AJ Glasser

Watch Lord British Officiate Zero-G Wedding

Earlier this month, we heard that Richard Garriot — son of an astronaut and granddaddy of science fiction/fantasy games like the Ultima series — would officiate a wedding in zero gravity. Here are the pictures from the blessed event. Note the lack of vomit and the lack of upskirt shots on the fabulous wedding dress.…

Father Knows Best: The Best and Worst Fathers in Video Games

Fathers are easy to find in video games. When they’re not antagonizing their offspring or killed off in the first level, they often serve as our main characters’ major motivation. In honor of Father’s Day, we celebrate dads in video games: from the good to the bad to the “Luke, I am your father kind,”…

Crazy (Good) Super Mario Brothers Artwork

I hate Twitter, but I should be grateful to it for exposing these 45 completely amazing stylized portraits of Mario and Luigi. Brandon Boyer from Offworld tweeted the article from The Design Inspiration, which is a site where designers upload and share various works of art and design patterns to inspire each other. This collection…

Gender Equality At Nike: Pac-Man Shoes

Remember those sexy Ms. Pac-Man Nike Dunks from last month? This month, Nike is previewing their male counterpart. Though the shoes don’t bear Pac-Man’s actual likeness, they’ve got the same color palette as the classic arcade marquee. That means lots of yellow, lots of blue and not very much pink. As awesome as the shoes…

Big Warhammer Online In Little China

GigaMedia and Mythic Entertainment are bringing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau next week via GigaMedia’s FunTown game platform according to an EA press release. Interestingly enough, this announcement comes on the same day as a Rueters article reporting a new crackdown on “undesirable” online games in mainland China. According…

Play Zen Garden, Help Find A Cure For Cancer

I don’t usually futz around with Facebook games too much — Neopets and Scrabble knock-offs notwithstanding — but Hive7’s Zen Garden donates 10% of profits to breast cancer cure research. Zen Garden is one of those social games that’s all about trading things for more things and buying virtual currency in order to buy more…

Fan-Made iPhone Wallpapers Look Familiar

Surprisingly, there’s more than just Street Fighter in this lineup of fan-made Capcom wallpapers. Mega Man, Duck Tales and Lost Planet feature prominently plus some games I’m not even sure I can name. Capcom blogger CurlehMustache put these wallpapers together to celebrate the release of the new iPhone 3Gs Friday. Here’s the instructions for getting…

Surgeons Using Wiis to Hone Their Skillz

We’ve heard of Wiis in medicine before — but now instead of handing out Nintendo’s little white giant to burn victims and physical therapy patients, some doctors are using them as training tools. LiveScience reports that surgeons in training at what I assume to be an Arizona medical facility are testing out ways to use…

Check Out These Custom Mario USB Thumb Drives

They may not be licensed by Nintendo, but these homemade Mario-themed 4GB USB drives and USB extensions look amazing. That may explain the steep price. The Brick and Question Mark block extensions — in 1ft to 6ft configurations — go for just $20, but the actual USB drives that plug into the extension are $55…

Watch The Play Machinima Law Conference

Almost two months ago, I attended a Machinima Law conference at Stanford University as part of an extra credit assignment. Today, you can watch what I saw for free. Stanford’s video game research project, How They Got Game, is hosting a series of videos from the conference. They’re kind of small, so you’ll have to…

Crystal Chronicles Gravitates Toward Action

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers takes a couple of steps away from the CC series and a couple steps toward super hero games. In an interview with RPGamer, Producer Akitoshi Kawazu explains that the game is less about level grinding and stat min-maxing and more about action and Wii-friendly mini games. The game’s main…

Obama Maybe Not So Gamer Friendly After All

In a speech to the American Medical Association, President Obama listed video games as health concern — a challenge to Entertainment Software Administration president Mike Gallagher’s statement that the Obama administration was game-friendly. The Wall Street Journal has the full text of the speech, but there’s really only one part that even mentions video games:…

Beat The Heat With Dragon Age This Summer

Fans can get their hands on Dragon Age: Origins at five different venues this summer before the game goes on sale for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this fall. BioWare’s epic fantasy will be making the rounds at various comic cons and consumer expos across the glob starting in July and ending in early…

Analyst Predicts Wii Price Drop

Wedbush-Morgan’s Michael Pachter — the guy that was so harsh on the PSPgo’s price tag — thinks the Wii will drop to $199.99 this holiday season Edge Online reports that Nintendo has already sold 20 million units — 50 million worldwide — and plans to sell another 26 million this fiscal year. Noting that a…

Flock Gets Spring Update, Fan-made Shoes

Flock! is getting a PC update tomorrow called “Spring” that features six new levels, a new animal and special objects that “change the way you herd.” To go with this announcement, Capcom has also blogged a fabulous pair of fan-made shoes. Flock! for those of you sheeple who haven’t gotten into it, yet, is an…

Sam & Max Save The World Next Week

Telltale Games is releasing the first season of Sam & Max on Xbox Live June 17 as Sam & Max Save the World. The six-episode collection of Sam & Max’s 2006/2007 adventures features Achievements, tweaked gameplay controls and HD graphic support. The compilation used to be called Sam & Max: Season One, but I guess…

Five Good Breakup Games

Breaking up is hard to do, but video games can help. Here are five 2009 titles that’ll get you through the five stages of grief. The Kübler-Ross model of grief proposed in the 1969 book Death and Dying is actually a theory about dealing with death and terminal disease, both of which are way worse…

Seventeen Magazine Gets An MMO

Teen bastion of style and sex tips, Seventeen Magazine, is signed up with Habbo.com to create an online interactive world for its readers. Break out the virtual lip gloss. According to Media Week, Seventeen will supply Habbo with articles, quizzes and polls for the MMO while Habbo will host a Seventeen Beauty Salon section where…

The Princess And The Frog Screens Look Like All Other Disney Games

The Princess and the Frog is the first Disney feature animated film with a black princess, which has a lot of people in a snit over racial stereotypes and social equality. The game, though, looks just like every other Disney Princess video game even if the one in the ball gown is black. The Wii…

Virtual Jihad Game Sparks New York Civil Liberties Union Lawsuit

The New York Civil Liberties Union is suing the city of Troy, New York and its Public Works Commissioner, Robert Mirch, over shutting down controversial video game exhibition, Virtual Jihadi. Virtual Jihadi is actually a PC mod of a mod of a low-budget first-person shooter that came out in 2003. In the original game, Quest…