One of the DS game library’s hidden gems has been resurrected! Touch Detective, from Beeworks Games, is now on iTunes. Which means instead of playing it on two screens, touching anything interesting or pertinent to a young detective’s investigation, you do so on one.

Mackenzie is a young girl who runs a detective agency and wants to be accepted into the Great Detective Society…

All too often, female characters in video games are given bit parts, or designed in a manner that shows developers clearly intended them to act as eye candy. While female characters have become incredibly visible in games as time has gone by, it still can be difficult to discern characters who are really good role models for female players.

To make matters worse, when lists are compiled of strong female leads, they tend to feature the same characters over and over again. I’ve seen Lara Croft appear in lists at least 20 times, and frankly she doesn’t always deserve the spot.

Here are eight female characters, many of whom are often forgotten and should be considered role models for girl gamers. They are unique individuals in their various storylines and possess strong personalities…

Text in videogames is a tricky thing. It can either help enrich the experience or slow the game to an agonizing pace. Sure, back in the days of Zork, a text-based adventure was actually a genre, but now it’s often an overlooked element of a larger game.

I’m not talking about MUDs here – I’m talking about the more standard graphic-based games that rely on conversations to progress the game. Forget the talking heads where you button mash to get to the next bit of action. I’m talking about games where text plays a crucial role in the action.

In reviewing Mass Effect for an upcoming CiN Weely column, I realized that there is a rather unexplainable difference between the way American games treat text-based interactions versus most Japanese games. Well, at least the DS and PC dating sim (aka bishoujo) games I’ve played.

In the games Mass Effect as well as Knight of the Old Republic, text-based conversations involve a…