BY: Liana B. Baker, Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Want to know why video game stocks pop or drop? Check the reviews.

Critical darling L.A. NoireFor years, investors have turned to video game reviews to help make buy or sell decisions, moving the share prices of some video game companies higher or lower.

They consult the website Metacritic, which tracks a large amount of reviews and comes up with an average score, as well as reviews from top video game outlets such as News Corp's IGN.com and GameStop Corp's Game Informer.

And with the holiday shopping season approaching, when companies in the $64 billion video game industry generate the bulk of their sales and earnings, investors will be scouring reviews more closely than usual.

Gaming's busiest season is chock full of blockbusters.There might only be a handful of months left in 2011, but to gamers, the year begins in earnest now. Blockbusters arrive at a torrid pace, turning game reviewers into sleep-deprived lunatics and game consumers into blissful spenders. From Batman to Battlefield, Skyrim to Skyward Sword, here are the games you've been waiting all year to play.
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Reputedly played by Noah to pass time aboard the ark, honed by a princess bored of her court duties, popularized by Confucius on his travels circa 500 BC, and reserved for centuries to Chinese royalty (on pain of execution, no less), Mahjong's complex-looking tiles and intricate rules are steeped in enough myth and history to impress just about anyone.

Mah Jong (Alex Wong / Getty Images)Or that's what they'll tell you, anyhow. Turns out most tales of Mahjong's origins are more myth than history.

For all its inscrutable Chinese charm, no credible documentation of Mahjong exists prior to the latter part of the 19th century. In other words, poker, a comparative newcomer in the traditional games world, is likely more venerable than Mahjong.

But don't let that put you off; modern though it is, Mahjong is still good times once you cut through its confusing veneer.

For years, customers and analysts have pestered Netflix to add video games to its rental operation.

Netflix HQIn a few weeks, they'll finally get their wish.

Netflix has announced plans to add titles for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii to its catalog in the coming weeks. The new options will come as part of the company's plan to split off its DVD-by-mail service into a separate brand and website called Qwikster.

"Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done," said company co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings.

Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

Photo by AFPThe exploit is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where -- exceptionally in scientific publishing -- both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.

Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.

Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.

The PlayStation Vita has plenty of cool features to brag about, but battery life ain't one of 'em.

PS Vita (Sony)Sony has released a new spec sheet for the upcoming handheld system, revealing that gamers can expect between 3-5 hours of game playing time per charge -- meaning if you bring one along for a cross-country flight, you might want to have another entertainment option at your disposal as well.

While the numbers are small, they're no worse than the Nintendo 3DS, whose battery life is also quoted at 3-5 hours.

Old fashioned funFor some gamers, old-school means the Nintendo Entertainment System. Others go back further to the Atari 2600, or perhaps even Pong.

But if you really want to talk about old-school gaming, you should talk to your grandparents. And their parents.

While video games are largely thought of as a relatively recent phenomenon, their predecessors — arcade games — have been around since the 1800s. Long before Steamboat Willie introduced Mickey Mouse to the world and prior to the kickoff of the first World Cup (both occurred in 1930), people were paying to play games.

Here's a look at some of the more notable ones.

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If you're hoping to launch a class-action lawsuit against Sony, you might want to read the new terms of service of the PlayStation Network really closely before agreeing to them.

PSNSony has amended the user agreement it requires gamers to digitally sign off on before they can access the online functionality of the PS3 -- and it's got a whopper of a change intended to dissuade players from litigating.

In a new section of the terms (called "Binding Individual Arbitration"), users are told they must waive the option to open a class-action lawsuit against the company on issues surrounding online services.

"Any Dispute Resolution Proceedings, whether in arbitration or court, will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class or representative action or as a named or unnamed member in a class, consolidated, representative or private attorney general action," it says.