If you're an aspiring game programmer looking for a good challenging read, or an existing programmer looking for some peer advice, you might want to check out Game Engine Gems 1. It's a collection of twenty-eight 'gems' contributed by a variety of industry programmers and engineers. These articles -- or gems as they are known to insiders -- cover a vast array of topics all pertaining to making the most of your game engine.

Video game books are few and far between these days. Outside of strategy guides, there isn't a lot out there for the picking. So when we got an email regarding Guinness World Records 2010: Gamer's Edition we jumped at the chance to review it.

Final Fantasy III has made another return! This time the Square Enix classic has made it to the iPad and the question begs, why should you purchase this on the iPad if you already have it on other systems?

Come find out.

Move over, Pac-Man! Improvements have arrived, old-timer.

Ridge Racer was a blast in 1993 when it made its debut in the arcades (those were places where giant cabinets ruled the earth and gamers' college funds). Many racers up to that point that weren't made by Sega of America truly weren't worth a damn. Sega had dominated the market and had recently introduced a high profile game called Daytona USA. When Namco brought its beauty into the ring it stood out like a wonderful sore thumb and the series that is Ridge Racer never looked back from there.

Fast forward years later and the series has worn its welcome a bit having been overshadowed by such hits as Forza and Gran Turismo. Namco, to their credit, has been true to its series, keeping it in an arcade format where it's more fun to have a racing game in short burst than it is for a racing game to become an RPG.

So what does that have to do with anything? Well, if you're still reading this review you've probably figured out that Namco has taken their popular racing sim and converted it to the iPad. While there's no doubt that the iPad is a powerful portable system for gaming, most games come up short in the transition to the medium. Namco did a bit of tweaking with the arcade sim to make it work and this is what the review is all about.

So read on, dear gamers.

The Mooninites would definitely be pleased with this release from Namco.  Bit. Trip BEAT HD is the iteration of the first game in the Bit. Trip series made for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch now available on the App Store.  And although the presentation is a little "off the wall" it's a challenging game that makes you want to pick up and play a lot.

Way back in March of 2009, Steve Schardein took Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for a spin on its native platform, the Nintendo DS. Later that year in October, Eric did the same on the PSP. Since that time, the game has been ported to the iPhone, and now as of last week, the iPad. Granted, either Steve or Eric would have been better suited to review this than me, but, due to travel and lack of multiple iPads -- well, you get the point.

So this newest iteration of Chinatown Wars offers spruced up visuals, multiple control layouts, and it makes great use of the gorgeous iPad screen. While that may already be enough for some, if you're looking for significant changes or addition to the gameplay, you won't find them in this iPad version. But, if you're looking for one of the best iPad games available, you should strongly consider this release from Rockstar Leeds.

Less is less.

Spirit Camera has some neat ideas and I enjoyed the experience, I just wish there were more to it.

Put a little J in that 3DS.

Tekken 3D Prime Edition was one of the more impressive titles we saw at E3 2011. Though it was strictly in prototype form, the folks Namco and Arika had achieved a solid sixty frames-per-second with 3D fully engaged, a feat even Capcom couldn't accomplish with their 3DS edition of Super Street Fighter IV. Tekken in 3D certainly looked nice, but what sort of game its tech would crawl into remained a mystery.

Amoebattle is an RTS game from the creator of Divergent Shift that that pits your amoeba army against the CPU across twelve single player missions.

If you enjoy SRPG or Shin Megami titles, this one's for you.

Pokémon mimics aren't always bad...

After three successful puzzlers, Layton’s back with more gameplay than ever before.

This might just be the best Kirby since Super Star.

Years later, a step in the right direction.

Welcome young padawan to a new MMORPG in the Star Wars universe. The Old Republic from Bioware and EA challenges you to seek out your destiny as one of a myriad of characters. On the level of a WoW or Rift, The Old Republic combines a variety of gameplay elements to create a new game that puts a new twist on these classics.

Coming out of EA is the first Sims expansion pack of its kind, somewhat straddling the line between a full-blown extension of the game and an extensive “stuff pack”, if you will. The Sims 3: Generations is unlike other expansions in that rather than providing a fully new sort of experience, it instead chooses to simply weave new content throughout the existing Sims 3 template. Depending on what you expect from the experience and whether or not you appreciate focusing on a single Sim from birth to elderly age, this may or may not be what you’re looking for.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2010 we had the pleasure of meeting with a wonderful company called Trion. They showed us some great games while at the show that included a real-time strategy game and a little game called RIFT.

For World of Warcraft fans out there this has been a title that has been part of great debates recently. Some consider RIFT to be the WoW killer. Some consider RIFT an afterthought. The question is, who is right?

Having played almost 10 days of RIFT I have somewhat of a grasp on what to expect and what might be the answer to that question.

