databuff writes "Less than 24 hours ago, Jeff Sonas, the creator of the Chessmetrics rating system, launched a competition to find a chess rating algorithm that performs better than the official Elo rating system. The competition requires entrants to build their rating systems based on the results of more than 65,000 historical chess games. Entrants then test their algorithms by predicting the results of another 7,809 games. Already three teams have managed create systems that make more accurate predictions than the official Elo approach. It's not a surprise that Elo has been outdone — after all, the system was invented half a century ago before we could easily crunch large amounts of historical data. However, it is a big surprise that Elo has been bettered so quickly!"

killdashnine writes "Last year we discussed the creation of the International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum in Ottumwa, Iowa, and a first event in 2009 which brought 3,500 people to witness it. Since then, there's been much progress toward creation of the museum, including the upcoming 'Big Bang 2010' exhibition. Their first event kicks off with formal induction ceremonies, tournaments, record-setting attempts, and an array of concerts from 8-bit music to modern rock. This serves as the first official fundraiser for this new non-profit. Iowa is positioning itself as the Video Game Capital of the World. While some sneer and scoff at this, pointing to LA or Seattle as gaming giants and rightful heirs to the title, the real goal is not to glorify software developers but rather to memorialize the 'heroes of video games,' from the iconic Pac Man to pioneers such as Ralph Baer." Here's a list of this year's inductees. Who gets your vote for next year?

Game developer Just Add Water announced today that the Oddworld series, dormant since 2005, will be getting multiple new titles in the near future. Quoting: "... for the past 12 months we have been working extremely closely with the fantastic people at Oddworld Inhabitants, from what started off as brief discussions in June 2009, to now working on multiple projects, across multiple platforms. Whilst we cannot go into specifics right now, we can tell you that over the coming weeks and months we will be announcing these exciting projects starring all of your favorite Oddworld characters."

An anonymous reader writes "20 years after the original game launched, a fan-developed Ultima 6 remake has finally been released! The Ultima 6 Project was formed in 2001 by Sliding Dragon to develop a remake of Origin's Ultima VI: The False Prophet with newer graphics and a more immersive engine. Soon assembled under the banner Archon, the team members, who hail from all over the globe, have set about recreating the world of Britannia, adding an enhanced storyline to bolster intraseries continuity and building on the Ultima legacy in a way that will please fans new and old."

Zerocool3001 writes "The recently featured 36-hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to the iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that he 'did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future.' The text of the cease and desist letter is available from the developer's website."

Sega announced yesterday that it plans to bring back a number of popular Dreamcast games, updating them and releasing them for download on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi will come first, with further announcements expected after E3. "Both of the games will be based on the Dreamcast originals, but will be updated with high-definition graphics, surround sound, online leaderboards, and Achievement and Trophy support." Kotaku has a list of other titles they hope to see — what game(s) would you like Sega to bring back?

Kilrah_il and several other readers made sure we noted Google's tribute to PAC-MAN on its 30th anniversary — a playable game implemented in JavaScript. "'To play the game, go to google.com during the next 48 hours (because it's too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the "Insert Coin" button or just wait for a few seconds.' There is also an Easter egg for those who want to recall one of the first multi-player games, but you'll have to RTFA to find it." This doodle may overshadow the Official PAC-MAN 30th Anniversary Destination.

An anonymous reader writes "I've recently been on a legacy video game binge, reliving the nostalgic days, when I realized that one of my favorite old games can be vastly improved with a few tweaks. This game is pretty much made for a controller, so I would love to get it done on Xbox Live, but doing it on the PC is just as viable. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure the game is not in the public domain yet. Based on previous stories covered here, some companies are all for community made successors while others choose to give them the crushing blow from the start. My question is: how far is too far when one is trying to make a spiritual successor? I do not intend to copy any materials, but it would be lovely if I could incorporate some game design ideas (very general level design, movement, and just one or two game features)."

Gmer writes "Eming.com reports that OpenTTD, the open source clone of the Microprose game Transport Tycoon Deluxe, has reached a milestone. OpenTTD 1.0.0 has been released 6 years after work started on the first version, with the help of hundreds of contributors and thousands of testers/players. Over 30 language translations are considered complete, and OpenTTD is available for *BSD, Linux, Solaris and Windows. OpenTTD is a business simulation game in which the player is in control of a transport company and can compete against rival companies to make as much profit as possible by transporting passengers and various goods by road, rail, sea or air."

An anonymous reader writes "The history of PC gaming is littered with many well-known and highly regarded titles, but what about the titles you mightn't have heard of? This list of the top games in the history of the PC includes the usual suspects, such as Half-Life and Doom, but also some often overlooked PC games including such classics as Elite, the space trading RPG developed in 1984 by two college friends from Cambridge for the Acorn and BB Micro systems. The game used a truly elegant programming hack to create over 200 different worlds to explore while using 32kb of memory, all with 3D wireframes. Also in the list is Robot War, which required players to actually code the participants, and one of the first online multiplayer RPGs, Neverwinter Nights, which introduced many of the developer and user behaviors, such as custom guilds, that have made modern RPGs so popular." What's your favorite classic game that always gets overlooked in these kinds of lists? My vote goes for Star Control 2.

jmp_nyc writes "The developers at Turborilla have remade the 1983 classic game M.U.L.E. The game is free, and has slightly updated graphics, but more or less the same gameplay as the original version. As with the original game, up to four players can play against each other (or fewer than four with AI players taking the other spots). Unlike the original version, the four players can play against each other online. For those of you not familiar with M.U.L.E., it was one of the earliest economic simulation games, revolving around the colonization of the fictitious planet Irata (Atari spelled backwards). I have fond memories of spending what seemed like days at a time playing the game, as it's quite addictive, with the gameplay seeming simpler than it turns out to be. I'm sure I'm not the only Slashdotter who had a nasty M.U.L.E. addiction back in the day and would like a dose of nostalgia every now and then."

