of an actual dish, it's one of a few, but it's not like Frito-Lay was shooting for the sautéed sea bass at Chez Panisse. Rating: Orange.

Tailgater BBQ: Kansas City fans barbecue beef; Carolina fans barbecue pork. Many others just grill hot dogs or hamburgers. This chip flavor is so generic it invokes really the only thing that 32 tailgates have in common, which is a charcoal briquette and tailpipe exhaust. There's plenty of smoke that's vaguely mesquitelike, hustled by an evasive sweetness carrying notes either of honey or the backwash from a Smirnoff Ice. That, or they just took a sheet of corn and spray-insulated it with the flavor dust from barbecue Ruffles. Rating: Unleaded.

Not many know this but at the nadir of one of my many periods of unemployment I interviewed for a PR gig with Pepsico, the folks who run the Frito factory. It was more awkward than a blind date with your Sunday School teacher. But I got some free chips and the "good for you/better for you/fun for you," breakdown of how they position snacks.

These Madden chips are definitely in the latter but the fun wears off before it begins. You're looking at 23 percent of your daily fat intake in a 2.125-ounce bag. Ouch. And you know how it is with any food item within reach of a gamer - Doritos, popcorn, chicken cordon bleu, it's all getting mindlessly inhaled. So the smaller configurations are advisable.

The big inducement here is a nine-digit code printed on the bag to redeem exclusive cards for Madden Ultimate team, which is included free in Madden NFL 11. You also get a $3 discount coupon to buy the game through the EA Store. So there's that. But as is the case with all gaming-themed foodstuffs, these don't rise above the regret of eating the whole thing.

Doritos Stadium Nacho Inspired By EA Sports Madden NFL 11 and Doritos Tailgater BBQ Inspired By EA Sports Madden NFL 11 were developed by Frito-Lay and distributed by a nice man who drives a colorful truck. Retails for between $3.99 and $0.99 USD. Bags of the snacks were found in a box shipped to us Friday by EA Sports. A police report has been filed. Ate both modes but did not complete the singleplayer career.

Confused by this review? Join the club.

How did developer Realtime Worlds go from creating violent free-roaming shooters like APB and Crackdown to working on the massive social gaming undertaking Project: MyWorld? They don't. It was the other way around.

Realtime Worlds' debut of the ambitious Project: MyWorld on Wednesday took a lot of people by surprise. Known for violent shooting games like APB and the original Crackdown, the concept of a project that seeks to recreate the entire planet as a virtual playground for social networking and social gaming seems slightly odd.

Project: MyWorld design director Sean Dugan explains how Project: MyWorld came about.

Realtime Worlds was founded with the dream of someday delivering on the promise that Project: MyWorld represents. Along the way, separate teams were created to make Crackdown and APB with technologies developed on Project: MyWorld. But while the Crackdown and APB teams worked in the broad light of day, the Project: MyWorld team of developers churned away as a top-secret skunkworks project for years.

So while on the surface APB and Crackdown are very different animals than Project: MyWorld, deep down inside they're all the same.

What Crackdown, APB and Project: MyWorld all do is they create a vast open world and put power into the hands of the player. They allow players to be creative within the boundaries of the game and discover interesting interactions.

Is Realtime Worlds totally schizophrenic? [Project: MyWorld]

We haven't had a year without an Insomniac Games-developed release since 2001, but this year is looking to be both Resistance and Ratchet & Clank-free. At least we have an Insomniac Games announcement to look forward to very soon.

The developer says it will be announcing its next game "sometime between now and the Penny-Arcade Expo over Labor Day weekend." That's good news for fans of the studio behind the Resistance and Ratchet & Clank series, but much better news for anyone going to PAX 2010.

"We're bringing our new game to a very special Penny-Arcade Expo panel on Saturday evening (September 4th), at 6:30pm in the Serpent Theatre," the developer writes. "G4TV's Adam Sessler will moderate a panel with key creative talent from Insomniac Games as we discuss (and demo!) our upcoming PlayStation 3 project."

Could that PlayStation 3 project be Resistance 3, as possibly outed by (of all things) a billboard spotted during the filming of Columbia Pictures' Battle: Los Angeles? Seems like a safe bet.

Insomniac Games is also working on a new franchise set in an all-new universe, one set to be published by EA Partners on multiple platforms. With multiple teams plugging away on multiple projects, Insomniac's dry spell appears to be almost over.

