Twenty years ago, iD Software released one of the greatest first person shooters of all time when they released Wolfenstein 3D.  While it wasn’t the first game to combine shooting and three dimensions, it was one of the most successful.  Well, just in time for the anniversary, Bethesda has released a free browser version of Wolfenstein 3D to celebrate!  You can play it on any modern browser (Google Chrome 16, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 11, and Apple Safari 5) at Bethesda’s website.  Shooting Nazis has never been so fun!

What’s the secret to Wolfenstein’s success?  It took a simple idea and executed it in a novel way.  In this case, the third dimension.

“The core essence of taking an experience that used to be done in top-down – we were all familiar at the time with top-down shooters like Gauntlet and things where you would run around and shoot at the enemies there – taking really similar gameplay and projecting it into te 3D environment, adding perspective and the fact that that changed the game experience so much was the real triumph of what we did then,” says John Carmack, founder of iD and one of the game’s designers.

It’s nice to see the company behind such potent modern games as the Elder Scrolls remembers gaming history.

Game developer Bethesda has quite a few impressive video game franchises at their disposal, but the one currently tearing up the sales charts and getting arrows in knees all around the Internet is Skyrim.  Little do most people know that Skyrim is part of Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls franchise, which has scooped up industry awards and sold millions of copies during its 15-game run.  Well, now Bethesda is taking its open-world RPG in a new direction with a little help from partner ZeniMax.  The Elder Scrolls is getting a massive multiplayer online roleplaying game version.

“We have been working hard to create an online world in which players will be able to experience the epic Elder Scrolls universe with their friends, something fans have long said they wanted,” said director Matt Firor of ZeniMax Online Studios.  ”It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years.  The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

Are you ready for a teaser trailer?  Of course you are!  As much as I like the few Elder Scrolls games I’ve played, I’m hoping this is a trial run for a Fallout MMORGP.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has been on the market for six years now.  It’s probably nearing the end of its lifespan, but the next generation of Xbos isn’t on the market yet, and Microsoft is tight-lipped about the future of its console.  However, there is one interesting rumor that has come forth lately.  Multiple outlets are saying that Microsoft is readying a $99 Xbox 360 and Kindle bundle.  There’s a catch, though:  you have to pony up for a two-year subscription to Xbox Live.

If that seems like a bargain, think back to the old days when AOL was a thing people had.  You paid some cheap price for a new computer and saved a few hundred bucks off the price if you kept a two-year subscription to AOL or Compuserve.  You saved money up front, but you paid more on the back end.  Buying an Xbox off the shelf is $299 with the Kindle bundle; two years of XBL with the $99 bundle is $459!  I bought two years worth of XBL Gold for $30 off of Amazon a few months ago!  Long story short, paying up front ends up being a lot cheaper, but it also requires you to pay up front.

For most people, $99 isn’t a big deal psychologically, but $299 is.  To their credit, Microsoft is playing the game well.

Once upon a time, the video game designer Blizzard unleashed evil upon the world.  That evil was the revolutionary hack-and-slash button-masher Diablo.  They followed it up with the even-better Diablo II and its impressive content packs.  Now, evil is back a third time.  That’s right, Diablo III is coming May 15, and to get fans properly enthusiastic, Activision Blizzard has released a teaser trailer for Diablo III.

Does it show you anything about the game?  Of course not, it’s a teaser!  It’s meant to tease you, and I think it does that with glimpses of some of the enemies you’ll be fighting, characters you will be playing, and awesome cinematics you will be seeing.  I won’t be getting the game on release date, but that’s because I don’t want to be fired from my job after missing work for a week and ruining a box of computer mice while mashing my left and right click buttons.  I’ve already done that once in college; I don’t need to fall down that rabbit hole again.

When you want a cutting-edge gaming experience, you can’t depend on your home video game console to provide that.  While it may be in HD and it may be great, there’s nothing quite as impressive or beautiful as a cutting-edge computer with state-of-the-art graphics cards, processors, RAM, and all the bells and whistles that turn an ordinary gray box into a power-sucking monster capable of eating any video game console’s lunch.  When you want max power, you want a PC.  When you want a max power game, you want Crysis.

The original Crysis became a benchmark; the phrase “Can it run Crysis?” became a meme just about overnight, and Crysis 2 only upped the ante of PC gaming beauty.  Well, prepare to update your graphics cards, ladies and gentlemen.  Crysis 3 is here, and it’s got a trailer.  Feast your eyes below, and make sure you watch it in full 1080p HD for maximum effect if you can.

