The first full day I spent actually playing games on the Origin PC EON17-S gaming laptop was a day filled with the wonders of 3D PC gaming, NVIDIA 3D Vision glasses only leaving my face during brief trips to see my newborn sons at the other end of the hospital.

I hadn't planned on spending several days in Georgia's Kennestone Hospital alternating between bouts of PC gaming and marveling at the wonder of the two tiny new lives I helped create. My original plan was much more brilliant.

See, I had recently been the victim of a robbery, leaving me without a laptop computer, a tool essential to covering last month's E3 Expo in Los Angeles. I caught wind of Origin's EON17-S, a state-of-the-art gaming laptop equipped with a 1920x1080 3D-capable display. Four days before I was to fly out for the show, the EON17-S arrived. The next day I discovered I wasn't going to E3 due to a pair of tiny people that had been hiding in my fiancée's uterus for quite some time.

I'll never forget the delivery date. The panting, the pushing, the wheezing. Hunched over and sweating profusely the UPS delivery man lugged the wooden crate to my door. Yes, just like the gaming PC our own Brian Crecente purchased for himself last year, the EON17-S arrived packed inside a rugged wooden container, impervious to both harm and game journalists, at least until they found their power screwdriver.

The machine itself is a majestic beast, an unforgiving black monolith that had me humming music from 2001: A Space Odyssey as I freed it from its packaging. There is no glowing nEON, no sculpted surfaces; simply a brushed black finish with smooth beveled edges and the Origin logo in silver across the top (optional painting is available). At 16 by 11 by 2 inches and weighing nearly nine pounds with battery, this is not a system you casually lay out on the table at the local coffee shop to check Facebook. This laptop establishes a base camp and dares anyone passing by to comment on the fact that you've been taking up one of the comfy chairs at Starbucks all day after only ordering a regular tall coffee, and if they do comment, you can beat them with it.

Once freed from its packaging, it was time to play.

Well, it was time enough to load up a copy of The Witcher 2, patch the living hell out of it, and ensure it would start. Then I found out I was becoming a father the next week. Between that and handling home base duties for the first few days of E3, I was rather busy.

To my credit, I didn't fire up the EON17-S again until at least four hours after my children became outside pets. Archer Daniel Fahey and Seamus Christopher Fahey were born around 10:30PM on June 9. At 1:00AM on June 10 their mother sent me home to fetch a few things for her hospital stay. One of those things happened to be the EON.

That first sleepless night was spent going over details of the birth with my fiancée as I familiarized myself with the EON's form and function. My fingers played over the keyboard, a solid bank of flat plastic buttons rising from the flat surface as is the fashion for today's laptops. I fiddled about on the internet, the Killer Wireless-N gaming network card giving the hospital's ancient wireless network a sound thrashing. As sleep finally crept up I slipped a copy of the Kurt Russell classic Big Trouble in Little China into the laptop's Blu-ray player to help me along.

While it's an honor for any Blu-ray player to feature the adventures of Mr. Jack Burton, a $3,000 laptop powered by an Intel Core i7-2720QM processor, eight gigs of Kingston HyperX dual-channel memory, and a two gig NVIDIA GeForce GTX 485M graphics card wasn't built for playing John Carpenter movies. It was built for gaming, so the next day I got my game on.

I was a bit disappointed to discover that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings defaulted to low settings after running the auto-configuration utility, but then it is a bit of a resource hog, and this is a lower-end version of a laptop computer with available configurations reaching into the $9,000 range. It made even more sense when I took into account the fact that the laptop was running the game in 3D, essentially delivering two full images to the display at once.

The 3D version of the Origin EON17-S comes with built-in support for NVIDIA's 3D Vision, the same 3D technology I reviewed back in December 2009. The difference here is that the receiver from the PC version is integrated with the laptop; all the player needs is the 3D glasses and a USB cable to keep them nice and charged. It only took me a half-hour of searching for the receiver, bitching about it not being included, and avoiding reading the accompanying documentation to figure this out.

Somehow the 3D effect felt more natural on a laptop than it did on the PC I originally tested the tech on. I spent a good eight hours playing The Witcher 2 on the EON17-S, and aside from some discomfort from having to wear a pair of silly plastic glasses over my prescription pair, I found myself more comfortable with 3D gaming using this machine than I ever have before.

My days in Kennestone passed quickly, thanks to the EON17-S and The Witcher 2, Red Faction: Armageddon, and an abortive attempt to play World of Warcraft on the ridiculously feeble internet connection. The EON and the NVIDIA glasses (and I suppose my future wife) were my constant companions, providing the sort of gaming experience my desktop only wishes it could deliver. My children were in for an extended stay at not one but two hospitals (one of the week tykes had to have a procedure performed across town), and with the prospect of spending the next few weeks driving back and forth across Atlanta day in and day out, having a powerful gaming laptop by my side was a definite bonus.

