GameStop has taken out a full-page advert in USA Today to emphasize its ongoing commitment to stop minors buying games that are deemed inappropriate for their age group. Clive Olivera, a spokesperson for GameStop, sat down with gaming news site Eurogamer and said the following:

We, GameStop, as well as other retailers, have already stepped up with ESRB to regulate ourselves. ...That's what this is all about. We wanted to bump it up and let the public know, especially consumers, that it is something we actually take quite seriously.

...One mature-rated game sold to a minor is one too many. It's our goal to provide as much education as we can, not only to our employees but to consumers in general.

The advert features a rather huge, slightly weird image of Steve Morgan, President of Gamestop corporation, above which is the "Respect the Ratings" slogan in bold print.

The campaign doesn't just stop with the print ad though, respecttheratings.com is also up and running. The goal here is to educate people and get them to care and be involved - instead of shouting at them, bullying them, exploiting and using them as a rallying point, and threatening them with lawsuits. We suggest that you check out the site yourselves. You can access it via our "read" link below. See if you can contribute anything.

Leading casual console games publisher Crave Entertainment revealed today their plans to publish Sudokuro for the DS, giving puzzle fans another reason to grab a DS for themselves.

"The Sudoku and Kakuro puzzle phenomenon is still going strong and appeals to all ages," remarked Sheri Snow, Director of Marketing for Crave Ent. "With unlimited replay, a special mode for kids, and the stylus input with handwriting recognition, this game is a natural fit for the Nintendo DS."

Sudokuro will include both the incredibly popular and highly addictive Sudoku and Kakuro logic games. It contains 1,500 hand-crafted Sudoku puzzles and an unlimited number of automatically Sudoku puzzles, and over 5,000 Kakuro puzzles.

According to USA Today, Sudoku has "become the morning brain breakfast for millions of commuters", and the New York Times comments, "no puzzle has had such a fast introduction in newspapers since the crossword craze of 1924-25." Kakuro, which has often been called a mathematical translation of the crossword, is second in popularity only to Sudoku in Japan.

Sudokuro is expected to be available in January for a retail price of US$ 19.99.