Videogames are too often blamed for creating a generation of hyperactive, stimulus-starved youngsters. But one company is using videogames as part of an effective treatment for ADHD. Joel Gonzales profiles SmartBrain Technologies and its SMART system.

Cooking videogames might not improve your real-world culinary skills, but that won't stop Nathan Meunier from trying.

Can videogame characters be role models? Graeme Virtue knows there's only one way to find out: Pretend to be an assortment of gaming icons for 24 hours and record the results.

The most highly publicized psychological studies on videogames usually examine the connection between virtual and real-world aggression. But one line of inquiry focuses on an entirely unrelated question: Could videogames make people better surgeons?

We've all played videogames to temporarily escape from reality, but who knew that games could be an effective medical treatment for chronic pain? Rob Zacny explores the psychology of pain therapy.

"In the world of MMORPGs, money is time. The spending power of every gold coin is directly related to how long it took to earn. Buy gold, and you're able to bypass hours of grinding and arm yourself with desirable gear without the mindless farming. Lose gold, and you could be set back weeks or months of in-game effort.

"So it's easy to imagine my reaction when I learned my mumbling little brother had lost three months of his life."

"What's on display here is the bad blood between two game series, Ninja Gaiden and Capcom's Devil May Cry. Sonia is a mockery of Dante, hero of Devil May Cry, a white-blonde, blue-eyed guy with a prominent Greek nose and a propensity for leather. He wields a pair of .45 autos called Ebony and Ivory. The placement of Itagaki's name on the shot of Ryu standing over a helpless parody of Dante sends a message: Ninja Gaiden, not Devil May Cry, stands at the crest of Hardcore Hill.

"But who gets that joke? Who cares about such archaic, macho grandstanding? Who is Itagaki's message really for? The answer is: the worst possible videogame customer."

"Pretty much anyone who's ever considered how to make the world a better place has spent a little time seriously entertaining the idea of total annihilation. Even God, if the Old Testament is to be believed. After all, if the state of the world - and the people in it - is the problem, then why not wipe the slate clean?"

"More Mark Mothersbaugh than Mick Jagger, Schafer has built a reputation for creating weird, cerebral games that rely more on clever dialogue and witty characterizations than seat-of-your-pants gameplay. Beginning his career at LucasArts with The Secret of Monkey Island, which he helped write and program along with fellow designer Dave Grossman, Schafer has carved out a niche in an industry obsessed with the next Top-40 hit where he and his team can work on something a bit more offbeat."

"Like any proud (Filipino) American family, we give thanks that we may eat well, drink well and tear up the local Counter-Strike server. While the older folks gather around the karaoke machine and croon the same '80s pop tunes every year, my middle school-aged cousins cluster around our motley collection of PCs, and without fail, "Boom, headshot!" resounds throughout the house. This is because, from gamer geeks in the Netherlands to my 12-year-old cousin in California to my college roommates who got me hooked on the show three years ago, everyone watches Pure Pwnage."