Los Angeles Lakers’ star and 2009 NBA Finals’ MVP Kobe Bryant is the cover boy for Take-Two’s NBA 2K10. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, he makes a pretty effective pitchman as well.

Bryant told the LA Times this latest incarnation of digital basketball is so realistic it’s “like practicing without getting hurt.” The superstar comes from a family of gamers as he said his father, uncle, sister and six of his cousins all played the NES classic Double Dribble back in the day. That game had no NBA license and players with virtually no distinctive characteristics. These days, designers can make incredible replicas of our favorite athletes and Bryant’s game representation reflects his unique mannerisms. The virtual Bryant even juts his jaw out during crunch time the same way the real All-Star guard does.

At the 2008 Tokyo Game Show, many Japanese developers admitted that western game development was beginning to surpass that of eastern development.

So what do you do if you can’t beat ‘em? Hire ‘em.

It seems that’s exactly what Square Enix plans to do according to Gamasutra. The developer posted a listing for programmers, product managers and pretty much every position you can think of for a planned studio in El Segundo, CA. The studio will be working on…

The Vista Sheriff’s Station in San Marcos, CA, with help from art and computer science students at Cal State San Marcos, is developing a web game to help teach fourth graders how to deal with dangerous situations. The yet-to-be named game is only in an early development stage and is expected to be completed in more »