If you’re someone who spends their time playing flash games on the internet, you probably wouldn’t mind heading over to The AddictingGames Showdown and voting your favorites. The winners will be announced this Saturday on Nickelodeon at 8:00 pm ET. The categories include the following:

Most AddictingGame
Best Performance by a Monkey
Most Courageous Stick Figure Stunt
Greatest Escape Game
Best Game from Planet Random
Your Mom’s Favorite Game
Best Performance by a Robot
Most Adrenaline Pumping Game
Poppiest Pop Culture Game
Mostest Edumacational Game

Best Performance By a Monkey… hahah.

I love when they have video games on television, either casual or “core” titles, so even though I’m 23 years old, I’ll probably be watching Nickelodeon this Saturday.

Followers of Major Nelson’s Twitter were treated to a pretty strange site this morning: Twitter, Facebook, Last.FM, and Sky branded Xbox Box 360 consoles.

There’s no word on whether or not these are going to be released to consumers as limited edition consoles or merely skins, but seeing as Twitter is quickly becoming my favorite thing on the internet I definitely wouldn’t mind scoring one of those cute little light-blue consoles. Aww….

Hey, as long as I can virtually blow people to bloody matter with a shotgun over Xbox Live, what does it matter if my 360 is adorable? What do you think? Do you plan on trading your red Resident Evil 5 console for a red Last.FM one any time soon? Let me know in the comments.

I suppose that word of the day is “Money”, so let’s talk about another company’s supposed greed.

It’s been a rough week for what I feel is one of the best developers in video games, Valve. Following the debut of the bloody-great trailer for their newly announced Left 4 Dead 2, the gamer community has been less than thrilled with the company. Valve, a developer long-thought of as a consumer-minded entity amongst money-hungry crap-peddlers is being accused of giving gamers the shaft.

Their crime? Ripping gamers off by over charging for content.

Left 4 Dead was released on November 18, 2008 with a $60 price tag (the norm for games nowadays) and some truly positive reviews. The game is one of the coolest, fastest, and all-around fun multiplayer experiences there is. Despite all of these positives, a slew of gamers openly expressed that the game is not worth the dough.

Now I don’t completely agree with this statement, but they do indeed have a point. The game has four shipped maps and two modes of play. Fight the zombies or fight the humans. Is this worth $60 to you? Not to me. Lucky for us, I believe that Valve understands this, and that’s why the price dropped to $40 at most places (a price that I think is perfect) and the “Survival” expansion wound up being completely free, and how often do you see that in this day and age of DLC? (Valve isn’t like Capcom, who charged $5 for Resident Evil 5 Versus mode and Street Fighter 4 costumes already on the disc. I still laugh when ever I read this Consumerist Article). I think everyone felt pretty good about that.

Then came Microsoft’s pre-E3 conference where we saw this trailer…
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TweetMyGaming is a really neat new website that shows you who’s tweeting about video games on twitter in real time. What’s really cool about this is the live feed is constantly moving, just like a conveyor belt of awesome.

For me, it’s exciting to see people of all shapes, sizes, colors, and genders all talking about something that I feel so passionate about. We’re moving closer and closer to the day when gaming will be recognized as a legitimate art form that’s so much more than just shooting and killing things. People say that books can take you anywhere, but video games take you farther. Instead of having a story told to you, you shape and create that story and in some cases your decisions can change the entire outcome.

You feel and you interact with your surroundings. Think of the stuff that’s possible with the Wii. The Wii MotionPlus is like an extension your own arm! Plus, with Sony and Microsoft moving in on motion control technology, I’m sure things are going to get even crazier. I can’t wait to see what Project Natal is going to bring to the table.

Back to the subject of Twitter, be sure to follow us for all of the latest news, contests, reviews, and more!