The rumored Sega "Hedgehog" handheld console is nothing more than a myth according to industry insider Michael Hodgson. It was actually intended to be a handheld multimedia player with the functionality to play back bundled Sega Genesis titles however the company in question that was tasked to develop the hardware has recently gone into receivership and as such the hardware is unlikely to ever see the light of day. This is bad news for Sega fans everywhere who were waiting anxiously for news of Sega's resurgence into the hardware market however at a time when Sega is prospering producing quality software for all current consoles no such risky hardware revival is expected.

On October 07, a judge in Brazil passed a ban on Counter Strike and Everquest and is being enforced since January 17. According to the judge Carlos Alberto Simoes, both promote "the subversion of public order" and are "an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security". In the case of Counter Strike, an added reason for the ban is the existence of a mod that portraits fire-fights between drug dealers and police officers in Rio de Janeiro, and is considered a way of teaching players war strategies.

Other games like Carmaggedon, Grand Theft Auto and Portal 2 have also been banned in Brazil before.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

Mobygames user Multimedia Mike has a list of games that aren't on the Mobygames database yet which will be very useful if your looking to add some games to the database.

The list is comprised of US and/or European releases for

• 3DO
• N64
• NES
• Sega Dreamcast
• Sega CD/32X
• Sega Game Gear
• Sega Master System
• Sega Saturn
• SNES
• WonderSwan + WonderSwan Color

And a few games for other platforms

View the lists here

http://multimedia.cx/mobygames/

Your Mac will soon be able to download your music and movies to your PS3. And not just download, but do things like showing your iTunes album art and stream an iPhoto slideshow to your shiny big HDTV.

A 22-year-old Russian student, gamer of Lineage II, met in Ufa with Albert, a 33 years old Russian that played in a rival clan in the game. Days before New Year, Albert's clan, Platanium, killed a member of the Coo-clocks, the student's clan, and they decided to meet in real life days before. The meeting ended with Albert dying in its way to the hospital.

The murderer hasn't shown any regret, as he seems to understand the event within the rules of the game. In addition, clan members are reported to be harassing the family of the victim.

In the source, two more crimes around gaming happened in Russia are mentioned.

Writers Guild of America, for some reasons that have nothing to do with the strike, has decided to create a category for best videogame writing. The nominees are: The Witcher, Crash of the Titans, Dead Head Fred, The Simpsons Game and World in Conflict.

The winner will be announced on February 9.

Personally I hope the award goes to The Witcher cause that would be beneficial to my gaming preferences. Go, new future of choices and consequences and make us proud.

With 5293 points, the Turkish/Canadian contributor Depeche Mike Isguder joins the All-Time Top 50 MobyGames Contributors.

For comparison, I only needed 1500 points to join the Top 25 Contributors list in 2001. When the list was expanded to include 50 contributors two and a half years later, it was possible to enter it with 1000 points only.

As points grow, so does our database. Congratulations to Mike and to all the other contributors. Keep up the good work!

Having noted his excellent work on adding vintage French-language games, it would be remiss not to note that POMAH has now reached 10,000 contribution points, becoming the 31st MobyGames user to reach this total. Congratulations and well done.

Don't know why nobody thought of making this earlier, but then again not everybody knows that the DS's touch screen is also pressure-sensitive... Anyway, behold Colors!, a homebrew digital painting program that makes full use of the stylus and turns your DS into a portable sketchboard! The soft is freeware and runs on most flashcarts when DLDI patched (works fine on my R4). Perfect for budding artists on the go.

MobyGames now documents over 1500 games for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum system. Designed to be powerful yet affordable, the system was on sale in the UK for nearly a decade, and was also particularly successful in Spain and later in Eastern Europe. Despite (or perhaps because of) the famous colour-attribute problems, the system gained a strong support. Many innovative non-action games were created, including the entire 'arcade adventure' genre.

Famous titles like Head Over Heels, Football Manager and Jet Set Willy originated on the system, as did developers such as Rare, David Perry and Mike Singleton.

Thanks to everybody who's added these games. We don't get all that many Spectrum submissions, it would be nice to see more.

Readers of Ron Gilbert's blog Grumpygamer already know he has been working on an adventure-RPG for the past four years. Until now, he wasn't able to get any publisher interested in his little project. Today, he has announced that Canadian developer/publisher Hothead Games will publish the episodic game. Ron has also decided to join the company as their new Creative Director.

Ron describes the game as "Monkey Island meets Diablo". It will be a mixture of adventure and action-RPG, with his unique humour and a gripping story and it will feature the misguided hero DeathSpank. The first episode is already in production and will be called DeathSpank: Episode One: Orphans of Justice. A release date is not given, but the game's website promises 'soonish'.

More info on Grumpygamer, Hothead Games and DeathSpank.com

Have a happy and safe New Year, MobyGames admin and users. Remember, don't drink and drive. And don't bother with a taxi, call a tow truck. It'll cost about the same and you'll know where your car is in the morning. :-)

Congratulations! To the new 2007 MobyUsers that have made it to the 2007 Top Contributors Hall of Fame:

Macs Black. Brazilian member since Mar 25, 2007 with 14396 points;

DJP Mom. US member since Feb 05, 2007 with 5436 points;

DreinIX. Greek member since Jul 25, 2007 with 3507 points;

vgmuseum. Canadian member since Jul 15, 2007 with 2640 points;

Santa Martyne. Ukrainian member since Jul 02, 2007 with 2101 points.

The MG 2007 Hall of Fame consists of:
13 Americans;
7 Canadians;
7 Germans;
3 Brazilians;
2 Australians;
2 Brits;
2 Dutch;
2 Poles;
2 Russians;
2 Swedes;
1 Argentinian;
1 Belgian;
1 Czech:
1 Greek;
1 Israeli;
1 Portuguese;
1 Ukrainian;
1 unidentified;
and no Indonesians. :p

Additional info: 2 confirmed females; 48 unconfirmed males; 21 approvers; 2 admins, 9 gold star members.

Happy New Year!