Minecraft Update Brings Weather, Achievements

Markus “Notch” Persson’s breakout indie hit (hint: it’s made more than $33 million in revenue) Minecraft recently received an update, version 1.5, bringing with it weather effects, achievements, and mine cart boosters....  read more

Start Press: A Whore No More

You’ve gotta give Microsoft credit. Their invention of the Xbox Live system of achievement points and gamerscore was a stroke of mega genius. It lifted a playbook page from the videogame medium itself—the compulsive quest for nudging high scores ever higher—and applied it to the larger experience of gaming. How do you boost your gamerscore? Simple: play more games (or, put a different way, buy more games). But not just any games—only Xbox 360 games will do the trick. Also, for gamers who have both an Xbox 360 and a PlayStation 3 in their living room, which console do you...  read more