So I wasn't sure what to expect when I loaded up Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures for the first time. I had imagined that it was this great MMO, but realized that this isn't for the usual MMO crowd.

Come read what I found out in this online galaxy not too far away.

King's Bounty is back for a strong expansion to last year's hit title, Armored Princess.

Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love is not a new game, but one that has been in Japan for about five years. Of the Sakura series, this is the first to get localized and released in North America. With any luck, RPG fans will have more from this series to look forward to by the folks at NIS America. Released for the PS2 and Wii, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love isn't for everyone -- but if you're looking for a decidedly Japanese strategy RPG with plenty of dialogue and even dating sim mixed in, you've come to the right place.

Indiana Jones is back for an all new third person adventure that has him trotting the globe to find the Staff of Kings, the staff used by Moses to part the Red Sea. Can he find it before Magnus Voller and the Nazis do? Let's get to the review!

Sony's San Diego Studio is back this Spring with their fourth entry in their growing MLB series with MLB 09: The Show. This year's Show includes a handful of new additions and features while still providing a solid baseball sim experience.

SNK Playmore and Ignition have a lot of fighter fans buzzing about their upcoming King of Fighters XII release, due sometime this summer. To help hold over fans of the fifteen year old series, King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match was recently released on the PS2.

Saving the Best for Last

Starhawk (not that Starhawk) is accessible, addictive, and loads of fun, and that's coming from someone who rarely plays online.

Sniper Elite V2 is a lot like the original game from 2005, which is both a great and bad thing -- but mostly great.

Legends of the Fall

Radical's sequel to their 2009 sandbox romp is an improvement, but it's still very repetitive and difficult to become invested in.

The fourth House of the Dead game has never been released on consoles, until now.

Few debuts on Sony's PlayStation Portable were as instantly arresting as Patapon. Sandwiched in the middle of their 2007 E3 montage, the teaser was short on context but high on appeal. Its 2D presentation was entirely unique while its gameplay, as we would soon discover, was a concept all its own. Patapon was a rhythm/action game where the player controlled a tribe of warriors by inputting short button sequences that not only had to correspond with commands, but also blend into the beat of the music. Upon release it was one of the most legitimately innovative titles of the current generation, and nearly four years later there still isn't much else like it.

Except, of course, more Patapons. The problem with success is it often results in demand for a sequel while completely ignoring whether or not one was needed. Katamari Damacy has struggled to innovate upon its basic concept while Bioshock 2's narrative contributions were looked upon as wholly unnecessary. They're still great games, but purveying sense of familiarity pulsing through every vein didn't have the punch of their prequel's arresting (there's that word again) debuts. Patapon 3's fate isn't too different.

The basic formula remains the same. Input commands for your tribe by performing a series of different button sequences. "Pata," "Pon," "Don," and "Chaka" and their respective combinations become engraved in your mind as you strategically use them to attack, proceed, retreat, jump, and a host of other commands (including, finally, pause). It definitely takes some getting used to, especially for newcomers, but Patapon 3's simultaneous strength and weakness is the excessive grind one must endure to effectively advance in the game. On one hand plowing through a few of the same levels over and over again creates an instinctive appreciation of the game's finer mechanics - one that couldn't be achieved through many other means - but, on the other, holy damn can Patapon 3 be an incredible grind. Finding a balance between repetition and progression was an Achilles’ heel of the previous two games, and unfortunately the third is hampered by the same issue. The new systems, which we'll get to shortly, are neat, but I don't think they'll be enough to push a new player past the wall they are inevitably bound to slam into.

Patapon 3 is intense. A lot of games, especially handhelds, can be sort of passively engaged where you can listen to music or hold a conversation while your brain autopilots the action on screen. Patapon 3, not unlike its two prequels, is unique in that it requires the player's complete attention. While I was playing I had to shut everything else off in my mind; my television, girlfriend, or pizza burning in the oven all became secondary to effectively managing my tribe. I even started to notice I was bopping my head or swinging my foot to the beat in order to keep up with the rhythm. It was almost like watching someone drum in Rock Band (or in a real band, I suppose) where some additional physical action was required for a stellar performance. That sort of immersion doesn't come cheap and, while it may be an annoyance for those who don't value a high sync ratio with their games, it stands out as one of Patapon 3's more unique assets. Patapon is at its highest when it's doing what it does best, and unfortunately the new systems layered into Patapon 3 drop off, rather than extend, that particular plateau.

Change arrives with your considerably streamlined tribe. Rather than saddle the player with a plethora of disposable Patapons, a precious handful of three are permanently allotted under the command of a player-controlled (well, sort of) superhero Patapon. A fourth takes the role of the flag-bearing Hatapon. It's a neat way to stay in line with the series' playful fiction, but the Hatapon's effect on gameplay is somewhat offensive. Almost a wildcard, if he falls in battle, through your lack of oversight or a random accident, its game over for the mission. This can be incredibly demoralizing, as there are few bummers as significant as kicking the crap out of a mission you've been grinding for only to fall at the hands of a seemingly random event. Patapon 3 was already a hard game for newcomers and fans alike, and I can't imagine Hatapon's presense doing anything but dissuading players from engaging Patapon 3 beyond their first ruined mission. It's all a bit baffling.

