Digital City Podcast

New MacBook day in the CNET Labs.

Episode 36 of the Digital City, where Dan reports back from the E3 video game trade show, we check out the new MacBook laptops, and Joey jumps on the Palm Pre bandwagon.

Note that there are two versions of the show available now, the traditional audio stream, and our exciting, new video version -- check out both below.

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Unboxing: It's New MacBook Day

Episode 34 of the Digital City, where we discuss our predictions for the E3 video game trade show. Note that there are two versions of the show available now, the traditional audio stream, and our exciting, new video version -- check out both below.

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Photos: E3's Wackiest Moments

Episode 33 of the Digital City, where we discuss Facebook's and Twitter's exploding traffic, Intel's billion-dollar fine, and some good and bad news for the video game industry. There are two versions of the show available now, the traditional audio stream, and our exciting, new video version -- check out both below.

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Probably doesn't own a Wii.

In a bizarre aside shoehorned into his most recent column, conservative writer (and self-professed baseball fanatic) George Will takes a swipe at video-game-playing adults.

Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote.

The actual thrust of the column is about a much more serious threat to the fiber (no pun intended) of our country -- people wearing jeans. He calls it "the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche."

The latest demographic data on gamers is always readily available from the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group for the video game industry.

The group's latest stats show that only 25-percent of gamers are under 18, and that the average gamer is 35 years old and has been playing for 13 years.

Here it is. It's the latest trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum. The trailer is set to air Thursday night on MTV, but fortunately for us, Stephen Totilo, from MTV's Multiplayer, decided to post it early for everyone to drool over.

Eidos and developer Rocksteady Studios set expectations very high when the first trailer for "Batman: Arkham Asylum" debuted in November. The setting of Arkham Asylum combined with the dark tone of the story seemed to embody the feel of Batman's universe.

With Emmy Award-winning "Batman: The Animated Series" producer Paul Dini writing the game's story, and the voice-over stars Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their roles as Batman and the Joker from the series, respectively, all signs continue to indicate that "Batman: Arkham Asylum" is a game that Batman fans have been waiting a long, long time for.

This particular trailer starts off with a great Joker narration (voiced by Mark Hamill). Adding to Joker's dialogue is a focus on Batman's so-called Invisible Predator stealth combat techniques. After viewing the video, check out some of the screenshots of the game below.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

(Source: Joystiq via MTV Multiplayer)

The March 13 release of Capcom's Resident Evil 5 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (actually something like the 12th game in the series) makes it easily the highest-profile new video game of 2009 so far, and marks the end of the typically dry post-holiday game season.

We've been playing through a preview version of the game for more than a month now, and found it to be a largely successful mix of familiar and new elements. Like all the Resident Evil entries, this is essentially an action game where a somewhat generic protagonist has to travel through creepy houses, compounds, cities, or secret bases, shooting zombies, madmen, and other monsters along the way.

Two key elements separate games of this genre (the awkward Japanese translation is "survival horror") from straight-up shooters. First, there are occasional brain-twisters to solve, such as deciphering a puzzle to open a door; secondly, ammunition for one's firearms is relatively scarce, so making every shot count is important. However, RE5, like its immediate predecessor, Resident Evil 4, tones down both of these gameplay factors, at least compared with earlier games in the series, opting for a more fast-paced (some would say mainstream) approach.

What distinguishes RE5 from its forbearers and imitators is a change of scenery, moving the action to Africa, and trading the traditional Resident Evil look--dark, shadowy nighttime tableaus--for brightly lit, outdoor villages, where sunlight offers no guarantee of safety. This change throws a wrench in the classic "fear of the dark" instinct that we automatically fall back on in movies, video games, and real life.

(Credit: iD Software)

Set the wayback machine for 1999/2000, and you'll find a lot of Gen-X office workers doing the same thing I was back then--wasting hour upon hour of company time playing "Quake III" (or "Unreal Tournament II") with my office mates. (At least in my case, there were extenuating circumstances: I was covering the video game beat at pop-culture Web site UGO.com at the time).

In the years since then, first-person shooters have come to require the kind of dedicated hardware that virtually no office workers have, effectively eliminating the daily fragfest that was so common during the original dot-com boom. Instead, browser-based casual games such as "Puzzle Quest" and "Peggle" have taken over as workplace time killers (and have built a huge new market in the process).

