Children of the '80s will fondly recall the "Choose Your Own Adventure" gamebooks, a series of interactive tales that let readers control the direction of the story by periodically choosing one of several plot paths. Starting with 1979's "The Cave of Time," the prolific  series captured imaginations and spawned countless clones over its impressive 20-year run, earning all sorts of pop-culture cred along the way.

And now, it's finding new life in the unlikeliest of places: Youtube.

Thanks to some incredibly creative (and seriously dedicated)
users, 'choose your path' movies are cropping up more and more frequently on
the online video megasite. Trading pages for page views, the premise is

The biggest game on the App Store is stretching its wings.

Angry Birds developer Rovio has announced a partnership with 20th Century Fox for a new Angry Birds game based on the studio's upcoming animated film, Rio. Much like the

successful 'Seasons' spinoff, the new title -- dubbed Angry Birds Rio -- will

be a full 45-level standalone release and is due out in March for smartphones

and tablets.

In the game, the original Angry Birds are kidnapped and

whisked away to Rio, where they must help save the two macau stars of the

feature film by -- what else -- lobbing themselves at giant structures. Their new enemy? An evil white parrot! No seriously, behold his evilness:

See? EVIL.

The Rio

The Many Careers of Mario

Times are tough and jobs are scarce -- unless you're a video
game icon. You might know Mario as a portly plumber, but the hardest-working mascot
in video games has worn all sorts of hats over his 30-year career. And for our
sake, we hope he never retires. Check out some of his coolest jobs.

Dying to get your hands on the first expansion to Black Ops but don't have 1200 Microsoft Points to spare?

You're in the right place. Almost.

To celebrate the launch of the First Strike content -- which adds 4 new multiplayer maps and a new map for the game's Zombie Mode -- we're giving away a whopping 15 Xbox Live download codes for the exorbitant price of exactly nothing. Nada. Zilch. Woot!

The catch? We're doing it on Facebook, so head over to our Facebook page, give us a "like," and keep your eyes peeled. We'll be blasting out 5 codes at noon, 5 more at 3:00 pm and the final 5 at 6:00 pm (all Pacific Standard Time).

In the meantime, feast your eyes on screenshots, or check out the

Madden NFL 11 - EA Sports Forget Punxsutawney Phil
-- Madden 11, EA's pigskin prognosticator, has emerged from its burrow just in
time to make its annual wintery pick.

And it's going with Pittsburgh.

According to the simulation, the Steelers storm back from an
early fourth quarter deficit to narrowly beat the Green Bay Packers, 24-20, nabbing
their record seventh Vince Lombardi Trophy. With five catches for 111 yards -- including
the game-winning TD -- Steelers wide receiver Mike Wallace wins the MVP.

EA Sports has been using Madden to predict the Super Bowl
winner for years now, and the famed football franchise is proving eerily good
at it. Not only has Madden correctly picked six of the last seven winners, it's

Hope your living room is waterproof.

Gold medal hoarder Michael Phelps has partnered with 505
Games to create "Michael Phelps: Push the Limit," a swimming game
for Microsoft Kinect. Yes, you read that correctly. A motion-controlled
swimming game. Witness the first trailer:

"I'm really excited to help bring a one-of-a-kind swimming
video game to the market that is reflective of my competitive nature and passion
for swimming," Phelps said in a press release, adding that it "isn't your typical video game."

That's for sure. Since roughly, I dunno, half of swimming involves kicking your legs, it seems you'd have to be flailing around on the floor to get this thing to work correctly, right?

Really bad call. They might not have a million hidden cameras casting a Sauron-like gaze upon every inch of every table, but social game maker Zynga is
as adept at catching a cheater as a brick and mortar casino.

Ashley Mitchell, a 29 year-old IT expert from the U.K., learned that the hard way this week when he was apprehended for hacking into a
server and stealing 400 billion chips from Facebook hit, Zynga Poker.

The hacker posed as a game administrator in 2009, reports the BBC, as a way to access the game's backend and siphon off chips. The large volume of missing chips raised a red flag for Zynga, who set up a sting operation to track him down.

Mitchell only managed to sell off about one-third of the