The Witcher 2 - Atari Once upon a time, the
formula for making a hit console game was simple: Throw in an appealing central
character, give him a task, toss some dangerous-looking things at him, make him
jump a lot, hand him a gun, and you were well on your way to the big time.

The thing you absolutely didn't do was make a geeky, nuts and bolts role-playing game filled with inventory screens, branching dialogue trees and drawn-out battles against -- gulp -- dragons.

But that was then. These days, role-playing games have broken out of the garage and are taking up residence right next to the lucrative shooters and action games that seem to
nab twice as many headlines.

Two new RPGS arrive this week in The Witcher

Best RPGs of the last five years

We are a species of
storytellers. The art of fiction is as old as language itself -- but only video
games can actually drop you (or a reasonable facsimile of you) right into the
thick of a tale and let you find your way through it. Small wonder that
story-driven role-playing games -- RPGs to their friends -- are among gaming's
oldest archetypes, and thanks to a recent surge of interest the style has never
been more popular. Check out some of the best examples this generation has to
offer.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Activision It appears Activision has sprung a leak. A big one.

According to an impressively detailed report from game blog Kotaku, the next installment in Activision's blockbuster Call of Duty series, the heavily-anticipated Modern Warfare 3, will launch on November 8th of this year.

Citing numerous sources, the site revealed a wealth of info about the upcoming shooter. Reportedly set right after the events in the massive-selling Modern Warfare 2, the game will criss-cross the globe, letting players blast their way through a dozen cities including New York, London and Paris.

Kotaku further reports that gamers will once again play as multiple characters in the main campaign, tackling 15 missions as "a

Optical illusions are all over the Web. But only one is mind-bending enough to be called the 2011 Best Illusion of the Year. (See, there really are award shows for everything.)

The illusion, which was created by Jordan Suchow, a Harvard University graduate student, and George Alvarez, an assistant professor in Harvard's psychology department, is called "Silencing awareness of change by background motion."

OK, so the name isn't super-catchy, but the effect is quite amazing. A blog from Scientific American helps to explain what's going on. Looking at the white dot in the center of the screen, the dots appear to stop changing color when the ring rotates. But, in reality, they continue to

MMOWGLI Most pirate-themed video games encourage players to strap a parrot to their shoulder and hoist the skull and crossbones. Now the Navy -- yes, the U.S. Navy -- is asking gamers to walk the other side of the plank.

Starting Monday, the naval branch of the military will launch an experimental online game that hopes to tap the collective intelligence of gamers to help combat real-world pirates terrorizing the waters off the Horn of Africa.

Dubbed MMOWGLI (Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet), the game was developed by the Office of Naval Research and represents the first time the military has embraced gamification and crowdsourcing techniques to tackle real-world

Alice: Madness Returns

-->

Wonderland isn't so wonderful in the upcoming Alice: Madness Returns.
Releasing June 14th, the sequel to the cult-smash American McGee's Alice
sees a grown-up Alice stuck in a mental ward, haunted by the accidental death of her family. Macabre?
You bet -- and once you head through the looking-glass to meet the
re-envisioned cast of the new game, you'll get a better sense of exactly how
deep this rabbit hole truly runs.

SOULCALIBUR V - "Teaser Trailer"

The tale of Patroklos, son of Sophitia Alexandra, unfolds as his family's destiny intertwines with the Soul swords.

DIRT 3 - "Gymkhana Battle"

Gymkhana, the 90 million-plus YouTube phenomenon pioneered by Ken Block,
allows gamers to test their skills in DiRT 3's free sessions or
challenge events where they must complete courses by performing
spectacular stunts, racking up combos and earning style points.

FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS (DLC)- "Honest Hearts"

An expedition into the unspoiled wilderness of Utah's Zion National Park
goes horribly wrong when your caravan is ambushed by a tribal raiding
band. As you try to find a way back to the Mojave you become

Mortal Kombat - Warner Bros. The Easter Bunny apparently stuffed a few baskets with video games this year. The late holiday and a strong slate of titles overcame gloomy headlines of data theft to boost April video game sales by 26 percent, according to the NPD Group.

Hardware sales were also impressive, climbing 12 percent overall, though Microsoft and Sony had a lot more to celebrate than Nintendo did.

The Xbox 360 sold 297,000 units last month, a 60 percent increase over last April and beating out both the Wii and PS3. Despite the cyber attacks that resulted in the theft of personal information from over 100 million accounts, Sony saw its hardware sales jump 13 percent.

While Nintendo didn't issue a statement and