Video game cover band Critical Hit has released a second music video on YouTube today - this time playing its own rendition of "Battle for New York" from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The band will also be performing live at BlizzCon 2013 on November 9 and taking part in a panel on sound in games. In case you don't know, Critical Hit is a game music cover band led by Blizzard’s composer Jason Hayes, as a side freelance project.

Today is the last day to get early bird pricing on GaymerX2, the second annual 18+ gaming and cultural event that welcomes gay, lesbian, transgendered, and gamers of all stripes for several days of gaming and geek culture-related fun. The event, taking place from July 11 - 13, 2014 at the InterContinental San Francisco Hotel in San Francisco has already lined up a number of special guests including David Gaider, Mattie Brice, Alexis Ohanian, Gordon Bellamy, Jaime Woo, and John Scalzi, as well as returning faces like Ellen McLain, John Patrick Lowrie and Zach Weinersmith.

One of the many guests taking part in this year's GamesBeat 2013 two-day conference is Mark DeLoura, the former video game executive and technologist who went to Washington to work for the Obama Administration. DeLoura is senior advisor on digital media for the White House Office of Science and Technology. When he was in the games industry he worked in executive roles at such companies as Sony, Nintendo, Google, Ubisoft, and THQ.

Today is the day that the world is introduced to Critical Hit, an all-star cover band led by composer Jason Hayes. Hayes is best known for his work on the World of Warcraft soundtrack, and he is joined by performers and recording artists with an amazing list of

Andrew Eisen is currently enjoying Scribblenauts Unmasked for the Wii U, but during a recent play through he found a particular scene a bit darker than the rest of the light-hearted fun the game is known for. You'll have to watch the video to see what he's talking about.

A special needs student who brought a picture of a bomb to school that he drew has been suspended. The student, 13-year-old Rhett Parham, enjoys drawing and watching videos of his favorite game Bomberman 64 on YouTube.

He drew a picture of an a old fashioned bomb and took it to his school - Hillcrest Middle School in Simpsonville, SC. At one point on Monday during one of his classes, he told his classmates that he "had a bomb" and showed them his drawing. This apparently led to the school suspending him.

His mother, Amy Parham, was shocked and outraged.

At an exclusive event on October 20 (6:00pm) at the Nintendo World Store at 10 Rockefeller Plaza the folks from The Legend of Zelda Symphony of the Goddesses concert series will be making a stop to promote its show (called "Second Quest") at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden on November 1st.

New York news station CBS 2 offers an interesting report on the use of video games (Games for Change as we like to call them) to teach children (and adults) about the importance of empathy. "That Dragon, Cancer" and "Papers, Please" are examples of games that deal with subject matter that puts ordinary people in seemingly insurmountable situations. By putting players in the shoes of someone in such situations, experts say that young people can learn to show a bit more empathy towards their fellow man.

Gaming charity Extra Life passed along word that it plans to have a special booth at multiple upcoming "The Legend Of Zelda: Symphony Of The Goddesses" shows.

In case you don't know, Extra Life is a fundraising initiative that benefits Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Extra Life organizes 24-hour gaming marathons each autumn to generate much needed funds for the hospitals that help sick children regardless of their family's income.

The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) and members of GamePolitics will be taking part in this year's Extra Life event on November 2. Since 2008, tens of thousands of gamers have joined together to raise money for local kids' hospitals in a celebration of gaming culture and gamers doing good works through charity.

I thought this story about people criticizing former Suite Life of Zach and Cody co-star Dylan Sprouse for taking on a job as a host at a New York City restaurant was mildly amusing. Sprouse, who is currently attending New York University, talked to US Magazine in an attempt to combat the wild speculation that he is now "broke" and had to take the job out of necessity.

Scot Osterweil, creative director at MIT’s Education Arcade writes an interesting article on Boston.com detailing a game created by the lab to push the idea of good conflict resolution. The game is called "Quandry" and it teaches players to resolve conflicts by better understanding the different perspectives of those who might be engaged in strife.

Jennifer Ann’s Group has released the top award-winning video game from its 2013 Life. Love. Game Design Challenge. The first place winning game is Love in the Dumpster by Jean Hehn of Belgium-based developer Another Kind. Love in the Dumpster is the fourth video game to be released from the 2013 Life.Love. Game Design Challenge and is free to play to increase awareness about teen dating violence.

Want to class up that video game collection? Well New York City-based Etsy store Jamesbit may have an item that you'll find particularly useful. JamesBit sells custom covers for video games that look like classic novels. You could use these covers to class up your pad or to hide your video game collection in plain sight from people in your life who disapprove of games (like out of touch relatives).

This week Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight are joined by Jeremy Powers (who you may know better here on GamePolitics as 'Zen'), who talks about the feel-good story of this past week: finally being able to play video games with his daughter. Using the second screen of the Wii U, Jeremy's daughter Jennifer (who has a vision impairment) was finally able to play New Super Luigi U with her family using the GamePad as her own personal screen.

