Straight from the Multiplayer Games Forum - a 4 minute police chase from GTA:IV

I am happy to announce the launch of the Multiplayer Games Forum.

I am hoping that everyone can enjoy the new setup and theme as well as the topics. Our goal from the beginning has been to launch the best place for gamers to come together to discuss the latest happenings of online gaming. The forums should give you the perfect platform for discussing gaming. It will need a little boost to get started and I am hoping that MPG readers will click through and check it out.

I am also happy to announce the first of many contests on the forum! The first ever contest is a free subscription to XBOX Live for 12 months!

Multiplayer Games Forum Contests will be a cool place to win prizes, games, consoles, and hardware for gaming online.

As always, feedback is key to a good community and I welcome it in the comments - or the game forum!

There is a lot of content out there on the web and sometimes the best way to share great stories and new gaming blogs is to link to them! Click away…

Roundup of some of the hottest girls in gaming - that actually play games!
Top 10 Hottest Girls in Gaming

Game Informer debut’s their upcoming cover showing confirmation of the new Ghostbuster’s movie being worked on.
Game Informers Ghostbuster’s cover

What do William Shatner and Mr. T have in common? They are both in new World of Warcraft commercials. They are actually both very funny.
Mr. T WoW Commercial
William Shatner WoW Commercial

Download Halo via Xbox 360
via Joystiq

Top 20 Free games of 2007

These games are certainly not new and do not come close to the awesome graphics power found in Call of Duty 4 or the new Half-Life chronicles, but they are still awesome. We are always linking to games that have recently come out, require some serious hardware, or are simply too expensive. I thought it was time to throw together a nice list of games you can play online for free, download for free, or register to get. ALL AT NO COST.

First up is the always awesome lineup from CNET including 10 titles you can download absolutely free! They include:
Abuse
Americas Army: Special Forces
Command and Conquer (yes the first one)
F.E.A.R. (multiplayer goodness!)
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
..and more!

Here is another set of games you can download all for free from DOSGamesArchive.com
This list includes:
Prince of Persia (4D)
Mario
Aladdin
DOOM
SimCity 2000
Duke Nukem 3D
&
Scorched Earth
+many more!

Looking for the real oldies?

Then checkout OldGames.NU which has every old system on the planet ready to play. I am talking about games on the Amiga system, GameGear, NEO Geo, and the list goes on.

This list should keep you busy for awhile, but if you know of a great list that I missed please let me know. Sometimes with all the new games that are out there is it nice to see where it all started. After all, these game developers are standing on the shoulders of giants. Like the makers of Balloon Fight for Ninendo

December 2007 will host the first $1,000,000 Halo 3 Competition in Dallas, TX. Put on by the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) it looks to be a very serious competition. I first read about this over at GamingBits. Now it is being picked up all over the web. Halo 3 has definitely reset the bar in terms of how well an entertainment property can do during its opening week.

Here is how the $1,000,000 is actually split up:

The cash prize distribution for the $1,000,000 “Halo 3? Xbox 360 competition is:
$250,000.00 - 1
$170,000.00 - 2
$100,000.00 - 3
$75,000.00 - 4
$50,000.00 - 5
$40,000.00 - 6
$30,000.00 - 7
$25,000.00 - 8
$15,000.00 - 9 thru 12
$10,000.00 - 13 thru 16
$5,000.00 - 17 thru 32
$2,500.00 - 33 thru 64

Wow! Not bad for coming in 64 - you get $2,500.00 just for being awesome at Halo 3.

This does however make me want to revisit my question originally posted on Multiplayer Games about whether or not gaming is a sport. I think for a $1,000,000 prize pool to win from it definitely raises the argument that gaming is approaching a new threshold of professionalism. There have been more “best of” and “championship” gaming series in the last few years, and it is becoming more and more possible to make your living from gaming.

Obviously the coverage of gaming has become lucrative as well, but the point is that this type of contest was unprecedented only a few years ago. Watch this space to see who the winner is.

As I am in a video mood today so I am posting some classics that you simply need to see to believe.

This one comes to us as a finalist from the Auckland 48hours Film contest called PhairyTale which is a love story (kinda?) about a young girl leveling her way through what appears to be World of Warcraft. Enjoy!

Warning: its 7 minutes long for you folks who can only handle 30 second clips of someone doing something funny.

I know this is months and months and months late…but its still a great trailer. GTA IV looks to be one very cool game. As a huge fan of the GTA series dating back to the birds eye view of the first PC version I can’t wait for this game to come out! There have been rumors and speculations surrounding a GTA IV delay (possibly due to Halo 3’s mega launch) but who knows. Keep watching this space for updates…but until then we can at least enjoy the trailer:

This question has plagued many a gamer for some time. Should gaming be considered a sport? Well first we have to define what a sport actually is. Should Multiplayer Gaming be considered a sport? I mean, there is a distinct difference playing with yourself and playing with others, right? This debate will unquestionably go on for some time, but with the recent resurgence of gaming competitions and some of the largest gaming purses up for grabs in 2007 maybe it is high time gaming is redesignated.

TheCGS has a great write up analyzing this question.

Major League Gaming also takes a look at this question.

As recently as 2006 there was a push to try to make “gaming” part of the Olympics.

Where will all this lead? Who knows. I for one see the face of gaming changing in the next few years. Many of the old school gamers are now in adulthood, and we see more adults playing casual games and online games than ever before. With the recent bandwidth increases in the United States and across the world gaming is becoming better and easier. I believe that we will see competitive gaming at a national level sometime within the next decade. I do not think gamin will make it into the Olympics anytime soon though.

What do you think? Is gaming a sport?

These two videos are what the Internet was invented for. This may not have too much to do about multiplayer gaming but I could not resist posting both of these. First up is a video that was hot last week about a guy who is has 3 PS3’s. The following video is a follow up to the first uber geek who actually has 4 PS3’s. Does anyone know how many times they say PS 3?

What could possibly follow up a video of this caliber? Checkout below for something even worse…

Enjoy!

Bonus Link: Wired.com writes about an astrophysicist using a cluster of eight (8!!!) PS3s to crunch the mind-blowing numbers involved in modeling gravitational waves. From Wired: “Apparently Dr. Gaurav Khanna is employing his so-called ‘gravity grid’ of PS3s to help measure these theoretical gravity waves — ripples in space-time that travel at the speed of light…” Check out the full article here, and brace yourself for awesome on a cosmological scale.

We are getting prepared to launch some very cool and helpful tools very soon here at MPG but first I wanted to share some cool utilities.

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The web is clearly the best resource for finding information about your favorite video games. Whether it is cheat codes, strategy guides, file downloads, or just the latest breaking news - most turn to the web. With that in mind I thought it was necessary to take a look at some of the biggest gaming resources out there.

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Welcome to www.Multiplayergames.com

MultiplayerGames is the realization of a project that I started almost a decade ago about a premiere destination for gamers by gamers. This website will act as a hub for all online gaming news, information, downloads, discussion and more. I have been working on this project for some time and hope you will come to know and respect the resources found here.

Whether you’re into console gaming, PC games, massive multiplayer experiences, handheld mobile gaming, even online casinos, this is your stop. You don’t hold back, and neither shall MPG. This is our pledge to you, the gamer.

Welcome to MultiplayerGames.com!