In an effort to bridge the gap between "casual" and "serious" gaming, the company behind "Quake" (and "Doom" before that), Id Software, is readying a revamp of the classic "Quake III" experience, called "Quake Live." Id just completed an invite-only closed beta round test for "Quake Live" and is set to open its servers to a broader public beta test for the game, starting Tuesday.

In the intervening years, PCs have gotten fast enough, and broadband connections common enough, that the game can be cast as a browser-based experience, played by visiting Quakelive.com and signing up for a free account. With its forgiving hardware requirements and pick-up-and-play style, it seems made for laptops and low-power office PCs.

(Credit: Id Software)

Having played several rounds of the beta version of "Quake Live," we can say the ad-supported game is a fairly faithful adaptation of "Quake III," at least as far as our decade-old memories serve, and has all the classic maps from the game, including our favorite, The Longest Yard (set on a series of floating platforms).

The feel is definitely retro, with none of the strategic elements, such as cover fire or stealth, that have defined the last few generations of shooters. Instead the action is fast-paced and kinetic, with players running around at breakneck speeds, bunny-hopping along the way to avoid getting shot.

The Lost gang displays a clear disregard for local helmet laws.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

We've spent the better part of the Presidents' Day weekend playing through The Lost and Damned, the first episodic downloadable content for Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV. With all three major living room game consoles now more or less permanently hooked up to broadband Internet connections, it makes perfect sense that game companies would want to bypass the heavy fixed costs of pressing discs, putting them on trucks, and stocking them in retail stores, in favor of selling downloadable content directly to the end user.

While the concept isn't new (there are hundreds of mission packs, add-ons, and even full games available from the PlayStation Network store, Xbox Live, and Nintendo's Virtual Console store), this $20 game-within-a-game is easily the most high-profile attempt at mainstreaming downloadable episodic video game content to date.

Instead of adding new locations or extending the original game's storyline, this new content package uses the existing maps and assets from GTAIV to tell a new story, with new characters. This time, a biker gang called The Lost gets involved with all sorts of GTA-like mischief, from feuding with rival gangs to dangerous in-fighting between the members.

Despite new faces and voiceovers, and a handful of new vehicles, weapons, and music, it still looks and plays pretty much like Grand Theft Auto IV, with a handful of tweaks. The motorcycles, which are your primary form of transport, have gotten a nice revamp, making them much easier to control. A major gripe from the original game--the lack of in-mission checkpoints--has at least been partially addressed. This time, if you fail a mission, you can restart right before the action kicks off, instead of having to drag yourself through all the exposition and driving it took to set up that part of the story.

The new game revisits many of GTAIV's key locations (and you're free to roam wherever you want between missions), and familiar characters such as Niko Bellic drop in for cameo appearances. Our main complaint is that behind the new faces and names, there's little that feels different from the original GTAIV campaign. If anything, the highly telegraphed storyline and Sopranos-like dialogue of the biker gang actually seems like a step back from Niko Bellic's relatively subtle (by comparison) story arc.

While one could easily spend 40 or more hours playing through Grand Theft Auto IV, the Lost and Damned expansion should take about 10 to 15 hours to play through, which is still longer than many full-priced retail games.

The Lost and Damned is available for the Xbox 360, starting February 17 for 1,600 Microsoft Points (or about $20). A copy of Grand Theft Auto IV is required to play.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned

It may not beat the frozen Skate steaks we got a couple of weeks ago, but today's daily dose of video game swag comes courtesy of Personal Trainer: Cooking, an upcoming title for the handheld Nintendo DS game console.

The game seems to be more of an interactive cookbook, leading you through 245 recipes with an onscreen guide, and using the DS' built-in mic for navigation if your hands are tied up with, you know, cooking stuff.

Packaged in a clearly Valentine-themed red cardboard box, we found a press release and a heart-shaped box--the kind typically used to hold V-Day chocolates. Inside, surprisingly, were chocolates in the shape of common kitchen utensils (or so we're told), including a spatula and a muffin tin.

'Personal Trainer: Cooking' for DS sends us chocolate kitchen utensils