Patapon 3 delivers options like Sonic delivers speed; it's in great supply even if you're not sure what it’s for or where it’s going. Weapons and other accessories can be leveled up at the blacksmith, and their corresponding skills can branch out for further customization. Ditto for each Patapon's particular class, which is so specific that each of the 20+ classes for all four Patapons can be leveled up individually. On one hand granting the player that sort of customization is conceptually enticing and a real treat for those who exhausted Patapon 1 and 2. On the other hand the game seems especially terrible at laying out most of its finer intricacies, tossing out random explanations at loading screens at nowhere else.

Honestly there's so much going on with stats, abilities, loot, and numbers that it left me at a loss. Patapon 3 doesn't seem interested in explaining much of it, which, at least in my case, defaulted my position to trial and error or aimless grinding rather than actually figuring out what was going on. Tweaking numbers, collecting loot, and trying to find the best class combination for each particular challenge might have seemed great on paper, but its gets in the way of Patapon 3’s appeal; every second spent buried in a menu is time wasted. One could argue that Patapon 3 would have been an awfully short game it eased up on revisions to its system, but maybe it would have been a case where less was actually more.

Multiplayer is another area that has seen significant refinement. Introduced in limited ad-hoc quantities with Patapon 2, its concept has expanded and reach extended with full online infrastructure. Your superhero can join other superheroes online and, in theory, work together to tackle challenges and build levels for your superhero to take back into your solo adventure. I tried to do my homework with this, given the PSP's lack of voice chat and other user-friendly amenities the system in place does the best it can, but the fact of the matter is that I couldn't find anyone to play with. Gathering three other players nearly happened once but then one quit out and crashed the game before we could finish a level. In theory if you could wrangle some of your real life friends (or an online community) to play it with you Patapon 3 could be fantastic, but the infrastructure for random parties isn't built to last.

One aspect that remains immune to criticism, in fact one that three games deep I still simply can't get enough of, is Patapon 3's art direction. It's like a crazy person went nuts with construction paper, sprinkled it with magic to animate it, and then set it loose on an island for a few generations and let it evolve into a world all its own. It walks a perfect line between wholly organic and improbable and fantastic. Nothing looks like Patapon and nothing sounds like Patapon; consistently nailing the input and hearing the accompanying symbol rush yields a sense of satisfaction on par with some of the biggest highs in gaming. Mashing that march to the rhythm of the beat is insanely addictive and creates an experience few other games even strive to obtain. There’s one problem; this has all been done before.

And a final squabble that seems picky but eventually grated my nerves was the ridiculous boot sequence. You have to mash X or start no less than twenty times before you can actually start playing Patapon 3. Notifying the player of an auto save along with flipping through an online user agreement was somehow necessary every time one starts the game, as was trying to get out of the opening movie and loading a save. Again, I know this seems silly but load Patapon 3 nine or ten times and try and figure out why anyone thought that was a good idea.

The MLB is back in action with spring training well underway. Earlier this month, Sony's San Diego studio released the latest iteration of their MLB sim, MLB 11: The Show. Nathan reviewed the outstanding PS3 version recently, and I've since spent a few hours with the PSP version. Bottomline, if you're looking for an MLB sim on the road, you can't beat this year's version of The Show.

Mortal Kombat on the Vita is much more than just a simple port of the Komplete Edition, it adds a significant amount of new content that makes good use of the Vita's technology.

A mostly great charming platformer, currently exclusive to the Vita, and only $8. Nice.

UMvC3 on the Vita is a near-console perfect port that includes multiplayer support over the PSN, an (overly) simplified touch control scheme, and a new replay mode.

Dynasty Warriors Next is the latest in the long line of Dynasty Warriors games. Next plays very much like the previous games, with the addition of a variety of optional touch and motion controls made possible by the Vita.

The acclaimed 2D fighter from Arc System Works out of Japan gets the Vita treatment from Aksys.

Spend more time exploring Amalur with DLC #2, The Teeth of Naros.

DISCLAIMER: Before this review begins, I would like to admit upfront that this site has never reviewed a The Witcher title prior to this one. We certainly would have reviewed the original, but never got a chance to do so. With that being said, we have no experience with the series, so this title is being reviewed with fresh eyes.

Alright, with the formalities out of the way, let's talk The Witcher 2.

If Cool Spot never happened this would be the best commercial + game ever. Unfortunately that's not a very prestigious category.

Grasshopper Manufacture's Kinect game is creative, but leaves a lot to be desired.

The Devil May Cry HD Collection is one of the best Collections available.