Microsoft has confirmed that their upcoming motion-control system, Natal, will be released during the 2010 holiday season. The announcement was made during CES, alongside news of "Game Room," a service that will act like a virtual arcade, bringing classic games to users of the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows Live. It's due out this spring with 30 games to start, and will gradually ramp up to over a thousand titles. According to Kotaku, "You can buy a game for between 240-400 Microsoft Points, or if you really want that old arcade feeling, you can pay 40 Microsoft Points and play the game once, like it was 1985 and you'd just dropped a quarter." Another interesting bit of news is that subscribers to AT&T's U-Verse will soon be able to use the Xbox 360 as their set-top box.

s1acker writes "Stewart Smith of Stewdio has created a version of Pong in HTML 5 and JavaScript, in which you play using the windows of your browser."

When Nintendo returns to its roots next month by releasing a new, 2-D, side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii, it's trying to do more than simply hop on the retro bandwagon many publishers have ridden in recent months. Speaking at a roundtable discussion in New York this week, Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto talked about how they're trying to satisfy fans of the series who want challenging gameplay in addition to attracting new or casual players just looking for an entertaining platformer. Quoting: "... you can play the story mode single-player all the way through from beginning to end, and at any point along the way, you can add players from the world map and have up to four players cooperate to complete the levels. And beyond that, there are two dedicated multiplayer modes, one of which is free-for-all, which lets you select the stages from story mode ... so you can easily find the stage you like. And then there’s also a coin battle mode which is a competitive multiplayer mode, in which you’re actually competing for points and you’re getting ranked based on how many points you’ve collected. The free-for-all mode has kind of a similar feel to something like Mario Kart where you just happen to have four people over and you want to sit down and play a quick match in your favorite level."

satellite17 writes "The BBC notes that the classic space combat / trading sim Elite is 25 years old today. Elite was one of the first 3D games produced for a home computer and also one of the first open-ended games. Odd as it sounds now, this meant that even though it was popular with friends of the creators, David Braben and Ian Bell, they initially struggled to find a publisher. 'They just didn't get it; they wanted a high score and they wanted players to have three lives,' Braben said. It is also credited with influencing quite a few modern classics."

inKubus writes "40-year-old David Race of Beaver Creek, OH has become the 6th gamer in history to gain a perfect score on the original Pac-Man video arcade game. Even more noteworthy is the fact that he's done it in faster time than any gamer in history, putting him at the top of a short list of gamers who have achieved perfection on the original arcade machine."

An anonymous reader writes "Former Sega of America president Bernie Stolar speaks out about the man who ousted him, EA's attempt to monopolize sports games on the Dreamcast, why the Dreamcast failed, and a legendary prank he pulled against Sony. 'I fought to have a modem on the platform. Maybe it was early — who knows. But I fought for a modem in the beginning because I wanted to have massively multiplayer online games on that system.' When asked about the console's online capabilities not catching on with consumers, he said, 'It doesn't surprise me, because there wasn't software tied into it. They were not building and going after software to start that. I mean, I was looking for developers and content providers to start doing that. Sega did not do that after I left. They just abandoned it.'"

Anonymouse writes "Sonic the Hedgehog is going back to his roots, but with a fresh coat of HD paint. 'An all-new 2D side-scrolling High Definition Sonic game is coming with a 2010 release date, according to a new teaser trailer from Sega.' Sega's Ken Ballough had this to say: 'Old-school Sonic fans have long asked to see Sonic return to a more 2D style of gameplay. Many liked the daytime stages in Unleashed but wanted to see a game that plays purely similar to the early games of the Genesis. Project Needlemouse is that critical first step that brings Sonic back to his 2D roots.'"

traycerb writes "It's been 10 years since 9/9/1999, when the Dreamcast launched on American shores. The hardware was ahead of its time; online capability, web browser, a visual memory unit, and a controller that anticipated the much-loved Xbox 360 controller. The games were amazing: Jet Set Radio (the first popular 3d cell-shaded game on a console), Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (still the apotheosis of 2-d fighting; just try finding a copy on ebay), Soul Calibur (still looks good compared to the recent Xbox/PS3 versions), NFL 2K (came out of nowhere, and was so good that it shook EA into spending tens of millions of dollars to seal up exclusivity for NFL rights), and many others. No doubt some of the reasons for the Dreamcast's demise lay with Sega, whose dubious hardware decisions (ahem, 32x) finally caught up to them, in the form of ambivalence from both developers and gamers, just as the console-making world was shifting to the multinationals with big pockets who were willing to spend it on pricey hardware design (or could absorb the cost of faulty hardware design). It was also one of the first consoles widely used for homebrew. In honor of the 10th anniversary, a new game is being released for the Dreamcast, called Rush Rush Rally Racing. The Dreamcast is dead! Long live the Dreamcast!"

blacklily8 writes "Gamasutra has just published our history of Doug Neubauer's Star Raiders, a 1979 game for the Atari 8-bit that offered 'high-speed first-person perspective through a fully navigable 3D-like environment in just 8K of RAM (memory) and 8K of ROM (storage).' Designed by the creator of the Atari's POKEY chip, Star Raiders was a hit on its home platform but now seems to have fallen into obscurity: 'Star Raiders is a shining example of what happens when a developer is told that something can't be done, does it anyway, and then is promptly forgotten for having done it.' In addition to describing the game itself, the article focuses on its impact on later games such as Wing Commander, X-Wing, and Elite."