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Activision Blizzard has made, by most accounts, a boatload of money on the Guitar Hero franchise. Now a group is claiming that Activision falsely advertised the games, including DJ Hero, claiming that it had patents pending notation when there weren’t patents being applied for, and for listing patents not connected with the products. With a possible fine of up to $500 per product sold, a finding of wrongdoing could be very expensive.

“Essentially, PCG [the group filing the action] is claiming that the scopes of the patents with which Activision’s video game products are marked do not cover the methods or systems of the actual products,” PatentArcade wrote in its coverage. “In addition, where Activision has marked products with ‘patent pending’ or ‘patent applied for,’ PCG’s position is that none of Activision’s patent application has a potential scope of protection which would cover any aspect of the specified video game products.”

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When you imagine a nondescript, hot, sticky, and oppressively crowded bar in downtown Toronto, the first thing that comes to mind probably isn’t video games. But that’s exactly the setting that indie studio Capybara Games chose to reveal two of its upcoming projects, at an event held by the Hand Eye Society—a local group of Toronto area developers, writers, and gaming enthusiasts. The 25-person strong studio had a big 2009 thanks to a pair of hits: Critter Crunch on the PlayStation Network and Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes on the Nintendo DS. Both are puzzle games, both are critical successes. But for its next projects, Capy is going in two distinctly different directions.

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Many headphones seek to make their mark by cutting you off from the rest of the world. Canalphones block out ambient noise and allow you to focus purely on the sounds you’re hearing from your laptop, iPod, or other music device. The Airdrives go in a different direction, bringing you the sound from your device while allowing you to continue to hear what’s going on around you.

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Heavy Rain is one of the most intense video game experiences in history.

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What happens when you walk down the rows and rows of keyboards for sale at your average electronics store? You see what we, as typists and workers, have become: commodified, wimpy, beige pieces of nothing. What happens when you want to type with purpose? What about those of us who want a keyboard that doubles as a melee weapon?

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This week the StarCraft 2 beta went live, and that was worth two of the most popular stories of the week. We also reviewed Heavy Rain, and took a look at the actors behind the faces and voices. Ubisoft explains the Assassin’s Creed 2 DRM for the PC, and the results are… well, read for yourself.

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In the early days of StarCraft, players feared the clichd Zerg rush—some gamers would simply spam as many cheap units in the early game as possible and overrun the opposition. StarCraft 2 saves us from this terrible fate, however, with one simple addition: rocks.

Placed in choke points, or at the entrance to your base on maps marked “Novice,” the destructible rocks have 2,000 hit points, meaning weak units will be stuck behind them for a quite a while before being able to fight their way through. More powerful units will run right over them, but by that time both sides have had more than enough time to climb the tech tree and build some defenses.

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Ubisoft has long had some controversial ideas about how DRM should be used, but when PC Gamer was given a review copy of Assassin’s Creed 2 on the PC it seemed as if the reality was going to be much worse than what opponents to DRM had feared: the game requires an always-on ‘Net connection and constant communication with the home server. If your connection is dropped, the game kicks you out, and you lose any progress you had made since your last save.

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When you have a series of games as successful as SOCOM: US Navy SEALs, it’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, generating buzz about each title you develop isn’t too difficult, since you have a large fan base, but on the other hand, you’ll be expected to deliver games that are consistently great. So far, the Fireteam Bravo games have been excellent on the PSP. However, with SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 arriving on store shelves and the PSN this week, it feels like the PSP series is starting to wear out its welcome.

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This cooking simulator has an attractive price and high cooking task variety, but a low recipe cache.

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