Sorry, neither are you, Jimmy Woods. However, ten other virgins incredibly skilled gamers made it onto GamesRadar's "Ten of the godliest gamers" list, playing the games they've spent humbling portions of their lives mastering. From Street Fighter to Minesweeper, prepare to have your opinion of your own gaming skills blown to smithereens. Think you're good at Tetris? Can you play at the speed of light, with invisible blocks? We thought not.

Forgive us if we glance at these videos with apprehension. Don't get us wrong, the list is impressive; we're just a little hurt that we weren't included. We don't mean to brag, but we used to know a thing or two about a little game called Pokemon Snap. We've been told that seeing our photo of a newly-evolved Charizard bursting from the depths of a volcano, skin glistening from the polish of magma, is like feeling your soul stir deep within your chest. Please, if you have a moment, let us show you them.

It's a long weekend in the States, it's time to take it down a notch. Earlier this week we got an email from reader Herlich Aguiluz, who told us the story of how his wife woke him up Wednesday morning concerned that their seven-year-old son was awake while "it was still dark." When Aguiluz spoke to his son in the morning it turned out the kid woke up at 1AM and was playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption all night until his mother came down to fix breakfast. Aguiluz says, "I realized that while my wife was mad at what happened, I was proud and envious at the same time. Proud because I see my gamer-self in him, and envious because it used to be me who stayed up for a new game."

This blogger can remember waking up more than one time at 3AM as a kid to find his mother playing Final Fantasy II (Final Fantasy IV) in the living room -- later on the same thing happened with Final Fantasy III. It's very strange to wake up to the sound of Final Fantasy battle music, walk into the living room and be asked, "What are you doing up?" When that question was obviously a two-way street.

So, let's open it up. Anybody else have those unexpected gamer moments with a family member?

In the weeks after the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech, the search for answers focused mainly on germane issues like gun control and mental health rather than simple media scapegoating. At least one group seems unwilling to let go of the games-made-him-do-it angle, though. Speaking to Governor Tim Kaine's official Virginia Tech Review Panel, Larouche Youth Movement leader Paul Mourino warned of a "potential epidemic eruption of a 'new violence,' driven, in part, by the mass distribution of killing simulators to youth."

In addition to the familiar games-create-killers arguments, Mourino's comments included the remarkable implication that the game industry caused a "media blackout" on discussion of Cho's interest in video games by "pour[ing] millions of dollars into a public relations and damage-control campaign." Mourino cites the removal of a Washington Post mention of Cho's Counter-Strike playing as evidence of the conspiracy; this despite the Post author's explanation that the factoid was removed simply to make room for more recent, more relevant information.

You may remember Lyndon LaRouche from his support of Sept. 11 conspiracy theories, his implication that the British royal family are drug dealers and his stories of Soviet secret police brainwashing of his supporters. So, all in all, there are worse people to have on the other side of the game violence debate.

We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control. Kids are adopting gaming at younger ages according the the latest NPD group research data. The first time kids take the red pill has dropped from 8.1 years of age to 6.7 in 2007. Doesn't mean they like what they play. Just that they're indoctrinated.

Portable game systems lead the pack in child adoption rates with 39%. Console systems come in at 29%. Given the sales of the Nintendo DS and the Pokémons, that doesn't seem very surprising. Anita Frazier, industry analyst for The NPD Group, says, "[Children] appear to have no fear of technology and adopt it easily and without fanfare, making these devices a part of their everyday lives." Now if only their parents weren't so frightened of the "pokemans".

Boyfriends aren't the only ones facing dilemmas. Publishers and developers have been struggling to develop games that appeal to women, because they represent a huge demographic who haven't traditionally been associated with the video game market, and that translates to lost dollars. But how do you begin to approach making a game for girls, or is it even a mistake to set out to do that from the beginning, rather than just making a game that's fun?

The panel first asked the question, "What constitutes a female gamer?" Jame Pinckard said, "Women aren't just this monolithic block of 'gamers', they all want different types of games. Just because a Barbie video is made for a 12 year old girl, doesn't mean a 26 year woman has to play it." Sheri Graner Ray took it a step further, adding "There is no definition of a female gamer, and trying to tack a label to them does a disservice. The female gamer is simply a female who plays games. She's just a diverse as any other market out there."

The controversy surrounding the positive and negative effects of modern video games has drawn commentary from luminaries ranging from the governor of California to the Pope. But among all this high-level pontificating, one question has loomed large: What does Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad think of video games?

Apparently, he doesn't like them. This according to an interview Al-Assad gave to Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer, who figured that since the dictator has "talked about the internet," a question about video games was appropriate. Al-Assad tersely answered that he uses the internet "for information, not for video games" before moving on to important topics like his favorite movies and what's on his iPod (we're not kidding).

