Nintendo has just announced that their latest portable gaming system, the Nintendo 3DS, will be available in the United States and the rest of North America on March 27th for $249.99. Lucky buyers will be able to choose from Aqua Blue or Cosmo Black (hmm, no white option?).

For those of you who are uninformed and clueless...the 3DS provides 3D gaming, movies and other entertainment without the obnoxious glasses. Users will also be able to take 3D pictures and movies...plus browse any 3D websites that exist.

Nintendo took the opportunity to hype launch titles such as...Paper Mario, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, Resident Evil, Dead or Alive, Madden, etc. Plus they are planning on relaunching a bunch of DS games with brilliant new 3D graphics!

Game Informer has just posted an exclusive feature article detailing the technological improvements Bethesda Softworks has made for Skyrim. As you would expect, Game Informer has packed in a lot of details...but we'll do our best to summarize the most important!

- Bethesda has completely rewritten the game engine for Skyrim and has dubbed it the 'Creation Engine and Kit'. This new engine is specifically designed for Skyrim's northern mountain wilderness environment, which means lots of snow effects! They've also overhauled the draw distance and light and shadow technology. Their goal was that the engine would be able to dynamically handle both the sweeping vistas and the flickering lights and shadows immediately in front of the player.
- Speaking of snow and the environment, Bethesda put a lot of effort into both realistic snowfall and snow accumulation. As snow falls in the game the amount that accumulates will differ depending on the surface.
- The creation of trees has also been overhauled. Now, instead of just leaves flickering in the wind the entire tree will respond. Individual branches will be assigned weight, which will influence how much violently they are moved by the wind.
- Character AI, or as Bethesda refers to it 'Radiant AI', has also been overhauled. No longer will you see NPC's loitering in a city square. Now everyone has been assigned jobs and tasks that are impacted by gameplay. For instance, a bar keeper will be actively serving drinks, cleaning tables, etc. If you kill him and than return to the bar later in the game, you'll discover that someone else in his family has taken on the bar keeping responsibilities. Oh and they won't be pleased that you killed their brother, father, etc.
- Quests are now tailored for individual players. If an NPC recognizes that you are a terror with a bow, they'll give you a quest designed for that skill. Or maybe they'll ask you to train them or challenge you to a duel. Oh and that family member who had to take over the family bar because of your dastardly deed? They are looking for revenge and the quest they'll give you could reflect that.

Well there you have it. More and more details on what could be the biggest game the year!

Are you interested in winning an iTunes gift card worth a cool $10,000? All you need is perfect timing for your next app purchase because if you download the 10 Billionth app that gift card is yours! So why not head on over to iTunes and give Aralon: Sword and Shadow a try? It could be a very VERY profitable decision.

Hardcore gaming fans are notorious nostalgics who can't let go of the past. Don't be too hard on them though, it's not their fault. It's the developers who make these great games that should be blamed. How dare you give us addicting entertainment!

A great example of this desperate clinging to the past can be found at sarien.net. Here, a dedicated gamer has been porting ancient Sierra Online adventure games for your playing pleasure. Seriously. You can actually play Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter in your Internet browser. Plus the experience has been customized for the iPad, which is what you see in the above screenshot.

We've dialed up the sarcasm for this article...but don't let that confuse you. This is an epic website, that pulls off some amazing feats. We highly recommend that anyone who loves 90s adventure games, head on over and check this out.

Proving that building things is a really popular pastime...Minecraft's stat page is reporting that they have sold over one million copies of the beta. This number doesn't include unredeemed gift cards so Markus Persson, the game's creator, is clearly making the big bucks.

Congratulations guys! Now hurry up with that ultra secret game you are working on.

A bunch of new Tomb Raider screen shots have hit the Internet! The game is looking really good...although not to good for Lara Croft, who appears to have a beat down heading her way.

Check out the pics after the break!

As you probably know, the February issue of Game Informer features an in-depth article on Bethesda Softwork's Skyrim. Even though the magazine hasn't hit newsstands yet, tidbits from the article are leaking on the Interwebs as we speak.

Here is the best of what we've heard so far:

- Enemy leveling will imitate Fallout 3, where enemy skills were only adjusted when you first entered a critical area.
- Skyrim will feature dual wielding. Want to hold two swords, a sword and a shield, or even two shields? You can.
- The storyline is set 200 years after Oblivion.
- The availability of quests will be far more dynamic than in the previous games. Actions and decisions you take throughout the game will influence the NPC's willingness to give you quests.

We'll continue to post more updates as we hear them!

Finally we might actually have an ending to the longest running story in gaming history...the development of Duke Nukem Forever.

Amazon.com is reporting that Duke Nukem Forever will be released May 31, 2011. What is that worth? Hard to say. But Amazon doesn't pull these dates out of thin air and we're betting they have a reliable source.

So there you go! It looks like our pain will finally be rewarded.

When Steve Ballmer stepped on stage at CES 2011 he had this to say, "Xbox 360, Xbox Live and Kinect have made 2010 the best in our history."

He wasn't kidding. In the last 60 days they have sold 8 million Kinects and more gaming consoles than any other company. Wondering how many 360s they've sold? Over 50 million. Plus Xbox Live now has 30 million users and is adding a new member ever 2 seconds.

The clear message here is that the Kinect has been a major success for Microsoft. It has handily beat their estimated sales number of 5 million and has re-energized the Xbox 360.

Steve Ballmer also used the event to announce that Hulu Plus is coming to Xbox Live with Kinect controls. Netflix will also be adding Kinect controls in an upcoming update.

First things first...for our under 20 crowd we are not talking about the HBO show.

What we are talking about is the first new You Don't Know Jack (hereafter referred to as YDKJ) title in eight years. That's right, the last time we got our hands on the PC party game franchise of the 90's was back in 2003.

For those who aren't in the know, YDKJ is a party trivia game geared towards adults. This does not mean it's a trivia game about porn. Instead it means a strange but entertaining combination of tough questions and late night humor. These games were a lot of fun but not something you want to play with Mom. At least not our moms.

First released in 1995, YDKJ titles were pumped out at dizzying rates until 2000 when the developers realized that they had run out of trivia questions (or customers). They released one more title in 2003, but since then have laid low...until now.

Originally scheduled for January 25, THQ has announced that they need a few more weeks of polish time. So if you're dying for another round of party trivia, and who isn't, you will need to wait until February 8th.

The game will be shipped for the DS, WII, PS3 and Xbox 360. As usually the PC gets screwed (fyi, that's an in-game reference).