(click to enlarge)

First I want to write that this came out in November, so if you see it and scream at me because it’s ‘old,’ I don’t care. I’ve talked to several people who use Gmail, many of them in the videogame industry, and they have yet to see this. So I decided to share it with all of you.

If you log into your Gmail account and select the themes tab, and find the ‘High Score’ theme. If you select it, your email will now look like a 8-bit game from the past. What’s even cooler is when it’s the daytime, the top part will show a sun; however, once night fills the actual sky, a moon along with stars will cover your Gmail. But that’s not all.

If you check out the left hand corner where the chat icon is, you’ll notice that it looks like an arcade cabinet. If you choose to chat with someone, a cabinet will appear on the right side, along with a quick animation of a retro-like game on the screen. As you can tell, I’m telling Peter from /film how I feel about him. Also, if you check out the little color icons that let you know if people are online, busy, or offline, now have a Space Invaders look to them.

Overall, I love the look and have officially switched my theme… for good.

Congrats to comment number 68, Rob, who won the copy of Dante’s Inferno.

The contest is now closed, thanks to all who participated.

On February 9th, gamers will be preparing to “Go to Hell.” Not because we’ve been playing murder simulators all our lives (according to the word of Jack Thompson), but due to the fact Electronic Arts is set to ship their latest videogame Dante’s Inferno, which is loosely adapted from Dante Alighieri’s legendary epic poem The Divine Comedy.

Players will assume the role of Dante, a veteran of the Third Crusade. When Dante finds his love, Beatrice, soul trapped inside the clutches of hell, he attempts to follower her, but quickly learns the “light-bearer” Lucifer is personally seizing her spirit. In order to save Beatrice, Dante must fight through hordes of demons in the Nine Circles of Hell and when he finds her, merry her in order to free her soul.

This will be one of the first time a studio, Visceral Games in this case, will take on the task of mixing a videogame with one of the great literary works in human history. I’m excited to see how the team will pull it off, I’m sure most of you are too.

Thankfully one of you /gamer readers will be able to snag a copy of the highly-anticipated title on Xbox 360 for free, thanks to a contest we’re holding. The rules are simple: after the Jump, a question will be asked about the Divine Comedy. All you have to do is type your email, we’re it is required to comment (for contact purposes), answer the question right, and automatically you’ll entered into a drawing. Whomever is selected will be notified right away.

The contest will start NOW and end on February 9th, at midnight pacific standard time.

Again, the question is after the jump.

Question: Who helped guide Dante through Hell?

(To answer, comment below)

“DANTE’S INFERNO     Go to Hell on 2.09.10

EA’s Dante’s Inferno is an epic descent through Dante Alighieri’s nine circles of hell – limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery. At a blazing-fast 60 frames per second, each circle features unique environments, all new creatures, terrifying demons, story elements and are scored distinctly to set a tone that fits each circle of sinners.“

Gregor Collienne is a photographer from Germany. However, he doesn’t take pictures that catches his eye, or tries to capture the perfect setting to inspire people. Instead, for the most part, he takes humorous snap shots of people doing an everyday activity and pairs them up with another group, who are doing something completely different. When you check out his work, you not only chuckle, but they make you think — it almost feels like an optical illusion.

Up top is one picture of his work. While it’s unlike a lot of his photos — it made me laugh nonetheless. I’m assuming the picture is asking all of us, what if we could control our girlfriends or all women for that matter, with a single PlayStation controller? Like, how awesome would that be? No more would we hear the excuse: “I have a headache.” Can some smart scientist make this happen? Please!

If you want to check out Collienne’s work, click here.

via: technabob

There has hardly been any news since the first reveal of OnLive to the world at GDC 2009 in San Francisco. When Steve Perlman, the CEO of the games-on-demand service and one of the inventors of Apple’s QuickTime technology, took center stage at the press briefing to introduce the gaming community to his newest project OnLive — he was met with both praise and criticism. Some people thought this ambitious “cloud-gaming” service was the future of gaming, while many others thought there is no way this technology will work with the functionality of today’s Internet capabilities. But with all these questions, most people always seem to ask the same one; how much will the consumer have to spend in order to use the service?

A few days ago, a video of Perlman was uploaded onto youtube, where he went back to his old school Columbia University and discussed his next endeavor. While nothing to new was unveiled, he did briefly mentioned something interesting about the MicroConsole. If you are unfamiliar with OnLive, it is a gaming service that lets players stream videogames using the Internet. The player has a couple of options to do so. One, they can download a 1MB program that lets them play a game directly to their computer, without downloading. The second way is to somehow get their hands on the MicroConsole and play the games the same way, but on their television.

For most people, I figure the MicroConsole is the most attractive way to play these games. Sitting on a coach and playing the latest game on a 60″ TV with their home theater surround-sound system seems far more engrossing, than gazing on a computer chair in front of a desk. So the question was asked — how much would this MicroConsole cost? In April, IGN took a stab and felt the box should cost no more than $100 when it is released. While Perlman didn’t give a definitive answer on the actual price of the unit during his session at Columbia, he did reveal there isn’t much in the box to make it expensive. In fact, he said the plastic on the outside of the MicroConsole is actually more expensive than the gadgets inside. So what does that mean? Well, for one it could be free to consumers and he did mention that people who sign a contract for x-amount of years, could feasibly get the unit for free. This would be a business structure similar to what wireless phone companies do.

“It’s [MicroConsole] so inexpensive, that the case actually costs more than the chips inside of it. So we are in a position where we can give it away if you signup to a subscription if you want to or charge very little.”

