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Is the new Homefront necessary? Pardon that imprudent question, but when a man is drowning in a sea of first-person shooters, may he question the next bucket? More »
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Microsoft has trouble making hardware. Sony has trouble running online services. What if the next Xbox and the next PlayStation are one and the same? More »
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You're feeling it, we're feeling it: there appears to be a veritable drought of 1st-party Nintendo titles this spring. None, to be exact. More »
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Today, Sony is on the handheld gaming campaign trail, preparing for us to vote with our dollars this fall. Should you buy an NGP — the successor to the PSP — in late 2011? More »
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There a well known, long-established patterns for beating Pac-Man's mazes, up until the ninth Key, as Buckner & Garcia sang. Still, Pac's adversaries exhibit behavior that, if not exactly tactical, is still complex. More »
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While a portable gaming device specifically created to provide MMO players gaming on the go might sound like a spectacular idea, Panasonic's Jungle might be more trouble than it's worth. More »
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Insomniac Games, makers of Ratchet & Clank and Resistance are, as of today, no longer a weapon for PlayStation fans to wield when arguing about which console is the best. The studio is making Xbox360 games now too. But PlayStation and Insomniac fans, history says you shouldn't panic. More »
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Although the Supreme Court today refused to give the NFL an antitrust exemption in negotiating exclusive licenses - and the league sold one to EA Sports' Madden series - the decision doesn't necessarily jeopardize such deals for video games. More »
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Strong users of rental services and resale or trade-in options, sports gamers justifiably feel blindsided by EA Sports' new "Online Pass," which requires a ton of once-standard game content to be activated by a one-use code. More »
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An interesting feature over at Gamasutra looks at the percentage of players who actually achieve a perfect Gamerscore in popular Xbox Live titles. Do you play until the last point is awarded? More »
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Activision's DJ Hero hits store shelves tomorrow, and it might linger there a bit longer than expected, as Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz drops sales projections for the rhythm game by more than 50%. More »
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Industry analyst Michael Pachter predicts that strong sales for the new PlayStation 3 Slim could give Sony their biggest holiday season yet, potentially outselling the 360 for the rest of the year. More »
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The NPD Group published a report today showing that game buyers in the United States get their game info from word of mouth "above all other information sources." But somewhat more interesting is the platform crossover makeup of those surveyed. More »
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A U.K. company named Vertical Slice claims it's able to predict video game review scores a year in advance of release, by reverse engineering magazine reviews, combined with an analysis method used by marriage counselors. More »
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PopMatters recently posted an extremely in-depth look back at Final Fantasy VIII, exploring the themes, emotions, and insight into human behavior that make one of the most neglected entries in the franchise great. More »
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Electronic Entertainment Design And Research compares used game trade-in values between GameStop and Amazon.com and finds that brick and mortar is still the way to go. More »
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God of War III could truly be a killer app for the PlayStation 3, as one analyst's data indicates that one in three potential buyers of the game don't own the console yet. More »
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So Bungie's countdown has stopped, and a new teaser trailer has appeared, but what does it all mean? While it's easy for any one of us to wildly speculate, together we are legion, so let's look at the images in the trailer together to see what we come up with. After the jump you'll find a gallery, and in that gallery will be pictures. We shall comb them for clues as to what exactly is going on. We'll be adding more pictures to the gallery as we go, so check back for more opportunities to add your 2 cents! More »
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Ah, the onward march of technology. Though the fiddly arguments over what "next gen" really means are unceasing, the general trend is that games get bigger, slicker, richer and more lifelike with every passing year. More »
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In my last column, I defended Grand Theft Auto IV from allegations of sexism, based on my opinion that it treats everyone distastefully. It provides a sandbox experience, I said, that allows players the opportunity to explore the underbelly of humanity and themselves, reflecting their own worst impulses back at them. More »
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[The following article discusses the themes of Metal Gear Solid 4 and contextualizes them with Hideo Kojima's directorship. It contains no plot spoilers, but nonetheless those wishing to avoid all thematic details should steer clear.] More »
