AJ Glasser

Escapism In The Time Of Layoffs

The Wall Street Journal has a nice little article up about laid off employees getting into games and social media networks as a way to escape the grim reality that they’re out of a job. Internet games, gambling and other forms of online entertainment have seen significant surges in use in the several months since…

The Resident Evil 5 PS3 Demo Is Live

You might have missed it what with the first review being in and the Killzone 2 demo coming out this week – but just as a reminder, the Resident Evil 5 demo dropped on PSN today. I wasn’t a huge fan of the demo back when I tried it out at the Capcom holiday event…

Ian Bogost On iPhone Games: Penis Pumps, Bras and Airport Security

Ty Colfax at G4TV has an interview up with Persuasive Games founding partner Ian Bogost who documents the agony of getting his iPhone game, Jetset: A Game for Airports, through Apple’s approvals process. “Their first gripe was about what they claimed was offensive sexual content in the game, which amounted to a couple things that…

Twenty Minutes With Batman: Arkham Asylum

The first twenty minutes of Batman: Arkham Asylum say a lot about the game: we’ve got the voice cast of the 90s cartoon, action-stealth gameplay and the writer that brought us episodes of Animaniacs and Lost. But if Paul Dini isn’t enough to convince you that this Batman game is on the level, there’s plenty…

Six More Batman: Arkham Asylum Screens

Yesterday we got our hands on a few screens and a trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum. Today, we got a twenty minute preview and a few more screens. Not much going on here besides some bloom effect from the Unreal Engine. But as a preview to the preview that I’m frantically writing right now: Harley…

Get Secondhand Lands For Free

There are two things everyone needs when the economy’s down: free stuff and a lot of laughs. Looks like you can get at least one of those from Secondhand Lands. Secondhand Lands is a fantasy satire MMORPG starring such parodies as the Sugar Prune Fairy, Princess Pwnies of the Apocalypse and cable trolls. Starting today,…

Dawn of War II Factions: Meet The Orks

This new Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II faction feature is heavy on orks and light on "Whaaagh." The vid shows of the melee brawling style of the faction, plus some of the spiffy robotic units and vehicles the Orks are so fond of building. My personal favorite is the rocket-launcher squad — but I…

Report: Japan Games Market Outstripped By UK In ’09

MCV predicts that the UK games market will eclipse Japan’s games market in 2009 if current economic trends continue. I’m not sure anyone should be predicting money matters right now besides real economists, but the guys over at MCV sure sound convincing with their statistics. By their figuring, the Japanese market is shrinking at a…

DreamBox Tricks Kids Into Learning Math

I have to hand it to this little web start-up company: it’s a gutsy strategy to deceive schoolchildren with a game called “DreamBox Learning K-2 Math.” I’d have thought Math Blaster was subtler edutainment. DreamBox Learning launches its new site today, featuring an Amazon.com-ish interface for teachers to navigate its math programs games. A monthly…

Voice acting in video games

Voice acting in video games makes for popular feature fodder – check out these two articles on vocal talent behind video games if you don’t believe me. First up is “Characters you never knew had the same voiceover” from GamesRadar. Charlie Barrat lays out 21 examples of voice actors doubling up dubbing duties. Most of…

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix Has Me Sold On Space

D3’s Dorks, Dealers and Double-Ds event made much of Galactrix, even if they did designate it as the “dork” portion of the evening. Two PCs and four DS stations were set up for gamers to go head-to-head in multiplayer or take a stab at story mode. The PC demo had already dropped earlier that day,…

New(ish) Puzzle Quest: Galactrix Screens

Man, if only NASA were really like Puzzle Quest – I’d so have signed up for space camp. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is coming out on PC, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and Nintendo DS. GameStop tells me the DS version ships February 24th and I am so pre-ordering it. DS and PC screens below.

Onechanbara – Easy On the Eyes, Not On The Wallet

Half the appeal of the Onechanbara hack-‘n’-slash games on PS2 was the price. With that gone, all you’ve got is the other half – the one with the boobs. Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers for the Wii retails for $29.99 while Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad will set you back $39.99. The Wii game is supposedly a…

AJ on X-Play – Yes, I’m a Girl, You Can Stop Speculating

A couple of weeks back, I climbed on a soapbox about the media frenzy surrounding video games in connection with real life violence or tragedy. This week, I got to go on X-Play’s Head-to-Head segment for a repeat performance with considerably less bearing* and more boob. Enjoy! Head-to-Head: Videogames in the Mainstream Media *When you…

Three Things That Stand Out About the Spore Expansion

EA announced a bunch of new stuff at last night’s semi-swank reveal event – but the main draw was Galactic Adventures, the first real Spore expansion. Adventures adds a new branch of gameplay to the Spore experience, accessed from the main menu. Once you click on it, you have your pick of preset adventures on…

Four New Spore Titles Unveiled for DS, Wii, PC

EA has officially announced several new titles, two for the DS and one for the Wii, and an expansion to the Spore lineup that will launch this year. Will Wright previously hinted at a DS title, but it turns out there are two DS titles that I misread the display screen at the event and…

Big Bang Mini Ships Today

Wikipedia lies! Big Bang Mini didn’t go out on January 6 – it’s out today for the Nintendo DS. Big Bang Mini is a shooter where the projectiles are all fireworks and you spend about as much time dodging in the lower screen as you do making pretty things happen in the upper screen. There…

New Health Potion Adds “+160 HP” and Ginseng

There’s a new video game-inspired energy drink in town. As if we needed another one. Harcos Inc. has released a new red Health Energy Potion to go with their blue Mana Energy Potion. Mind you, these aren’t in any way related to the Final Fantasy Potion drink beyond the basic concept of video game commercialization.…

Halo 3 ODST Writer: “Put That in Your Speculation Pipe and Smoke It!”

In a new interivew with GamePro, Halo 3: ODST writer and creative director Joseph Staten talks plot, gameplay and design choices for the upcoming Halo 3 expansion. Among the many things the guy has to say, I’m most intrigued by the stuff about the Rookie’s place in the overall Halo story. Halo 3: ODST is…

PlayStation Dominates Street Fighter Club Round 3

The third installment of the Fight Club-themed Street Fighter community events went down in a semi-seedy building next to the James Lick freeway in downtown San Francisco last Friday. Stations were set up for games journos, community members and industry insiders to go head to head in Street Fighter IV. The layout included six arcade…