When I first heard about OnLive, I thought of Netflix. For over a year now, Netflix has offered movies to stream online and if you subscribed to the online rental site, you could watch as many films online as you wanted too, without a cap. So I was wondering, could OnLive offer something similar? Will they offer a subscription, where users could access as many games as they wanted too, without having to purchase each one separately? It seems like they are at least considering that route.

While that type of business model has already been used in the past with sites like GameTap, this would be the first time you could do it on a setup designed for a TV. On top of that, Perlman has promised when new releases hit store shelves, OnLive would have them available on the same day — something that GameTap didn’t do. I do however, have a hard time believing new releases like the latest Grand Theft Auto or Madden would be free with a subscription, I do see “older” entries being free if the player does have some sort of monthly bill from OnLive. It will be interesting to see when we have a full announcement. Unfortunately, we have NO CLUE when that will be.

Up top is picture drawn by Pat Kinell, which he entitled “Super Plumber.” It shows Mario what he does best, and that is fix the pipes of an old-broken-down sink, while having a few ‘friends’ on the side.

Obviously right away you can spot some of his enemies on the floor, but there are a few other Super Mario Bros. references. For one, if you look on the floor to the right of Mario, you’ll see a raccoon tail, which would have been from the third installment of the famed series. On the top of the toilet, you should notice a tissue-box with it baring a mushroom logo. Above that, on the windowsill, you’ll see a miniature Piranha Plant getting some rays. And to the right of that, check out the picture that resembles one of the many infamous castles.

If you want to own a 11X 14″ print, click here — it will only set you back $50.

Cool Stuff is a feature of /gamer. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be featured on Cool Stuff? E-Mail us at slashgamer@gmail.com

Here at /gamer, we would like to wish all of you a very happy Modern Warfare 2 day. Today is a day that could easily be considered better than Christmas. Hopefully all of you on the east coast have gone to a retail store and had success trying to find a copy at midnight and you didn’t have to wait too long — although, that sounds doubtful. Up top is a picture one of our readers sent us from his local Gamestop and as you can tell, there is a crap-load of customers waiting in line, and it was taken long before the doors opened.

Chris Rowson designed the shirt above, which depicts what would happen if those”Space Invaders” were indeed real and if the US government or any other for that matter do, if they caught one of those sinister aliens. If you want to purchase one, head over to Threadless.com and pick one up for only $18.

Cool Stuff is a feature of /gamer. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be featured on Cool Stuff? E-Mail us at slashgamer@gmail.com

Not that this should be huge news to anyone, but Gamestop told the USA Today that the company has now seen the largest reservation total for one videogame, thanks to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Tony Bartel, the chain’s executive vice president for merchandising and marketing, confirmed the record setting number with the daily newspaper. “As of today, the number of pre-order reservations we’ve taken for the game is the highest for any title we’ve ever sold in our 6,200 store network.”

While Bartel didn’t go into the details about a specific number on where the company stands currently with total number of reservations, or where they plan to be when the game launches on November 10th, we actually have them.

According to someone we talked to inside Gamestop, we were told that the company has about 1.5 million total reservations, and their initial goal is to reach the 2 million mark when the game launches in less than a week. Will they reach it? I don’t know, but as of now Gamestop should make around $90 million. And that would be if no one else reserved between now and then. And don’t forget some of the special edition packages cost as high as $150; however, from what we were told there isn’t a whole lot of those pre-ordered with the company to really affect how much they make.

If Gamestop does succeed and hits their original goal of 2 million reserves, Gamestop would make a cool extra $30 million. Tony Bartel adds that he feels “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be the biggest entertainment launch of all time.” With these numbers, it’s hard to argue with him.

We’re only a few months away until BioShock 2 is finally released. The first was met with remarkable reviews and was one of the best games to come out in 2007 — maybe even this generation. The gameplay was pure bliss and rather original for a first-person shooter. But what will always stick out in my mind about the first installment was how revolutionary the title was in telling a story. It wasn’t the concept either, but rather how the player wasn’t spoon-fed the history of ‘Rapture,’ and it was up to whomever was playing to reveal the secrets of the underwater world. Unlike most videogames out there, the story didn’t look down at the gamers who were experiencing it.

2K has just released another trailer for BioShock 2 and I must say, I’m actually nervous about the sequel. While I think the gameplay will be fine, even though I question the innovation it’ll try too deliver, I more concerned about how the developers plan on telling the story. The biggest hurdle they have to overcome is not having the mastermind behind the original installment, __. I really think this trailer finally proves if they could do just that — and it doesn’t look good. The voice over of the woman talking (I’m guessing is the Big Sister), sounds ridiculous, and I don’t mean in a good way either. Even the dialog, which I hope isn’t included in the final game, is cheesy at best. The rest just focuses on the gameplay, which looks fun — but is not what made the original so amazing. Hopefully I’m wrong and it’s just a bad advertisement, but I’m starting to think its not.

Infinity Ward has already promised that the “Prestige Edition” of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which includes night vision goggles, would actually be limited and not on stores shelves a year from now — at a discount price. Retailers even requested Activision if they could receive a second shipment of the bundle and the publisher quickly denied them.

We’ve been told by management from Gamestop that the giant retailer would no longer take reservations after they shut their doors tonight. So, if you were hoping to walk into one of the 4,000+ stores Gamestop owns and purchase the “Prestige Edition,” you’ll be out of luck.

That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find one anywhere on launch day, but your chances will greatly diminish if you don’t just pre-order the package. If you are at all worried about not being able to find the regular edition of Modern Warfare 2, I wouldn’t be. Unlike the “Prestige Edition,” there will be plenty of games to go around and retailers will have no problem filling up their shelves with the anticipated first-person shooter.