Al-Assad's discussion got us wondering how the world might be different if more heads of state actually were gamers? Could President Bush gain a deeper understanding of history through Civilization? Could a nice, calm game of Mario soothe Tony Blair's nerves after a long day in front of Parliament? Could the world-gobbling power of Katamari Damacy satiate the ambitions of Kim Jong-Il? The world may never know.

[Via NewsBusters]

There's a couple showings left of Discovery HD's Gamer Generation special coming up, so set your TiVo Series 3 and your generic DVRs to record, and see what insight this latest documentary has to offer about gamers that hasn't already been said.

Depending on where you live, and if your satellite/cable provider carries the Discovery HD Theater channel, there are two more showings today, and again on Saturday, January 13th. TV listings are showing it as "Part One," so hopefully this will be an ongoing series or special, but right now information about this, and a frustrating amount of HD programming, is hard to come by.

Let us know if you happened to catch it, and what you thought about it. That is, if you are able to find it ... just like The A-Team.

New York based photographer Phillip Toledano has a gallery of photos online capturing the faces and expressions people make while playing video games. The resulting pictures are funny, creepy and slightly disturbing. It'll make us think twice about what our face is doing the next time we game. Maybe the Xbox Live Vision Camera isn't such a great idea after all. If we look like this, we don't want people laughing at us.

Or is it too late?

Loads of time, cash and effort go into developing cutscenes in games, but do gamers watch them? Do you see them as integral to the game, or annoyances that slow down the experience?

Do you watch cutscenes?
	Attention glued to every detail
	Sort of watch them while searching for munchies
	Let them play and listen in from the bathroom
	Scream and pound every button to get straight to the action

Technical mumbo jumbo: this is not a scientific or rigorous poll and is only intended to capture the general consensus of Joystiq readers. Results will be posted approximately one week after the poll is opened for votes. Sure, you probably could hack this poll if you worked at it, but it's more fun for everyone if poll results accurately reflect the opinions of all readers, so please refrain from tampering with poll results.

[Update: fixed poll width]

An interesting tidbit dredged up from Raph Koster's presentation at the Austin Game Conference comes via Wonderland: most gamers are introverts. Pardon us while we gasp in disbelief for a few minutes. Koster claims that most gamers fall into the Myers-Briggs types INTJ, INTP, ISTJ and ISTP. With INTJ being a classic scientist, and INTP a classic programmer, it seems as if games really are designed by nerds, for nerds.

As Alice points out, what would a game designed by an extrovert look like? How are those of us who have Myers-Briggs types beginning with E catered for by modern games? Perhaps we're more likely to head off to the pub and pay someone else to level our MMO characters -- perhaps we're more drawn to social or casual games -- or perhaps we just don't play at all.

Do you listen to Gorillaz? Are you looking forward to X-Men: The Last Stand? Do you watch Family Guy and The Simpsons? And do you have a positive opinion of Google and Apple?

According to a recent survey conducted through IGN.com by IGN's GamerMetrics, the answer to the above is "yes" for a large number of gamers. Describing IGN as having "one of the largest concentrated audiences of young males on the Internet", the survey's results show a fascinating slice of modern interests.

Given that one of the arguments for in-game ads includes the fact that younger demographics don't watch much television, the number of gamers following Family Guy (68%) and The Simpsons (64%) may seem surprising. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see these results for different countries; the brand voting and TV choices show the American skew of the survey respondents.

A lot of the casual conversation at E3 revolves around girls, girls and more girls. Overheard at Webzen's display of whirling skirts and crop-tops:

Gamer 1: Which game is this?
Gamer 2: Dude, I don't even care.

The guys over at destructoid.com weren't too impressed with Dell's $10,000 pricetag for the company's flagship Renegade system so they decided to take the matter into their own hands by collating the key components of a custom built Quad SLI gaming rig. Breaking their imaginary system down, they found that the main areas essential for building a machine comparable in performance to the Renegade were:

1. Duh, the Quad SLI graphics cards. A budget of around $2800 should set you up with a 4 card bundle.
   
2. A Gigabyte Quad SLI motherboard to stick those four cards in, $240.
3. Pentium 3.73GHz Extreme, $1300.
4. 10,000 RPM Hard Drive and 2GB of branded RAM, $450.
5. Battlefield 2 at 1600x1200 with graphics on full, priceless.

Chuck in a case, cooling, sound card, DVD drive and peripherals (keyboard, mouse and 2.1 speaker system) and you're looking at a budget of $6,000 for a well equipped Quad SLI system. That's around $2,000 less than the Renegade PC (sans the $2,199 30" widescreen monitor that Dell includes with their system) so you're not quite saving the $4,000 that the destructoid guys claim you will.

The obvious downsides to building your own Quad SLI rig include: the hassle of constructing the system and installing Windows yourself (although we're sure most people could do a better job than Dell) and the lack of a warranty, but before you think about these problems ask yourself the question: is that red flame color scheme worth two grand?

[Thanks, Franco]