It's Trivia time!

You probably take
it for granted, but the contents of your board game closet are rich with
history -- and littered with fascinating facts. Where did "Community Chest"
come from? What are Jokers? Why are there only four Ss but six Rs in a Scrabble
set? Read on to find out.

What was the first American board game?

Traveller's Tour Although European
settlers brought numerous games over the Atlantic to the new world,
the Puritans didn't look very kindly upon them. Dice, for example, were
associated with gambling, and like a great many other entertaining pastimes,
condemned as Satanic.

So the first board
game published in America, "Traveller's Tour Through the United States," doesn't
exactly sound like a

L.A. Noire [X360, PS3]

Few game developers can boast a track record like Rockstar
Games. Responsible for smash hits like the Grand Theft Auto series and last
year's standout Red Dead Redemption, the studio is famed for output that toes
the line between film and games.

With this week's release of gritty 1940s detective drama L.A.
Noire for the Xbox 360 and PS3, however, Rockstar has raised the bar for what
constitutes a cinematic video game experience. Boasting groundbreaking
facial-mapping technology, an all-star cast and a lifelike recreation of
1940s Los Angeles, it's already being tipped as one of the year's best games.

"Ever since it first worked out how to assemble pixels so
that they

Margaritaville - THQ With his enduring anthems to margaritas, cheeseburgers and flip flops, you wouldn't peg Jimmy Buffet to be much of a gamer. But with popular -Ville games like FarmVille and FrontierVille dominating people's time online, it only makes sense that the man behind 'Margaritaville' would join the party at some point.

That point is now. Buffett and THQ are set to bring the tropically inspired Margaritaville Online to Facebook and Apple's iDevices, packed with a hefty dose of classic Buffett songs, characters and virtual cheeseburgers.

Due later this year, the free-to-play game is tailor made for Parrotheads, but will feature many of the same trappings as other social network games, including

World of Warcraft - Blizzard Entertainment Subscriber numbers tend to ebb and flow with massively multiplayer games. No matter how high they get, people generally expect them to come down -- unless that game is World of Warcraft.

So when Activision-Blizzard announced earlier this month that subscriptions of its crown jewel had fallen 5 percent, heads turned. Was the mightiest title in the persistent world universe finally showing signs of weakness?

The answer really comes down to perspective. While the loss of 600,000 subscribers in one quarter would be catastrophic to virtually any other game, WoW is hardly struggling, as it still has a healthy 11.4 million people paying their monthly fees.

The drop-off has sent a message to the

Apple may tout the diversity of the App Store in television ads, but let's face it -- the store is prejudiced against certain users. Sure, there are apps for adults and children, scholars and idiots, big spenders and cheapskates...

...but what about cats?

The touch interface system, after all, is much easier for Fluffy to navigate than a keyboard and (delicious) mouse, but so far no forward-thinking developer has given a second thought to the needs of the feline demographic.

Leave it to Friskies to end the species-ism.

The cat food giant has created a trio of iPad games for cats that it says "were developed through behavioral research, careful consideration of what appeals to cats' senses,

LEGO UNIVERSE - "The Sounds of the Game"

Patrick Stewart, of Star Trek and X-Men fame discusses his contribution to the world of sound in LEGO Universe.  And if that's not enough, brilliant composer Brian Tyler talks about building the nominated soundtrack to this epic game.

Looks like the rumors were true: the best-selling shooter in the U.S. is going
on a world tour later this year.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the next game in
Activision's record-setting first-person franchise, is set to blast into stores
on November 8th. To commemorate the news, Activision also released the game's
debut trailer, which shows off its new globetrotting style by letting gamers
play army men in at least four major cities, including New York, London, Paris
and Berlin.

Ports are destroyed, subways are demolished, helicopters are piloted, buildings
are razed and bullets are shot. Lots and lots of 'em. See for yourself:

Flashy, disturbing stuff, and though we're not entirely

cnbc.com

The past month hasn't been a good one for people concerned about online privacy.

First, hackers stole personal information from 100 million accounts at Sony, then Symantec announced that Facebook might have accidentally leaked its users' information to advertisers and other third parties for several years without realizing it.

The breaches, coupled with some high-profile credit card hack attacks, have people
worried-and rightfully so. If they're not safe with some of the biggest holders
of personal data around, is their data safe anywhere?

Stay safe while using the net. You may not like
the answer.

"There's nothing consumers can do," says renowned security expert Bruce Schneier.
"We are regularly giving our data to