The James Logan Courier

By Rob Watson
The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT)

The other day, I was reading this Newsweek online article called "The Coming Energy Wars" by Rana Foroohar. It was a very stark picture of what the world would look like if oil hit $200 a barrel — pretty scary. Nations would be forced to pull away from the global economy, many legendary companies, carmakers in particular, would go belly-up, and of course, the violence that would arise from such an economic hit would be hard to contain.

This is the stuff of video game plots, including recent games such as "Frontlines: Fuel of War" and Tom Clancy's forthcoming "Endwar."

The question is, how will all of this real-life strife over resources affect the game industry?

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)



Someone sure enjoyed "Hulk: Ultimate Destruction" when it released three years ago. That someone's name? Edge of Reality, which delivers a product that, depending on your level of cynicism, either pays major homage to "Destruction" or rips it off wholesale.

In fairness, at this point, "The Incredible Hulk's" design seems inevitable with or without "Destruction's" influence. Open-world superhero games are as increasingly commonplace as the technology that makes them possible, and the only satisfactory way to demonstrate the full might of Hulk's might is to set him loose in New York City, to which "Hulk" hands you the keys. No one could fault Edge of Reality for taking "Destruction's" playbook as long as it improved on it in some fashion.

From wikipedia:
Memphis Minnie McCoy-Lawler (born Lizzie Douglas, June 3, 1897 in Algiers, Louisiana; died August 6, 1973 in Memphis, Tennessee) was an American Blues guitarist, vocalist, and composer.

Born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana, Minnie was one of the most influential and pioneering female blues musicians and guitarists of all time. She recorded for forty years, almost unheard of for any woman in show business at the time, and possibly unique among female blues artists. A flamboyant character who wore bracelets made of silver dollars, she was the biggest female blues singer from the early Depression years through World War II.

Read the lyrics of dozens of Memphis Minnie's pioneering blues songs, free from completealbumlyrics.com.