One of the more heated issues in the video game industry right now is the thrust of some studios to fight video game rentals and second hand game sales. GameStop tosses in its two cents saying that this will only end up hurting gamers, and even sales of new games.

There’s no official word on this yet but several sources close to the companies involved did confirm that talks between the two giants are well under way. Legendary Pictures and its chairman, Thomas Tull, are reportedly very interested in Epic, who is admittedly open to the idea.

After their takeover bid of Take-Two Interactive fell through, Electronic Arts may be on the hunt once again for another studio to buy out. Rumor has it that this time, EA's eyes are set on Epic Games.

Deniska has recently released a new build of the Jazz Jackrabbit game ported to the PSP that will now run on the Slim. That aside, the new build will also carry several updates. You can read about them over in the full article.


Download: Jazz Jackrabbit v0.02 (alpha) for Slims

Epic Games CEO and founder Tim Sweeney expressed his opinion on the flagging state of the PC gaming industry. In an interview conducted by TG Daily, he pointed out the different problems the PC marke t is facing as well as some possible solutions the industry can take if it wants to make some headway against its rivals. You can check out the rest of the interview by reading our full article, accessible through the "read more" link below.

Want a piece of Kratos? Well, you might get in a fight, but you definitely have a chance of winning one of 5,000 demo UMDs of Epic Games' God of War: Chains of Olympus in Gamespot UK's contest. It wouldn't hurt to try, right? Better head to the full article to know more about this.

Europe is all set to receive a double whammy of critically acclaimed titles as Midway Games and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe will be covering a joint event to herald the arrival of Unreal Tournament 3 for the PlayStation 3, as well as the promotion of  the upcoming God of War title for the PlayStation Portable with God of War: Chains of Olympus.

After he indirectly revealed and eventually confirmed Eat Sleep Play's latest project being Twisted Metal on the Sony PlayStation 3, David Jaffe announced on his blog that he'll be turning down interviews until his crew is ready to officially unveil its upcoming. He's willing to say "no" to the press the same way CliffyB suggested. Check out the full article to know what we're talking about.

Homebrew developer MK2k (known for his Sleep'n'Wake project) has released Heartlight PSP X-Mas Preview, a remake of the original Heartlight game for the PC from Epic Megagames. There are currently 20 levels in this preview, but if you check out the other features included in this release, they'll definitely make you wait for the full game's release. More details at the full article.




Download: Heartlight PSP X-Mas Preview
Visit: QJ.NET's PSP Development Forums

In this day and age of "next generation" gaming, it has become the driving factor of the giants in the game industry to push out as many gorgeous games as their money would allow. Only the really innovative games come from the those who grew up in the meager beginnings of the computer video game or from the independent game developer, who has nothing but creativity to slap into their new games.

Is it a matter of opinion or should games actually sport some sort of creativity, no matter what the excuse? In this blogger's book, game concepts and design should always entail something out of the ordinary - something new, something fresh and not just a visual upgrade that requires more muscle to achieve.

Let's take this into another perspective: if games continue on improving in the path of realism, once they have achieved absolute realism, what else is there to improve on? It doesn't take a double-digit IQ to tell that the path to realism already has one big dead end. Why pursue a race that's bound to end when creativity, thanks to the human mind, is boundless and never really meets a creativity road block?

Although it may be arguable that the game industry already hit rock bottom in their barrel of creativity apples and just can't think of anything new anymore, one could also attribute the direction of the game development aimed at a new type of gamer.

If you haven't noticed already, you might be able to identify a growing core of hardcore gamers who no longer cares about what games were like before and just want the best visuals to blow them away. And it might just be that you have become one of them, yourself!

Take for instance, Epic Games' Gears of War. It has defied any and all odds against creativity, and serves as a testament to all that there are a core of gamers out there that could care less about a story if the gameplay sets the game right. It was often the target of scrutiny with most game developers, one iconic moment entailed it being slapped with a "zero-innovation" concept label.

Many other games fit in this same category and there's hardly an innovative game that has rocked the industry like those in the old days. How many game designers do you know? How many of them have managed to develop a style and place it out there for people to relate with? For many gamers who have evolved to retro-gamers, we think you know what we're trying to point out here.

So we'd just like to ask, "Does creativity matter to you?" No, we mean, really...does it?