PSP

CHICAGO – It feels like there’s a new must-have electronic toy every quarter. Do you have an iPad 2? iPhone 4S? Nintendo 3DS? Whatever that obnoxious SuperBowl commercial with The Darkness was shilling? It can get exhausting, especially if you don’t have the expendable income to get them all. So why should you buy a Sony PlayStation Vita?

CHICAGO – Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander, who just won the MLB Players Association’s Player of the Year Award, was named the new cover athlete for “Major League Baseball 2K12” this morning. The game is scheduled for release on March 9, 2012.

CHICAGO – When talking about sports stateside, it is pretty common to discuss the major four: football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Even golf and tennis come up frequently. One sport that really hasn’t taken off is soccer. Maybe you have to call it football to be obsessed with the sport, but soccer tends to be pretty low on the average American sportswatcher’s list of favorites.

CHICAGO – A release date has been set for the next generation of portable game playing from Sony. The Sony Vita will be released to the US, Canada, Latin America, and Europe on February 22, 2012.

CHICAGO – If you ask ten people to name the best game ever produced for the Sony PSP, nine of them will name one of the two highly-acclaimed and beloved “God of War” games, the award-winning “God of War: Ghost of Sparta” and “God of War: Chains of Olympus.”

CHICAGO – Maybe you’re still shaking off the hangover of an amazing first week of NFL football that saw the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, and Baltimore Ravens successfully start their run at another post-season, but you should know about a video game that a vast majority of pigskin fans have probably already plunked more time into than Jay Cutler does his practice.

CHICAGO – Traveller’s Tales clearly seems 100% unconcerned about exhausting their “LEGO” brand as they have released “LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4,” “LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars,” and, now, “LEGO: Pirates of the Caribbean” in less than a year.

CHICAGO – Sports games are like automobiles — every year produces a new release but it’s bound to drive in much the same manner as last year’s model. It’s especially rare for a bestselling, highly-acclaimed franchise to make radical changes in an attempt for an even higher level of greatness. And yet that’s exactly what’s happened with Sony’s “MLB 11 The Show,” one of the best sports games ever made.

CHICAGO – With the best-selling “God of War III” still resonating like an almighty thunderclap that hit gamers barely over half a year ago, is it too soon for another adventure of one of the last decade’s most influential and important characters? And with the continuous decline in the number of interesting properties available for the Sony PSP, will “God of War: Ghost of Sparta” feel like an afterthought or an essential property in the Kratos canon?

CHICAGO – The learning curve may be steep enough that casual gamers could get thrown off by a title that demands a lot of its players but once you get the hang of “NBA 2K11” it becomes one of the most addictive and accomplished sports games ever made.