Said to feature more quests than ever, the anticipated sequel will stick to its roots by being "first and foremost a cooperative game."

Download Diablo III videos on FileShack.

Diablo III will feature old standards such as the quotable Deckard Cain, as well as a new version of Tristram and a fresh class dubbed the Witch Doctor. The jungle-born warrior will use ancient tribal magic to cast disease and mind control spells, in addition to utilizing pets such as locust swarms and mongrels.

Armor will now be class-specific, designed to provide each character a unique look. Classes themselves are more diverse, as it was noted that there will be female versions of both the Barbarian and Witch Doctor.

In a demo of the Barbarian class, the company noted that less of an emphasis will be placed on potions for health. Instead, red orb-like

The fix essentially tricks the Wii into thinking that the modified Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess save is a normal one. One diligent code digger found the newly-added functions which specifically checked for a "corrupt" Twilight Princess save file and then deleted it, and a group then worked to create the new fix, which takes advantage of some openings in the new firmware.

While the solution may only be a band-aid until Nintendo rectifies its error, the homebrew community continues to impress. It seems like there's little that companies can do to ward off those who want to use their consoles for more than what comes out of the box. I wonder who will be the first to say "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

"I needed to just play a game for a little while, " he told me during a late night call earlier this week. "I got stuck in Metal Gear Solid and it was so frustrating playing it over and over again."

At 70, my dad isn't probably the typical Metal Gear Solid gamer, probably not even the typical gamer. But after watching me play through chunks of Grand Theft Auto shortly after its release he vowed to pick up the Playstation 3. Why the PS3? Because the original Xbox, now a magnet for dust in his house, got a chance and it was the Playstation's turn, he told me.

So on launch day my dad made his way to the only GameStop in Moultrie, Georgia, a town of pecan trees, tobacco warehouses and business-stopping high school football games. He got there before opening and stood in a line of one just to pick up the PS3 Metal Gear bundle.

After the set-up, the tweaking, the firmware updates, he settled down to play some Metal Gear Solid 4, his first experience with the franchise. I didn't hear from hi

On its top-10 industry-facts list, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) states that the average age of gamers today is 33 years old and that they have been playing videogames for 12 years now. As such, one would surmise that the majority of today's gamers already have, or are starting, families of their own, and that their deeply rooted pastime will be introduced to their children at some point or other. Meanwhile, everywhere you look, politicians and others seem to accuse games of having a horrible influence on people -- especially children. But can videogames really and truly be a positive influence in a family setting?

I'm here to tell you that the answer to that question is an emphatic yes! How do I know? Well, let me explain.... The nickname I gave to my 12-year-old stepdaughter, Kaela, several years ago was "K.K. Slider." I gave that name to her because of her fascination with the cool, guitar-playing canine character of the same name from Nintendo's Animal Crossing games. It started out as a silly joke, but she liked it, and it stuck.

Kaela and I shared a love of videogames, and she was about as hardcore a gamer as a tween girl could be. She was always pla

Grand Theft Auto IV continued to rumble past the competition racking up 1.3 million sales between the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 in May, according to new figures from NPD. The game has sold 4.2 million units in the U.S. since its launch at the end of April, making it the top-selling game this year.

Rockstar

So far the game, though, doesn't appear to be pushing hardware sales for the Xbox 360 or PS3. While the Nintendo Wii led the console race again with with 675,100 units, the PlayStation 3 mustered only 208,700 units while the Xbox 360 sold a little less at 186,600.

Anita Frazier of the NPD Group said there's still hope for a hardware push in June with Father's Day and graduation gifts.

Overall, the video game market in May grew 37 percent to $1.12 billion over the same month last year. The industry has tallied $6.6 billion in sales so far this year and is on pace to hit record revenues of $21 to $23 billion by year's end.

The Nintendo DS maintained its strong sales in May, racking up 452,600 units more than double the 182,300 for the PlayStation Portable.

Back to video game titles, GTA IV sold almost 2-1 on the Xbox 360, which is understandable considering the larger install b

The Japanese have always had a skewed take on all things Western -- though, to be fair, America's seen its share of cultural bastardization. A major difference, however, is that our ignorant appropriations are far less adorable and just a bit icky; after all, we're the ones who came up with hateful caricatures like Long Duk Dong of Sixteen Candles fame and John Belushi swinging a samurai sword while screaming like he was perpetually passing kidney stones. But when the Japanese try their hand at something non-Japanese and fail, it's more of a "Well, shucks; those little sluggers tried their hardest" kind of thing. Even so, it's hard to avoid a unique feeling of disappointment when you stop to think that, maybe, if they'd taken a minute to ask a few well-meaning non-Japanese jerks about the authenticity of their creative properties, Japanese videogame companies -- famous for their unabashed attempts at cosmopolitanism -- wouldn't suffer such a high rate of crippling embarrassment. This is where we come in. Spoilers ahoy, of course.

A victim of a Japanese-to-English dictionary and a three-minute brainstorming process, Genis Sage is -- y

Every Saturday, Cracked asks one of our favorite writers to fill in for us. Our readers get to learn about an awesome site, and we get to take a day off to pursue our career goal of finding a big bag of money. This week Cracked contributor Robert Brockway brings you a column from his honestly titled site I Fight Robots.

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Like almost every other being on this planet with functional eyes and opposable thumbs, I've spent the last month playing Grand Theft Auto IV and neglecting my loved ones.

It is shit.

It's repetitive, poorly implemented, riddled with design flaws, awkward, and above all, glitchy. Yet I understand every word of gushing praise. Everything the reviewers say about the city and its scale is absolutely true.

It's the little things that do it to you: Like how the fast food workers at the various restaurants actually have different duties. They come out from behind the counter and clean the tables. They sweep the sidewalks out front and wash the windows. Cars actually break

Back when computer-gaming magazines had pages, they were filled with advertisements for the next big MMO. A quick look at release lists for the coming year reveals nearly a dozen upcoming titles that fit the bill: Huxley, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Warhammer Online, Jumpgate: Evolution, Mythos, Champions Online, The Agency, even Hello Kitty Online. Each represents the birth of a world where something new and never-before seen will emerge. Whether brilliant and creative or ridiculous and deeply flawed, each will be, in its own way, a miracle of creation.

But not every one of these new worlds can survive. The ecosystem supporting our online worlds is not infinite. There is only so much money, only so many gamers to fill these worlds, and only so much time they can commit to these experiences.

Rand Miller has had better days. On April 10, what may be the final incarnation of the 12 million copies-sold Myst franchise turned off the lights. In Myst Online: Uru Live, the MMO version of the explore-and-discover series, players puttered around continuously revealed worldlets created by developer Cyan Worlds, solving puzzles, uncove

What I heard about print reviews for “Metal Gear Solid 4” was different.

I’ve been told by two gaming media sources who asked to remain anonymous that Konami representatives had been asking print reviewers to keep some technical details out of their reviews, namely the length of the game’s cut-scenes and the size of the game’s installation on the PlayStation 3.

Such details wouldn’t have been plot spoilers, but perhaps the publisher was concerned that they would be viewed as negatives?

Konami representatives declined to comment to me about any of this, as did editors of a few major video game magazines.

A couple of weeks ago, gaming blog Kotaku posted back-to-back links about the two supposedly off-limits topics. The size of the game’s installation was spotted on the “MGS4″ box. The other was a disputed report abo