Recently I bought my first laptop. Saying that sounds really weird, as I've bought laptops/notebooks/netbooks for my wife and children before. However, I've never had one that I could truly call my own. Other than my family's casual computers, I've had a couple store bought pcs, but nothing that could run games well.

I've always enjoyed console gaming. I love my 360. I find it easy and intuitive to play FPS with a controller and, honestly, my brain and fingers get all jumbled when I go to move with WASD. However, I wanted to get into PC gaming with this new purchase. Not that this laptop is for gaming alone.

I bought this XPS 14...I know...it's a dell, but I thought it was a really good deal. Dedicated graphics, backlit keyboard, 500gig hd, 4 gigs of ram, and an i5 processor for $640 shipped. (Dell outlet after...

Five dollars. This could be lunch, a cheap dvd, or the reservation of the next "big" game. Every Friday I plan on looking at what your gaming fiver can buy you in the world of video games. This week I will be taking a look at five xna, or Xbox indie, games that have recently dropped in price to one dollar. Not only are they bargain priced, they are worth your time.

To begin, I must include the obligatory statement that these are only a few of the several quality Xbox Indie Games. I picked these because they seem to have more mass appeal than many of the others. Disagree with my choices? Comment below!

The first game on my list is sin(Surfing). Though the simplistic graphics will almost certainly remind you of an Atari game, the gameplay of this surfing gem will hook you into trying for top trick scores. Worth the dollar? I believe this to be the most shallow...

After declaring my quest to create a solid xna community game title nearly a month ago, I thought I'd write about my progress.

First of all, I am in the middle of some stressful things in my life. I just finished up my second to last master's class (in Education) and I have several projects going on at work that has prevented me from devoting as much time as I would want to this project. However, I think my goal is realistic. I want to submit my game for review by August 1st, 2009. That leads me to what one needs to learn, and what I have been learning, to achieve this goal.

Every xna game development site that you will find will bluntly let you know that you need to understand C# language and programming before you begin with xna (Xna is C# with game creation additions). They will also tell you that nothing in Xna is "drag-n-drop," you must really learn to program.

After reading up on this, I started the progress of learning C#. Surprisingly...

After the introduction of Community Games with the NXE, I have decided to try my hand at my dream job: Creating video games. I've chosen to start this blog along with my game project so those interested can follow along and, more importantly, I will have reason to continue my progress and complete the job.

I am entering into this with no programing knowledge other than some html. I have several ideas that I would like to see materialize into a game, of which I believe there are two standout puzzle games and a platformer that I will be choosing from to create for my 1st (hopefully of many) project.

For my first post I'm going to go through the steps to begin the learning of game creation with the XNA Game Studio 3.0. I will be creating a game for the pc before investing in the $99 member price that I will need to obtain to create a 360 game.
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With my new addiction to the Planet Green channel, I have taken mini-steps in becoming more "environmentally conscious." Recycling, Compact Florescent Lights, and reduction of water usage were all obvious actions to take in this quest. However, I thought about my most favorite hobby, gaming, and wanted to discover what I could do to reduce energy consumption and waste while gaming.

While there are some great links to articles full of ideas on green gaming, specifically 1UP: Gaming Green and an article by Ben Silverman on Yahoo, I want to explore these ideas more in depth and find cheap ways to implement them in my life.

Without further ado, July 2nd's Green Gaming Tip:

Power down your consoles and PC.

While watching an episode of Wasted! on Planet Green, I viewed a guy admit to leaving his gaming system on (a 360), game paused, for hours on end while he went off to do other things. I find this hard to believe that someone...