Play games. Heal kids. The 2nd Annual Extra Life – A charity event to help in the fight against pediatric cancer To my fellow gamers; I’m writing to you today about an event taking place this Saturday, October 17th, that I am both honored and privileged to be a part of. It’s called Extra Life, and it’s an opportunity for all of us to do something we enjoy while helping those in need.... more.

Last year, I participated in a great event called Extra Life. Hosted by the wonderful folks over at Sarcastic Gamer, Extra Life is a 24-hour gaming marathon that raises money for the Texas Children's Hospital - the country's leading institute in pediatric cancer research. But rather than explain it all again, why not just be lazy and re-hash my post from last year?!? Here goes: I'll be honest -... more.

playerFIVE.com is re-launching on Sunday, November 1st with new content, a new FIVEcast, and new plans for videogame blogosphere domination! Hey everyone, I know it's been an extremely long time with no updates, but this is it: the beginning of a new... beginning. I have fully redesigned playerFIVE.com from the ground up with a simple, more professional layout that I'm extremely happy with ... more.

In this new feature debut, Ben brings you the highs, lows, and super-lows of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Metal Gear Solid IV: The Movie Guns of the Patriots CHEERS to kickass graphics, both in the cutscenes and during gameplay. No expense was spared in the details. Everything from snowflakes to facial features is nearly flawless. But... JEERS to the cutscenes being longer t... more.

This piece is written by guest editor, and friend of the site: BEN. Hope you enjoy! During his work on the site, Justin has fallen painfully behind on his beloved “This Month in Video Game History” piece so I have to take up the slack.  Of course nobody reads his garbage anyway, so I don’t care if it’s good or not. Do you really like challenging games?  Seriously.  Can you think b... more.

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge Mario fan, but that platformers aside, I really love RPGs. So it's easy to assume that this is one of my favorite videogames of all-time - and for good reason. The game starts out like any other Mario game. Mario is being a lazy guinea and wakes up to the screams of Princess Toadstool (she hadn't yet received the "Peach" moniker even though Super Mario 6... more.

Few videogames can conjure up the kind of fanboy love that the Zelda series can, and for good reason. Since its inception, Zelda has been one of the longest running and highest rated series ever created. Released on April 13, 1992, A Link to the Past for the SNES is no different, and is highly regarded as one of the greatest videogames of all time. This is another one of those incredible titles... more.

This is the kind of thing that really gets me fired up. I've been avoiding talking about it for a while in hopes that it would just go away, but it seems that between Massachusetts, Arizona, Utah, and Australia - censorship in gaming is becoming kind of a big deal lately. Again. I grew up playing violent videogames. I spent a lot of time playing as much Doom and Mortal Kombat as I possibly coul... more.

I've always been of the opinion that Ultima Online is the greatest game there has ever been - and while I realize this is a gross overstatement, I am confident that it is the best MMORPG in the short history of the genre. UO is the grandfather of MMOs, and was the first game to bring an RPG into a massively multiplayer setting. Being 11 years old, Ultima Online has gone through many a change - ... more.

Star Fox was released on March 1st, 1993 for the Super NES, and was one of the first console games to include 3-dimensional polygons. It was a breakthrough in terms of both success and technological advance, and was the first title to include the revolutionary "Super FX" microprocessor, which allowed for the - at the time -stunning visuals and effects. Note: The Super FX chip makes blast proces... more.