I have wasted entire days chasing the Tetris dragon: dry throat, stinging eyes, calloused thumbs. I dreamed of spinning blocks, impossible combinations, my brain stuck in a Tetris fever. Things got so bad that I had to delete the app from my iPod. I am not a gamer, but I do enjoy me Tetris. It was the only game I cared to play since my grade-school days. Until Angry Birds.

So I was excited, and concerned, to hear there’s a spinoff: Angry Birds Space. Will I be dreaming of birds and pigs in space now? The big addition to the game is gravitational fields, which, according to PC Magazine, “will influence both the trajectory of the birds themselves, as well as how they fly through space.” Great! That should add a few extra hours of wasteful game time to my life.

In a brilliant move, Finnish game developer Rovio got NASA flight engineer Don Pettit to demo the game 243 miles above the Earth, in the International Space Station. You got to love that!

Of course, the pigs in space bit is nothing new. Remember this?

If felines ever take over the world, blame the iPad game “You Vs. Cat.”

Friskies has developed what it claims is the first duel-species video game. Yahoo! Games compares it to air hockey: “Pet owners flick an animated piece of cat food towards a goal, while the cat…tries to deflect it, generally by pouncing on the tablet.” (Good idea — let your cat pounce on your $600 iPad! Maybe the game should be called “How Long Before My Cat Scratches the Shit Out of My iPad?”)

It’s being shown at this week’s South-by-Southwest conference. And the cats are kicking human ass. The game’s world champion, Buddy the Cat, was flown to Austin — and he has yet to be defeated! Worldwide, cats lead humans 2,091 to 1,250. Friskies believes the game will develop Mr. Fluffy’s brain. I hope not! First kitty plays on your iPad, then he’s playing “Gears of War,” then Overlord Toonces enslaves the human race. My advice? Keep your damn cat away from your iPad!

(via Yahoo! Games)

I’ve sustained my first injury after obtaining the freakin’ coolest gaming console since the Vectrex, and I plan on getting plenty more.

I got the Wii a few days ago after many visits and phone calls to video game stores in several cities in the Northeast. (It seems to be a popular item.) So, after my wallet took a hit, my body was ready for the damage of using the Wii controller.

After figuring out how to hook the ball in the bowling game, I vowed not to stop until I broke a score of 200 (a score I’ve never attained in real life). After an hour of wildy swinging my arm at my TV and twisting the controller at the perfect angle, I reached my goal: a score of 213. Now, for the last two days, my shoulder has been sore. Okay, it’s not the worst injury in the world. But I suspect this will be just the first of many Wii-related injuries. I’m planning on re-injuring my back with the baseball game “The Bigs” and hurting my knees with tennis.

So, not only am I going blind because of the computer; I’ll probably wind up in physical therapy because of the Wii. Or I’ll possibly put a hole through my TV screen as I attempt to throw a stike.

Thank you, Wii, now I can hurt myself in the luxury of my own home.

Dream of taking over the criminal underworld of London? Of course, you do! Sony is making that dream possible through its upcoming PSP game “Gangs of London.”

“Gangs of London” gives gamers the experience of the criminal underworld of modern London without the threat of actually getting in a row with a Cockney thug. Choose the gang you want to lead and then fight it out with the competition.

Each of the nearly 60 different missions is separated by what the developers describe as “stunning graphic-novel-style narratives that guide players through the background story of criminal masterminds fighting for the right to be called London’s number one gangster.”

One mode allows gamers to explore the streets of London on their own terms with a choice of several characters, vehicles, weapons, times of day, and police levels.

“Gangs of London” also features an original Game Share mode that generates a new level unique to each PSP, with the content dependent on the serial number of the user’s system. Once activated, players will find themselves faced with uniquely different mission objectives, environments, characters, and weaponry.

“Gangs of London is organized crime in the palm of your hands,” one of the game developers, Daniel Navarro, says. “Now you can control and give orders to your team of gangsters to orchestrate the most ruthless takeover of the London underworld. It’s an intense depiction of London’s criminal underworld with elements never seen before on a handheld system.”

“Gangs of London” should be in stores later this year.