With the move to free-to-play, the struggling MMORPGs Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online have received new leases on life after struggling beneath the shadow of the World of Warcraft monolith.  Well, while both games are free, for most people, it takes a good long time to actually download and install said games before you can even figure out if they’re even WORTH downloading, let alone playing.  Well, there’s a solution:  an hour of free-to-play Turbine MMOs via web browser!  Sound too good to be true?  Here’s all the information, straight from DDO and LotRO developer Turbine!

The free hour is provided by something called Gaikai, which apparently is a streamer of video games via browser.  You basically just have to have a Java compatible web browser and a 3mbps or faster Internet connection, and you’ve got yourself a free hour of MMORPG to try.  That hour will allow you to create your character and get some experience in the world you choose, and after your time is up, you’re logged out.

The first taste is free… after that, you’ll be clearing out space in your hard drive and downloading the full version of the game (or so Turbine hopes).

The launch of the Nintendo 3DS was a bit rocky, to say the least.  While the product itself was technically well done, there were problems.  Namely, the price.  However, those initial bumps in the road didn’t seem to slow down the final product.  Nintendo sold a staggering 4.5 million 3DS units in the US during the first year of releaseThat’s better than the original DS.  In fact, across the board, the 3DS’s launch was an improvement on the original DS, which has Nintendo executives crowing.

“Nintendo 3DS closes its first year with a lengthy list of accomplishments but we’re still just scratching the surface … With a massive lineup of first- and third-party games and more on the way, a budding library of entertainment options and an engaged and growing installed base, Nintendo 3DS has an incredibly bright future.  We’re just getting started but this platform is built for the long haul,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.

The amazing thing about the success of the 3DS is the amount of competition it has had to face.  Everything plays games, from tablets to phones to Sony’s handhelds, yet Nintendo is still the big kid on the block and have somehow managed to keep pace with the competition while still making a mint on handheld games.  Whatever you can say about Nintendo, they know what they’re doing when it comes to the handheld arena.  Even after all this time, Nintendo is still the king of the handhelds.

The negative aspects of MMORPG games like World of Warcraft are pretty easy to dig up information about, as nobody likes writing good things about anything.  However, can Warcraft-like games have a positive effect on brain functioning?  Well, according to a new study conducted by Jason Allaire and fellow professors from North Carolina State University, playing MMORPGs can have positive benefits when it comes to improving brain functioning in seniors.

“It met a bunch of criteria we had,” said Allaire.  ”Primarily that it is really engaging and cognitively complex, so we chose a game that we thought would have the best chance of exercising older adults’ cognitive abilities and thereby improving them.”

Seniors were given baseline mental aptitude tests before and after the course of MMORPG medication.  After agreeing to the study, seniors were allowed to play World of Warcraft for two hours a day for two weeks.  Those who performed well on the initial testing stayed the same; those that had lower functioning on the first screener actually showed improved performance.  That’s right, WoW improved brain functioning.

The full results of the test were published in the peer reviewed journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Bioware’s Mass Effect has been one of the most popular and most beloved video games in recent history.  Like any video game, Mass Effect 3 needs a little more than to simply roll out into stores and wait for people to buy them.  Oh no, Mass Effect 3 needs a trailer, and boy did Bioware really up the ante for video game trailers with this one.  Dubbed Take Earth Back, Mass Effect 3′s trailer got a big debut on Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead and is now available online with extra footage.  You can check it out below.

Mass Effect 3 is coming out on March 6.  If you can’t wait that long, two levels of the game’s single player (as well as multi-player co-op mode!) are available for download for PC, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3.  It’s the foremost action sci-fi roleplaying game, so it’s probably worth checking out if you’re into that kind of thing.

So, you bought yourself a nice new PlayStation Vita and you’re looking to get your portable video game on.  That’s all well and good, but who wants to play a video game system with only a couple of games?  Fortunately, Amazon.com has a great solution to that problem thanks to a brilliant sale.  B2G1, as the kids say.  That’s right, gang: buy two get one free on all launch PS Vita games.

GameStop and Target are doing similar deals, but only Amazon’s deal covers basically all the video games available for the Vita.  You don’t want to be limited, do you?  No; when you’ve got a buy two, get one, you want your one to be anything you want, and Amazon is making that happen.  Now, a tougher assignment might be to pick out just three games, or to find three games you like among the launch titles, but that’s an entirely different article for a different time.