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We know that, as we speak, the FTC is thoroughly investigating the possible takeover of Take-Two by Electronic Arts, to be sure that there are no antitrust issues. The FTC first made one request for information, and then a second one, indicating they're analyzing the deal very closely. More »
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Sure, laugh when I tell you that I spent the better part of last night DJing a virtual wedding in Second Life, but the next wedding I DJ could be yours. In a report released today titled ""Market Forecasts for Virtual World Experiences", Strategy Analytics predicts that over the course of the next decade, 22 percent of broadband users around the world will be subscribed to one or more virtual worlds. More »
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For those that lament the plethora of crappy MMOs and poorly-planned 'virtual worlds' of various stripes — fear not, a new report indicates that 90% are doomed to failure within a year and a half. Gartner, the research and advisory firm that produced the report, notes that the high rate of failure could be due to a number of factors; perhaps most importantly, the low cost of entry means that more experimentation is taking place (and like any experiment, a lot of virtual experiments fail). But it's not all doom and gloom: More »
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Steve at PlayNoEvil has some interesting analysis up on the current state of gold farming in MMORPGs (though he does admit that since hard stats are difficult to come by, "any analysis is more akin to reading tea leaves"); using data provided by mmobux, he looks at the pricing trends to try and divine what might be going on in the wild world of selling gold: More »
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Edge has published an impressively complete analysis on the Xbox 360's viability in today's marketplace. While a few thousand words too long to do proper justice here (that means, yes, you should take the time to click the link and read it), Edge essentially states that with every major advantage Microsoft has gained, they've managed to shoot themselves in the foot. More »
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Blog Magical Wasteland takes a look at the final version of Mass Effect and analyzes what didn't make the final cut. Writing of a "hard landing" against its ship date, Bioware appears to have left quite a bit on the cutting room floor. Whether due to time constraints or artistic trimming, the game ultimately arrived with an item system thats simplicity belies the RPG's storytelling complexity. And speaking of storytelling, Magical Wasteland proposes that a major plot point, still somewhat evident in the Mass Effect's dialog tree, was tossed out the window. Gameplay features shown in the X06 preview trailer are nowhere to be seen in the retail copy. Plus, it's certainly not bug-free. More »
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Gamasutra has an interesting take from a couple of analysts on which publishers have hopped on the Nintendo DS/Wii bandwagon (and profited from it) and who's been slow to try and get a piece of the pie, as well as their predictions for the future market and suggestions on how some of those 'less-apt to get involved with the Nintendo platforms' companies can get in on the action without sacrificing their core audience and styles. It's an interesting, short little piece looking at Nintendo's share of the action - and how developers can get in on the party: More »
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In Roger Ebert's recent column Art brings joy — but a joystick?, he responds to Clive Barker's Internet-famous remarks from Hollywood and Games Summit, in which Barker chastised Ebert for his short-sightedness regarding the artistic merit of videogames. More »
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Leigh Alexander, scribe behind Aberrant Gamer, has an excellent analysis detailing how symbolism drives story in Silent Hill 2. It's an article with a "deep reading" of the game—analysis too often reserved for 18th century romantic literature and Far Side cartoons. More »
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Games * Design * Art * Culture has some thoughts up on remarks by analysts and their real world validity. Not being prone to getting out scratch pads of paper and theorizing on topics I am ill-equipped to deal with, I'm not sure if the analysis of the analysis is valid, but it's a reminder that quoting experts is fun, but not always an accurate prediction of what is to come. In this case, the topic is an analyst "saying publishers will flock to the Wii because of 'favorable economics'"; the argument here is that it's not 'favorable economics,' but sheer numbers of users that will determine the success of the Wii over the long term. More »
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The Wall Street Journal has an interesting look at how the surprising success of Nintendo's Wii shook-up the industry. More »
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Damn, DFC. Why you gotta be so hard on my Sony crew? Look, just because my PlayStation bwoyz are gouging us poor upper-middle class saps to the tune of 600 bones doesn't mean you gotta be so... nasty. I'm talking about your recent memo that says Sony could very easily slip from first place in the gamespace to the dreaded Nintendo Third. More »
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My analysis of E3 just ran in the Rocky today. The thing was like 60-inches long, or about six normal newstories long for those of you compariing. I broke it up into three pieces on Freeplay to make it more readable. More »
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