If you're a PC game developer, the console market has to look pretty good right about now. In 2007, $910 million was spent on PC games versus $6.6 billion (with a “b”) for console titles. While most genres born on PCs have found success on consoles, strategy games have been left behind. It's not easy taking a gaming style that relies on a full keyboard, pinpoint-accurate mouse clicks and a high-res monitor and making it work with comparatively sloppy thumb-based controls and TV set that may still be standard-res.

Recently, though, I've seen two breakthrough strategy games under development that have conquered the console conundrum. First up is Tom Clancy's EndWar, due before year's end, a real-time strategy game of warfare on a grand scale, with you as fun-loving commander of fearsome forces.

I arrived yesterday in San Francisco, a city where my evening's entertainment has often taken a turn for the unusual. I certainly wasn't disappointed on this trip, as I joined three friends on a stroll through devastated buildings and wasted streets, blasting hordes of aggressive subhuman attackers into chunks of lifeless meat. Hey, if the local government won't do something about the aggressive panhandler problem in this city….

Used to be, when I answered my phone at work, I didn't know what to expect. A college frat boy wanting to build the world's largest beer bong. Ashrita Furman, a guy from Brooklyn planning to break the marathon unicycle-riding record for the greater glory of his spiritual leader, Sri Chinmoy. A woman who had toilet-trained her chameleon. I was the associate American editor for the Guinness Book of World Records, and point man in the U.S. for would-be record-breakers.