Through extended use I was able to ferret out a few of the system's more noticeable flaws. For instance, the sleek and sexy black keyboard becomes all but invisible when the 3D Vision glasses kick into play. Once I familiarized myself with the unit I didn't have to look as much, but the first few days I spent a lot of time librarian peeking over the rims to see what I was doing. Then there's the battery life. With as much juice as this monster pulls in, I was lucky to get more than an hour and a half before having to hunt for an outlet. Then again I don't expect any gaming laptop to give me hours upon hours of battery-powered World of Warcraft. That's just not how these things work.

I imagine the biggest drawback for many prospective laptop buyers is the price. This is a $3,000 laptop. I've never spent more than $1,000 on a PC in my life; I've never seen the point. I've been plodding along happily with my Best Buy purchased laptops, telling myself they are just as good as the big budget machines. The power, performance, and sturdy construction of the Origin EON17-S has made me realize how wrong I've been. It's worth every penny.

Let me try to put the price in perspective. The hospital bill for one of my children (pre-insurance) was nearly $12,000. That's nearly four EON17-S machines, or one fully tricked-out model and some snacks. I could have saved myself a lot of money and simply had one child and a gaming laptop. Unfortunately the hospital (and Emily's womb) has a strict no return policy, and I've grown quite fond of the little guys. Sure, they won't run The Witcher 2 in their current state, but that's nothing a few choice upgrades later on down the line can't fix.

Now both children are home and screaming healthily, and the EON17-S 3D laptop is ready to head back to its point of Origin. I'll miss the solid feel of its keys beneath my fingertips, the crisp glow of its glossy high-definition LED display, and the power Origin managed to pack into its modest frame. But most of all I'll miss the escape I found by slipping on a pair of stereo headphones, charging up the NVIDIA Vision glasses, and losing myself inside fantastic 3D worlds, for just a moment forgetting that there were a pair of screaming babies down the hall, eager for a chance to throw up all over their daddy.

You can buy the EON17-S at Origin PC's website. Configurations start at $1,647.

Origin is not getting this crate back. I'm going to build a fort.
With a little optional paint work, your laptop can look like the opening credits to an X-Men movie.

The EON17-S is just as sexy facing left...

...as it is facing right.

The keyboard wants you to touch it. Such soft, supple action. I may need a moment alone.

Simple, elegant, and potentially concussion-causing if applied forcefully to someone's skull.

Originally intended to be released as a flash game, Ronimo Games' 2D side scrolling joint Swords & Soldiers wound up hitting Nintendo's WiiWare service in 2009 as what many consider one of the best real-time strategy console games of all time. Now its Chinese, Viking, and Aztec warriors invade the iPhone and iPad, and they've never been more powerful.

Swords & Soldiers is a colorful cartoon-styled game that puts the player in the shoes of one of three different historical factions: the Vikings, the Aztecs, and the Imperial Chinese, one of which is still around today. Each faction has their own single player campaign, pitting the player against impossible odds with only their finger standing between the enemy hordes, total annihilation, and the power of the gods themselves.

That finger is a powerful tool, however. A single touch sets gold collectors in motion, slowly gathering the resources necessary to send powerful units into battle. Those units march relentlessly across the field towards the enemy, dancing a fine line between defense, offense, and suicide. It's up to the player to unlock skills and spells to help those soldiers stay alive. Casting healing spells with a touch of that omnipotent fingertip of theirs as fast as mana will allow.

This simplistic take on the RTS genre has been aped time and time again since the release of Swords & Soldiers and for good reason. It's a brilliant distillation of real-time strategy game concepts into a smaller, more digestible form. It might even act as a gateway drug for some players, urging them on the bigger and more complicated things. First the Aztecs triumph, then it's time for the Zerg rush.

Swords & Soldiers is available now on the iPhone and iPod Touch for $2.99, with an HD iPad version available for $4.99.

Swords & Soldiers [iTunes App Store]

Not Successful | TOKYO, JAPAN: At a press conference for Japan's Success Corp., nobody is thinking of the short people. Nobody. (Photo: Game Impress Watch)

The Manly Video Game Art of Ville-Valtteri Kinnunen Barbarians. Knights. Tribal warriors. All very manly men with their armour and swords and scowls, all very much a speciality of Finnish concept artist Ville-Valtteri Kinnunen.

Nintendo Might Send you Demos, Even if you Didn't Ask for Each One Since the dawn of time, game demos have been a largely proactive experience. You hear about them, and you have to go out and get them yourself. Nintendo might have a better idea.