GaymerX co-founders Kayce Brown, Matt Conn, and Toni Rocca will be speaking at the Salon LGBTQ: The Inclusive Social Media Conference October 17 - 19, 2013 in Atlanta. The Salon LGBTQ is the first-of-its-kind national LGBTQ social media conference for leading voices in the pro-LGBTQ social media world. The event will pick the brains of media producers, writers, editors, bloggers, videographers, photographers, designers, curators and marketers on subjects that are important to the LGBTQ community.

Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida will be adding a video game-themed attraction to celebrate Halloween this year: Resident Evil. The survival horror video game series Resident Evil from Capcom will become a haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights 23 at the amusement park. Other attractions for Halloween Horror Nights 23 include The Walking Dead, Evil Dead, An American Werewolf in London, and Cabin in the Woods.

The reality of living under a government like Iran is never so apparent as when a group of gamers is trying to set up a competition that involves playable female characters. According to this Kotaku report, Iran's World Cyber Games is putting together a League of Legends tournament in Sept., but the government has demanded that most of the female playable characters be banned.

The Kickstarter campaign for the next Video Games Live album, "Video Games Live: Level 3," is inching towards the halfway point with 22 more days to meet its funding goal. As of this writing the project has raised $112,064 of its $250,000 goal from 2,076 backers.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced a partnership with the Black Association for Science and Engineering, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF), HHF's Leaders on the Fast Track (LOFT) and other groups to create the ESA Loft Video Game Innovation Fellowship.

An IndieGoGo fundraising campaign hopes to raise $9,250 to fund competition of a game about abortion rights in Texas called Choice: Texas. Choice: Texas is described by its creators as an interactive fiction game about abortion access in the Lone Star state, and will be made available for free online when it is completed. The game is the creation of Allyson Whipple (writer, editor, and poet) and Carly Kocurek (writer and cultural historian) with the help of illustrator Grace Jennings.

Video Games Live has launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund its latest album, "Video Games Live: Level 3."

Video Games Live: Level 3 will be recorded with a 72-piece orchestra, a rock band, and a 60-person choir. They are seeking $250,000 to record arrangements of tracks from over a dozen video games such as Tetris, Portal, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, Dota 2, Journey, Beyond Good and Evil, and BioShock.

Ryan Green announced that his game about the trials and tribulations of raising a child suffering from cancer is launching exclusively on the OUYA in 2014. Green says that he chose to launch That Dragon, Cancer exclusively on the Android-based platform because the platform holder has pledged to help with development costs and ensure that the game gets made.

This fall Fox will air a new show produced by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane called "Dads." If you haven't seen the barrage of commercials airing on Fox about the show, it's about two game developers played by Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi who have to deal with their fathers moving in with them. But critics who have seen an early screening of the upcoming show are saying it employs casual sexism and racism to tell much of its ill-received humor.

The second annual PlayFest, a festival dedicated to music, animation, and video games, will take place in Málaga, Spain September 5-8. Playfest brings together leading artists, composers and companies to participate in master classes, conferences, screenings and concerts.

This year’s concert will feature music from Star Trek Video Games (presented by BuySoundtrax Records) and conducted by Kevin Kiner (Star Trek: Borg).

Jennifer Ann’s Group has released the third-place winning video game from the 2013 Life. Love. Game Design Challenge. The 2013 Life. Love. Game Design Challenge asked developers to create games that raised awareness about the dangers of Teen dating violence. Jennifer Ann's Group is a charity dedicated to the cause and named after Jennifer Ann Crecente, who was murdered by an ex-boyfriend.

Game developer 1st Playable Productions is the first video game-related company in the United States to receive "B Corporation" (B Corp) certification, the company announced today. B Corporation status is a standard that measures the social impact of a company on the environment and the community it does business in. It is also the first company in NY’s Tech Valley (the company is located in Troy, NY) to receive the distinction as well. B Corporation certification comes from the non-profit B Lab.

The 2013 Boston Festival of Indie Games announced that it will present a night of video game and chiptune music from some of the world's most exciting performers in Boston, Ma. The one-day event, Boston Plays Indies, is being sponsored by music game developer Harmonix and BostonFIG.

The fine folks at Video Games Live are teaming up with streaming service Twitch to give those who can't make it to Comic-Con in San Diego the chance to experience just how wonderful a Video Games Live concert can be. The concert will air on twitch.tv/twitch on July 20th, beginning at 8PM PT. A pre-show begins at 6PM offering interviews with various composers including Journey composer Austin Wintory and Destiny composer Marty O'Donnell.

Peace Games, a charity initiative launching in September to support the UN-affiliated Peace One Day, has put out a call to developers asking them to lend their time and efforts to help raise money. The goal of the program is to reach over 600 million people worldwide via messaging and events across all kinds of different media, including a 24-hour concert live-streamed via YouTube, performed by celebrities backing the cause.