I'm sorry. This post is not politically charged in any way, shape, or form, but I simply couldn't go past this photo without making a small change...

When pondering the mind doesn't keep me up at night and I'm left to my own devices, I've been known to play games. My arguable World of Warcraft addiction, in addition to eating several hundred of hours of my time, has actually opened my eyes to some of the more subtle game mechanics which keep people coming back for more. Every player has their own reason for questing that one bubble closer to the constantly moving player level cap, completing their tier six armour set, or grinding Enraged Earth Spirits until they have enough primal earth to finish whatever the hell it is they're crafting. Thottbot, Allakhazam and other sites have become bibles to players trying to calculate exactly how many of monster X they're going to have to kill, and by association the amount of time they'll have to invest to get that all-important payoff.

There's an interesting read over at Eurekalert at the moment looking at men and women and their brain functions while gaming, particularly the direct correlation between territoriality and reward/addiction portions of the brain. No surprise then that guys got a little more into it than the ladies, and it goes a long way to explaining why men love the King of the Hill game types so much.

The highly-anticipated action title Heavenly Sword, which is exclusive to the PlayStation 3 platform, is out on shelves and receiving plenty of well-earned praise. So what's next for developer Ninja Theory? We caught up with studio co-founder Nina Kristensen to ask her a few questions about women in games development, female protagonists, and the future of the Heavenly Sword brand.

Looks like plenty of hardcore Halo fans opted to stay home and pick their copies up on launch day this time around with small crowds at the major Sydney stores. We staked out EB Bondi Junction and attacked people waiting in line with our video camera to find out what made them come out and pick up their copies rather than wait 9 hours and get it the following day.

The skateboarding game scene is about to change with the launch of EA's Skate. We caught up with John Rattray, pro skater and now game character to discuss his involvement with the project, some of his skate injuries, and the new Flickit control system.