The Gap Between Game and Movie Violence The House of Blue Leaves fight scene in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 is one of the most gruesome scenes in the entire picture. When it was released in the U.S., the scene was in black and white to tone down violence. When it was released in Japan, the scene was in living color featuring shots cut from the American release, under the assumption that Japanese audiences and censors could handle it.

Is This Where Gears of War 3 Was Leaked From? Months ahead of its release, Epic's Gears of War 3 has been leaked onto the internet, a security breach so severe law enforcement has gotten involved. Maybe, though, the cops won't be needed.

Remembering the Great, Last Ninja Today, we're looking at The Last Ninja. The first "badass" game I ever played, and still one of my all-time favourites.

Erotic puzzle-platform Catherine has stunning art, worthy of a book. Good, because that's exactly what the game its getting.

Catherine Visual & Scenario Collection ♀VENUS☆MODE♂ is 160 color pages of all art, game dialogue, and scenario.

Featuring a treasure trove of unreleased concept art and images, the book will be out on August 10 in Japan. Price is TBA.

Check out sample images in the link below.

『キャサリン ビジュアル＆シナリオコレクション ♀VENUS☆MODE♂』 [電撃]

Six percent of the population is color blind. And some of those folks play video games. Like Black Ops, Modern Warefare 3 will offer a Color Blind Assist option, thus leveling the playing field for multiplayer. [Sledgehammer Gamers via Dtoid]

To celebrate 15 years of Resident Evil, Capcom is releasing a special bundle. And as anniversary bundles go, it's solid.

The Resident Evil 15th Anniversary Box comes with a copy of Resident Evil: Director's Cut for the PlayStation, Resident Evil 2 for the PlayStation, Resident Evil 3: Last Escape for the PlayStation, Resident Evil: Revival Selection for the PlayStation 3 (it's an HD remastering of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Code: Veronica Director's Cut), the Resident Evil Code: Veronica soundtrack, the Resident Evil 4 soundtrack, S.T.A.R.S. and Umbrella Corporation 15th anniversary stickers and pins, and a "spacer" for Resident Evil 5 or Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition. I assume the "spacer", as Capcom calls it, is a divider of sorts.

All this for ¥7,800 (US$96). In yen, that's reasonably priced; it seems higher in dollars, because American money isn't worth much these days! The limited edition bundle will be available through Capcom's online shop starting September 8.

カプコンオフィシャルショップ [イーカプコン via ゲーム情報！ゲームのはなし]

Hideo Kojima is making a Snatcher inspired radio drama called Suda51's Sdatcher. It will be overseen by Kojima, written by Goichi Suda (No More Heroes) and scored by Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill). That's...neat?

Influenced by Blade Runner, cyberpunk adventure game Snatcher was originally released in 1988.

Originally called "Project S", the radio drama idea was first revealed at an event for Suda's studio Grasshopper Manufacture. Four years ago. In 2007.

If it's taken them this long to do a radio drama, imagine how long it would take them to do a Snatcher game!

【速報】"SUDA51'S SDATCHER（スダッチャー）"が発表に！ [ファミ通.com]

Barbarians. Knights. Tribal warriors. All very manly men with their armour and swords and scowls, all very much a speciality of Finnish concept artist Ville-Valtteri Kinnunen.

Now employed at BioWare, Kinnunen has worked on games like Dragon Age 2, Age of Conan and the criminally under-appreciated Warhammer 40K: Squad Command.

Working on a Conan property must be an artist's dream come true. I mean, I know there are some conventions to stick to, but a pre-historic setting seems to bring out the best in designers, more so than a straight-up fantasy universe ever does.

To see the larger pics in all their glory, either click the "expand" icon on the gallery screen or right click and "open link in new tab".

Making video games is an incredibly lengthy, detailed and technical process. It would be impossible to visualise all the code that goes into one without being some kind of omnipotent being. Unless you're watching this video.

Put together by LittleBigPlanet developers Media Molecule, this is a "code swarm", a graphical representation of the work of the game's programmers, artists and designers.

And it shows the creation and finalisation of LittleBigPlanet 2.

Every little sackboy you see floating around on the screen is a Media Molecule staffer. And all the points of light around them are files created or edited by each person during the process of developing the game. All the moving around is the result of the developers sending and editing each other's work.

You'll also see files come and go as they're created and deleted.

Amazing, no?

The high-def remakes of Lucasarts' first two Monkey Island games are being combined in the one box and sold at retail. Included as a sweetener will be concept art, soundtracks and, best of all, material from an abortive attempt at making a Monkey Island animated movie.