Football, like everything else important in life, is about stories. People implant themselves into the narrative: where they were when they saw Maradona's handball, the strangers they hugged when Ole Gunnar Solskjær scored that historic last-minute winner at the 1999 Champions League final. No doubt new tales are already being conjured around Jude Bellingham's scissor kick against Slovakia in the dying seconds of Sunday's Euro 24 match. Sport is a nostalgia machine – and this is as true for video game simulations as it is for the real thing. Every gamer has their favourite footie sim, but for me, and many other players of my … ahem, vintage … it was Pro Evolution Soccer, numbers 3 to 6. This was the early 2000s, the age of the PlayStation 2. I was a writer for hire at Future Publishing, basically hanging out at its office in Bath, working mostly on the Official PlayStation magazine.

On 8 July 2022, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was delivering a political campaign speech outside the Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara City, Japan, when a man approached and shot him in the back using a homemade firearm. Even before Abe died from his injuries, footage of the assassination had been posted online. Social media users began to speculate as to the identity and motive of the killer. On the internet forum 4chan, a site notorious for its anarchic, often hateful trolling, an anonymous user posted a photograph of the video game director Hideo Kojima, claiming this "left-wing extremist" was the perpetrator. If the post was intended to bait the gullible, it worked.

In the summer of 1989, two great titans of teen pop culture combined. Veteran publisher Konami, then famous for titles such as Contra, Gradius and Castlevania, won the licence to produce games based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the global stars of a hit cartoon series and action figure line. That year saw the first two products of this fertile relationship: an entertaining action-platformer on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and a four-player arcade beat-'em-up that would go on to become one of the highest grossing coin-ops of 1990. They were bright, ridiculous and brimming with TMNT characters, story arcs and scenarios – and they were just the beginning of a series of tie-ins now collected together in this lovingly produced compilation. There are 11 games here, taking us from those late-80s originals on through the NES beat-'em-up sequels, the Genesis exclusive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist, fighting game Tournament Fighters (three versions are included) and the three excellent Game Boy platformers. Common elements stand out to fans: the way Foot Clan ninjas would burst into the scene by smashing through windows or screeching up in cars, the robots with electrified whips, the interactive scenery (gushing fire hydrants, spinning road signs), the RSI-inducing boss battles, the pizza.

Four players take on waves of zombies in a post-apocalyptic landscape: it doesn't sound like the most innovative proposition, but Valve infused this enthralling co-op blaster with brilliant technical flourishes. The game's clever artificial intelligence system, named "Director", varied the numbers and ferocity of enemies as well as the lighting and music, depending on the skill and strategies of the players, making for a superbly choreographed experience that felt both spontaneous and cinematic. The industry laughed at the idea of the Wii, with its weird motion controller and comparatively dated hardware … until they saw people playing Wii Sports. Its collection of five perfectly tuned events made competitive multiplayer gaming accessible to everyone in the house, from toddlers to octogenarians, helping the machine shift more than 100m units and contributing to the idea that games can be a highly social bonding experience. There were arguably better games on Wii – Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros Brawl, for example – but Sports was the title that defined the machine and its ethos. The campaign was excellent too, drawing on Andy McNab-style heroics and pacy 1990s thriller movies and, with Captain John Price, providing one of the only truly memorable characters of this whole genre.

A British man has been fitted with a prosthetic arm inspired by a character from the classic video game, Metal Gear Solid. The Metal Gear Solid design covers the Hero Arm – the world's most affordable multi-grip bionic arm at around £10,000 – made by Bristol firm Open Bionics. Hero Arm, which is light, comfortable and'fits like a glove', has the dexterity to hold a mobile phone, cutlery or a pen – and operate machinery such as a lawnmower. The arm's movable fingers can also be held in a static position for a safe and reliable grip – and pick up an egg without breaking it. Hero Arm is already available in a range of exterior casings inspired by pop culture and films, such as such as Ironman and BB8 from Star Wars.

Casino executives, industry analysts and lawyers attended a conference at the UNLV Boyd School of Law to consult on how biometrics, AI and machine learning could shape the future of Las Vegas casinos, writes the Nevada Independent. While there are many opportunities for the gaming industry, most machine learning and facial recognition-enabled product ideas addressed customer service and customer recognition. These include slot machines that leverage facial biometrics to recognize important or banned players, and reduce fraud attempts, or facial recognition-equipped tables to help pit managers identify and track known players. "What we're seeing is this introduction of technology into the gaming industry in ways we've never seen before, and because of it, it started to raise issues -- or questions -- as to how this works and what the ramifications could be for things like patron privacy, anonymity and data protection," said Anthony Cabot, Distinguished Fellow in Gaming Law at the UNLV Boyd School of Law and event organizer. While speakers focused on presentations about competing laws and technology problems, there was not enough discussion on how to solve these problems, according to the report, yet Cabot hopes the gaming industry and regulators will join forces to deliver solutions.

At Konami's headquarters in Las Vegas, its facial recognition powered cameras tracked me around the room. This story is part of CES 2020, our complete coverage of the showroom floor and the hottest new tech gadgets around. Konami Gaming, a slot machine maker, wants to weave facial recognition into its one-armed bandits. During a visit to its Las Vegas headquarters to hear more about its plans, I quickly discovered what the world would be like if facial recognition is everywhere. "Hello, Alfred," said a measured, robotic voice, startling me.

The gaming world was abuzz last week with the latest trailer for "Death Stranding," the newest game from enigmatic game designer Hideo Kojima. However, the series Kojima created and worked on for decades before his messy divorce with publisher Konami in 2015 is not dead yet. One could -- appropriately -- compare it to a zombie. The next game in the long-running and deeply popular "Metal Gear" series is "Metal Gear Survive." It is a zombie-themed shooter with an emphasis on cooperative multiplayer. If that is the sort of thing that interests you, there is good news: Players will be able to try it out for free in the near future.

Each year, the videogame industry sees greater growth, as games become more ubiquitous in our lives - in our living rooms, mobile phones and virtual reality headsets. The growth of the games industry is also reflected in our annual Billionaires list, which numbers quite a few people deriving their wealth from videogames, either directly by developing blockbuster games or indirectly through providing a platform for them. Here are six of the most notable videogame billionaires. Kagemasa Kozuki, the founder and chairman of Japanese video game giant Konami, didn't set out to make a fortune in videogames. When he founded Konami in 1969, it was a jukebox repair and rental business.

Japanese video game designer Hideo Kojima worked for Konami for three decades, so it was a bit of a shock when he officially exited the company in 2015. In the wake of his exit, there were reports about a corporate restructuring that did not include him as one of the directors. This week, the renowned game designer and director has finally opened up about the severance of his ties with Konami. In an interview with BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat, Kojima may have hinted at the reason behind his exit from Konami. "I have more freedom now because the final decision comes down to me," he said.