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No one can deny that blogs are the place to be for up-to-the-minute gaming news. With the re-launch of our own blog, we wanted to pay homage to some of our blogger brethren, and let you know some of the best places to find your of the daily video game news fix around the web.

The rundown:
Kotaku
Joystiq
Destructoid
GayGamer
Multiplayer
MaxConsole
GoNintendo
Matt Casamassina's on IGN
Major Nelson
PlayStation.Blog

Did we miss your favorite? Let us know.

Head to The Dime's page for more info on each of the blogs

Have you ever wanted to do your own scientific study about video games? No, right? Humor me anyway, because I just tried -- and failed, I think -- to conduct one of my own.

First, a few words on scientific studies about video games: Sometimes they state that video games can be bad for you. Actually, they state that often. Sometimes they don't state it convincingly enough. That was the case with the Council on Science and Public Health's report about video game addiction that failed this week to convince the American Medical Association to classify said addiction as an official mental disorder.

What about my study? I got the idea to conduct one about two weeks ago. Mine differs from the above-mentioned ones in that I am not a scientist and also that I did not attempt to discover if video games were bad for me. Rather, I decided to find out if I was bad for me.

Specifically: Does my mood affect how well I can play a video game? Does a bad day guarantee me a bad score, and vice versa?

This is something I never even considered until June 15, 2007, when I put the "Tetris"-esque "Planet Puzzle League" in my Nintendo DS. "Planet Puzzle League" has a Daily Play mode, which limits a player's access to the game to three two-minute matches a day (one timed match each of the Score Attack, Lift Attack and Garbage modes). I guess Nintendo believes in the strength of the daily-play structure, since it's the bedrock of the hugely successful "Brain Age" games. You don't have to play "PPL" that way, but I thought I'd give it a try. In fact, I decided that would be the only way I play the game. Six minutes a day. That's it. An easy habit to keep. What was that about video games being addictive?

The game constructs graphs that mark how well you perform in each daily mode. Initially -- and this was before I thought of the mood-based experiment -- I assumed that my score would rise steadily, because each day's session would improve my skills. I expected to produce a trio of charts showing rising success.

Then disaster struck. On Sunday, June 17, my landlord decided that the wonderful apartment I had lived in for five years would no longer be mine to rent as of July 31. I was crushed. But I saw a small positive there. I could observe whether this bad news affected my play. Maybe my mood would affect my scores. Maybe "Planet Puzzle League"'s daily score charts could provide a Seismic reading of my mood swings.

On the day of the bad news, two of the three charts included with this post marked a decline. Those are the third dots on the charts. And the next day, when I was still miserable, I dropped on all three.

As much as I wanted to land a new apartment as soon as possible, I held out perverse hope that my search would be a rocky one, full of near-triumphs and defeats, all leading into the eventual euphoria of finding a place. If that happened -- and in the wild New York apartment renters' market, how could it not? -- then the charts of "Planet Puzzle League" would be full of interesting climbs and dives that prove my mood theory.

The problem is that I found an apartment just a few days later, last Wednesday. The next time I played -- represented by the seventh dot -- all the scores went up. Yes, I was happier that day, but surely I did not have enough data. Who ever heard of such a shallow experiment?

I kept playing: sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night; sometimes in public, sometimes at home. I never cheated and played more than my six minutes, but who can say which factors actually affected my score? Did my bad mood from yesterday's overbearing heat on the subway knock my score down on two of three charts? Or was the problem that I forgot my headphones and was playing my first session without audio cues?

So what really affects the quality my ability to get a good score? This morning offered another set of inconclusive dots and a brand-new factor. At one point during my subway ride today I gave up my seat to a little girl. I stood up from the bucket seat. She sat down. Then her mom handed her a pink DS to play. That made me laugh. Then I played Lift Attack. Look at the chart to the left see what happened.

Overall, how did my experiment go? As well as such a poorly-conceived joke of an experiment could go, I guess.

I do think, however, that all you "Planet Puzzle League" owners out there are capable of trying it yourself. Give it a shot. Ride an emotional rollercoaster, and see how you score.

Tested the Bad-Mood/Bad-Score Theory. That's a Thing I've Done.

