What could be more compelling than documenting the lives of characters from the video game The Sims? Okay, it doesn't sound all that compelling, and there are many examples on the web of it being done poorly. But once in awhile someone comes along and does something that seems like a bad idea in such spectacular fashion that it truly becomes noteworthy.

Alice and Kev is a blog by Robin Burkinshaw that documents the lives of two characters he created in The Sims 3, the latest iteration of Electronic Arts' blockbuster game franchise. The two characters are a father and daughter, and Burkinshaw decided that to make things interesting he would give his characters some real challenges, such as homelessness and in the case of the father, Kev, insanity.

The resulting story is somehow both heart-rending and hilarious. Burkinshaw's blogging style is almost entirely graphical, with occasional pithy comments thrown in. The few comments he includes give the story life, and the characters really do feel all too real.

Reading the comments for each update is almost as entertaining as the posts themselves; Alice and Kev have a huge following, and an average post results in 100 or more comments by people who seem to genuinely care about this duo, and the other characters they are involved with.

It's an inspired bit of storytelling, a bit of a surprise given the usual fare when it comes to Sims blogging.

[via Boing Boing]

A job posting on Gamasutra suggests Amazon will soon start a PC game download store to compliment Unbox, its video-on-demand service, and the site's MP3 download store. The job posting asks programmer/engineers to apply to become a part of the Software and Video Games Digital Technology Team at Amazon, which is "responsible for digital distribution of software and video game products from the Amazon website, including the newly launched Amazon Software Download store."

The job posting itself is unsurprising as Amazon recently launched the software branch of its download services, but the job post includes the bit about the distribution of "video game products," which is currently not happening at the Amazon Software Download Store. The only software presently available from the very new service is unfortunately tax software.

But fear not! We're sure a few competent souls will apply, molding the new service into a very happy reality for those of us that hate visiting and supporting major retail stores like Best Buy and Circuit City.

[via Joystiq]

"No mindless trivia. No tricky stunts. Just $1,000,000 worth of food, and it's all for one question...Meal or no Meal?"

In Meal or No Meal? You start by selecting a tray to keep to the side from 26 available dinner trays. You then eliminate dinner trays in small groups with each tray containing a food item worth somewhere between $.01 and $1,000,000. After each group of trays the dinner bell rings and the chef makes you a food offer forcing you to decide: Meal or No Meal?

Today's time-waster Cursor Run is a mouse race like no other. In the game your only job is to put your mouse cursor inside the circle before your computer opponent does. As the game progresses the circle appears much faster and your opponent gets much more difficult to beat. The game is extremely simple in concept but also extremely difficult in practice and highly addictive. Give it a try.

When I was in high school I used to play Dots with friends during lectures, on the bus, during lunch... anytime there was a lot of sitting involved and I didn't want to pay attention, which was the bulk of high school. When I found this flash version of the game I was addicted to it once again..

Playing Dots is simple. You have several rows of dots on a piece of paper. You and a friend (or in this case the computer) take turns connecting two of the dots together. The object is to create more squares in the end of the game than your opponent. Since you can only connect two dots at a time the beginning of the game is all about finding a place to connect two dots where your opponent can not come behind you and complete a square. If you complete a square, it continues to be your turn until you make a move that does not complete a square. In the end the player with the most squares wins.

Question...what is only 72MB, downloadable, free, fun, and fraggalicious? Why OpenArena, of course. This little game (with excellent graphics I might add) is built on the FOSS Quake 3 engine. There is a single player, as well as multiplayer mode you can play with. The latest version is 0.6.0, and is really a lot of gameplay packed into a small download (for what it is). If you are a gaming fan, especially of Quake, Unreal, and other fraggin games like that, and maybe a little old-skool, you'll like this game. I mean it doesn't get much better for free, does it? Heck, I like a free flash game, and this is just a tiny bit more involved. Try it out, it is actually quite addictive. Almost as much as the downloading of the game itself. Fresh bits and pixels man (in geek-speak, it means "sweet-lovin"). Enjoy and frag away!

Another holiday has come and gone, and you've discovered nobody loves you enough to buy you an $800 video game console. But if you've got a Playstation Portable or a Windows Mobile devices (particularly a Dell Axim X50v or X51v), there's good news on the video game front.

Engadget's reporting that hackers have figured out a way to make the Playstation emulator for PSPs more useful. Now you can play pretty much any Playstation ISO on a PSP, and not just the titles you can download from Sony's online store.

In other news, FPSCE, a Playstation emulator for Windows Mobile devices has been updated to include support for Windows Mobile 5.0. The latest version is also optimized to take advantage of the Intel 2700g graphics accelerator in Dell Axim X50v and X51v models.

Sushi Samurai is a cute Flash remake of arcade classic BurgerTime, except (in case you hadn't guessed) with sushi. If you ever played BurgerTime you'll pick up Sushi Samurai in no time, but in case you're unfamiliar here's how it goes down: You control a little samurai who must walk across the sushi ingredients to make them fall into the dishes below. However, you're hindered by evil food-themed enemies including tofu, radishes, and the evil puffer fish. You can shoot wasabi to immobilize the enemies and you can pick up other bonuses like soy sauce (for extra lives) and miso soup (which freezes all enemies). Sushi Samurai is just as fun as its predecessor, and even a little more forgiving, and its controls are solid and the graphics (in particular the enemies) are adorable.