Previously unlockable only by having older game saves on your console's hard drive, a generous Capcom has divulged the secret to unlocking Dead Rising's Frank West and Resident Evil's Albert Wesker to Lost Planet 2, game save-free.

Perhaps Lost Planet 2 didn't live up to sales expectations because it required game saves from Resident Evil 5 and either Dead Rising or the original Lost Planet in order to unlock Albert Wesker and Frank West. Capcom fixes that issue by divulging the process to follow in order to unlock the two popular characters without the older data.

All you need to do is press the 'Y' or 'triangle' buttons at the 'MY PAGE' or 'MY CHARACTER' screens, press 'X' or 'square' to open a password box, and then enter the following codes: 72962792 for Wesker, and 83561942 for Frank West.

BAM! Now you can use Wesker and West in online multiplayer, as well as the campaign, as long as you've beaten every episode already.

Capcom mentions that you can also use the two skins in the new Rush Arena Mode DLC, released yesterday.

Unlock Frank and Wesker for Lost Planet 2 [Capcom]

For 30 years Chinatown Fair Video Arcade has stood at 8 Mott Street in New York City's Chinatown, entertaining gamers. Despite its age, it also stands as an environment for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) youth to just be themselves.

While the world of gaming has labored to deal with the gay question, Chinatown Fair counts LGBT teens and adults among some of its most frequent and valued customers. People traverse from machine to machine, unmoved by even the most blatant public shows of affection. The politics of Street Fighter are deemed more pressing then those of society at large.

"It's a friendly environment," said Amir Santiago,18. Along with Gabriel Cortez, 17, and Pedro Villalta, 17, he frequents Chinatown Fair at least three times a week, often coming after all three finish school. Cortez and Villalta come to the arcade to play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) though it could look more like a practice routine. They both are capable of breezing through songs on the highest difficulty. Santiago admitted that he comes for the fighting games, in particular Tekken 6, but doesn't mind watching his friends play DDR. In between games, Cortez often sits on Santiago's lap. His boyfriend embraces him lovingly. "Teens feel safe to be openly gay here," Cortez later informed me. They're not the only ones to take liberty with the arcade's open environment. Queer and transgender gamers express themselves without inhibition, even during the arcades busiest hours.

"We get all sorts," said Derrick Rodder, 34. "We got dudes that go to raves. We got anime nerds, otaku, and we get professional players." He's been going to Chinatown Fair for 25 years and worked there for the last 10. Like all the other employees of Chinatown Fair, he's paid minimum wage, but his enthusiasm for the arcade hasn't faded. Chinatown Fair isn't flawless. "Sometimes there's drunk people [or an] occasional homeless person. Sometimes kids, you know, are kids. They get into fights, and you have to break it up — just life."

While New York City is a diverse metropolis eight million strong, it's also a profile of American popular opinion, prejudices and morals. Arcades scattered throughout the city are not immune to the delicacies of adolescent homophobia. For example, a gay gamer visiting the now-shuttered arcade in the Port Authority, in the middle of Manhattan, would have risked homophobic harassment from other customers. Coney Island, Brooklyn is still a scene of macho aggression and hatred towards out LGBT individuals. This homophobia seeps into its boardwalk arcade.

The arcade in Chinatown attracts people of all backgrounds, granted they're brave enough to enter a hole in the wall missing several letters off the front sign. Tourist groups occasionally shuffle in the front door, informed by their guide that Chinatown Fair is the oldest arcade in the City. "They're gonna go in," said Santiago. "They're gonna smell the sweat they're gonna see people playing and their gonna leave...It's not that you have to bring certain groups here, it's just you have to know what type of people are not gonna be annoyed or frustrated with the sweat, and the smell, and the heat" said Santiago.

A distinct smell hits you as you reach halfway in, at which point the hall makes a sharp 90 degree turn forming the shape of an "L." It's a mix of soggy socks, musk and puberty, but nothing that takes away from your enjoyment or general comfort that wasn't already shattered by the trash-ridden streets of Chinatown. "If you bring people that are use to arcades being perfect, clean, nice, and fresh they'll just go ewww and then walk out" said Santiago.
Today most arcades in the city are side attractions to batting cages, restaurants or in Coney Islands case an amusement park. "They sell alcohol around Coney Island [arcade]," said Villalta, one of Chinatown Fair's gay patrons. "So people get a little out of their minds and decide to, like, you know, mock you or laugh at you or just jeer you basically. So the environment in here is just more relaxed. Everyone is doing their own thing."