(Recent Thing I've Also Done: Fighting While Gardening)

Since the Wii was released there have been a multitude of peripherals that have been released, and it seems that there's actually been more than average due to the success of the console. In terms of peripherals, I'm generally not a huge fan; they just add to the gaming clutter in my apartment. However, one company has truly created something that every single retro gamer with a Wii must have. So thank you Retrozone for your Retroport, because I can finally play my NES and SNES Virtual Console games with my NES and SNES controllers, and it actually makes a difference.

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Nine more tracks were announced today for the upcoming Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, and it looks like metal fans are going to be happy. X's classic "Los Angeles" and super-catchy "We Got the Beat" by the Go-Gos head-up the newly announced tracks, which add to the 21 previously announced tracks for the PS2 title. Thank god there's a Winger song on here, or else it just wouldn't be right. New songs are below, with the entire tracklisting so far after the jump.

"Caught in a Mosh" (as made famous by Anthrax)
"Balls to the Wall" (as made famous by Accept)
"Electric Eye" (by Judas Priest)
"Los Angeles" (as made famous by X)
"Police Truck" (as made famous by Dead Kennedys)
"We Got the Beat" (as made famous by The Go Go's)
"(I Think I'm) Turning Japanese" (as made famous by Vapors)
"Seventeen" (as made famous by Winger)
"Because, it's Midnite" (by Limozeen)

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As we mentioned earlier, the first Wiimbledon Wii tennis tournament was a smashing success. We were there, TrueGameHeadz was there, and our fellow gamers at MTV News also attended. While MTV News producer Conor Benzane didn't win (in fact, he got out in the first round), he did talk to some interesting folks and got some great tips for next year. Check out the video!

Really, words aren't needed to describe just how great that GTA IV will be, come October.

Over the weekend (or shall I say "Wii-kend" -- heh heh), the first-ever Wiimbledon Wii tennis tournament was held at Brooklyn's Barcade. The first 128 people to sign up were eligible to participate, and after 5 hours and several rounds, Brooklynite Russ Yagoda (who was dressed as Luigi) took the top prize: a Wii console. But he wasn't the only one to win a Wii; there was also a costume contest and the guy in the bear suit won hands down. Hit the jump to see more photos (with captions, of course) of the crazy event...

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Madden NFL is back this year (SURPRISE!) with an all new, amazing soundtrack (SURPRISE!) to please your ears while you're kicking butt on the gridiron. Queens of the Stone Age, Murs, Ozzy, Sum 41, Pitbull, and even J.T. makes an appearance. With artists from every different genre, there's something to make everyone happy. Hit the jump for the full list.

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Duck Amuck looks like it has the potential to be a wildly unique DS game, using the touch screen and stylus in a variety of different ways. Check out the exclusive clip of one of the animations from the game. At the very least, even if the game ends up being bad (which it won’t), it could be a rare chance for Daffy's attitude to provide a laugh or two throughout the game.

There were big questions that first time out. 1) Which city or cities will this game be in? 2) Who is the main character? 3) Are there any absurdly difficult missions that require you to fly model airplanes? ("San Andreas" players, you know what I'm talking about)

The answers then: 1) Liberty City. 2) Eastern-European immigrant Niko Belic. 3) Who knows?

Today's trailer raises few new questions, but provides a better view of what the game will look like to play than the first. We're still not seeing the game played from the behind-the-character's-back perspective, but we can see the character animation, the level of detail in the faces, and we can see opposable thumbs (used by Nico to hold his cellphone), a "GTA" series breakthrough if ever there was one.

Niko is shown capable of hanging from helicopters and the backs of trucks. But these glimpses are all all of cinematic scenes using the game's graphics engine. There's no sign that an actual controller is driving the actions in the trailer.

What will Rockstar actually let gamers do with Niko, and how is that going to be different from previous "Grand Theft Auto" games? I guess we have to wait for the next trailer.

Now if you're under 17 and your parent(s) doesn't approve of you playing "GTA" games, trust me that I'll be blogging about plenty of other games to get excited about. And, no, that's not a promise for more "Manhunt 2" coverage.