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Browser-Based MMO Runescape Boasts 200 Million Players… and Counting
When you talk about MMORPGs in the United States, most minds jump to World of Warcraft. And yes, with subscriber base that peaked at twelve million and still hangs out around ten million, WoW was and is a big deal. But Runescape, a free-to-play browser-based MMORPG from British company Jagex, makes every subscription-based game ever…
By Kate Cox -
Esports
Heroes of Newerth Ready to Give All Players All Heroes for Free
Heroes of Newerth, originally launched in 2010, is one of the many multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games clamoring for attention these days. The genre grows more popular almost daily, with millions worldwide logging in to the generally free-to-play games and millions more tuning in to streaming matches online. Heroes of Newerth is trying a…
By Kate Cox -
Reviews
The Samsung Series 7 Gamer Is One Effective, and Enormous, Gaming Laptop
At a hefty 17″, the Samsung Series 7 Gamer is not exactly what you might call “portable.” It’s a laptop that’s squarely in the realm of desktop replacement. The system specs say it weighs in at just under 8.4 pounds, but it’s still not something you’d exactly want to carry around. When I got it…
By Kate Cox -
Batman Doesn’t Need These PC Case Mods for his Batcave Supercomputer. They’re For the Rest of Us.
I am looking forward to seeing The Dark Knight Rises this weekend, because I like Batman. He’s rich and spoiled and self-pitying, sure, but he actively went out and chose to take on the whole caped crusading business, and has to keep coming up with clever new tools to make it work. There’s no biology,…
By Kate Cox -
The Secret World, Log Three: The Good, The Bad, and the Buggy
There are times, when playing a game, that the hours just sail past. The player becomes completely immersed in the content and time loses all meaning, buried in a haze of “just one more quest.” Then there are the times, when playing a game, that every minute is like pulling teeth. Nothing works, nothing makes…
By Kate Cox -
Criticism Does Not Actually Stifle Creativity
Does an outmoded sense of “political correctness” really prevent daring and innovation? The wandering mob is too quick to shout “offense” over creative choice, editor Colin Moriarty argued at IGN today, laying out an opinion that the act of criticism stifles creativity and forces censorship on designers. Moriarty frames his editorial with a reference to…
By Kate Cox -
They Fell In Love Playing Halo 3, And Just Met In Real Life
It’s easy to be cynical about the world of online multi-player gaming. We’ve all had our bad experiences with campers, griefers, and a hundred other kinds of jerk. We know about the foul-mouthed kiddies and the racist, sexist crap spewed by adults old enough to know better. None of the negativity is new. But sometimes……
By Kate Cox -
Monkey Island Creator Explains Why Ignoring Fan Expectations Can Make a Better Game
Ron Gilbert is a legend in the world of adventure games. He created Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, touchstones of the great, long-gone era of the LucasArts SCUMM-engine adventure. In a new interview with the Gameological Society, Gilbert spoke candidly about the challenges of making a game funny, the difficulty of creating ensemble casts, and…
By Kate Cox -
I Was Looking For a Game That Starred Empathy. I Found it Behind All the Zombies.
Last spring, I read a novel called The Passage, and I’m re-reading it again now. The book posits a scenario that in its broad strokes should be familiar by now to any gamer: a secret military science program goes horribly wrong and creates a race of man-eating, once-human monsters that more or less doom humanity.…
By Kate Cox -
Disney is Rewriting Your Childhood With Nostalgia For a Game That Didn’t Exist
Sega recently announced that their upcoming game Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed will feature the titular hero of Disney’s November film Wreck-it Ralph as a playable character. The movie’s director, Rich Moore, calls it a “dream come true” that we can see “Wreck-It Ralph in a real video game alongside Sonic and other iconic Sega…
By Kate Cox -
Ladders, Knives, and Kids Really Can Be Pretty Ridiculous in Call of Duty
It’s true: the guy with the knife always has far more power than he should. And a handgun is just as effective as a well-placed sniper rifle, when it needs to be. And then, of course, there are the difficulties posed by that incredibly complex piece of equipment, the ladder. You don’t have to be…
By Kate Cox -
Get Stabby With Your Friends in Assassin’s Creed III‘s Online Co-Op Mode
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations both had competitive online multi-player modes. Leaping into costume and stabbing other players (in the back) is nothing new for the series. But working with your fellow Assassins, instead of against them? That’s going to be brand new to Assassin’s Creed III At Comic-Con this week, Ubisoft announced…
By Kate Cox -
Want to See Wonder Woman Punch Batman in the Face? Here’s a New Injustice Trailer For You.
All right, I admit: in all honesty, Wonder Woman doesn’t actually punch Batman in the face in these clips. She more sort of picks up a car and beats him senseless with it. The Flash and Superman have a similar car-related altercation, too. It’s a bad game to be a car in. You definitely can’t…
By Kate Cox -
What Is the Day Z Creator More Afraid of Than Zombies? Loyal Fans.
Day Z, the apocalyptic survival mod developed for Arma II, has taken the world by storm. Over half a million players have downloaded it, it’s causing sales of a reasonably obscure three-year-old game to skyrocket, and some folks are calling it the best zombie game ever made. And while half the best experiences and stories…
By Kate Cox -
Players New to Violent Games Feel The Need to Go Wash Away the Moral Distress After
Many years ago, researchers confirmed the existence of the “Lady Macbeth Effect.” The gist of it is that we humans really do associate metaphorical uncleanliness with the more literal sort: if we’ve done or witnessed something immoral or unethical, we are often likely literally to want to go wash or bathe in response. Like Lady…
By Kate Cox -
Ultima Is Going Free-To-Play. And It Just Might Work.
The last new Ultima game to see daylight was Lord of Ultima, a browser strategy game more or less totally unrelated to the venerable Ultima series that so many PC gamers have loved for thirty years. Fans were disappointed, hoping instead for an actual new Ultima adventure that would take advantage of modern technology to…
By Kate Cox -
Who Needs a Dragon Shout When You Have a Rapping Bard?
There’s nothing quite like a bard in a tavern, strumming his medieval proto-guitar of choice (here a mandolin, there a lute, sometimes a harp) and humming dulcet tones. Then there’s this bard. He’s a little more 21st century than those other minstrels and troubadours. As he says: “You see, I bear some rare amazing information…
By Kate Cox -
Hoodwink is the Biggest Con Job I’ve Played This Year. And That’s a Good Thing.
Slow jazz? Check. Disheveled office? Check. Intimations that someone will walk through the door at any moment? Check. All the signs of a classic film noir-inspired game are well in play. Except our detective seems awfully young. And grabby. And in fact not detective-like at all. Really, the whole opening of the game is a…
By Kate Cox -
This Is What A $30,000 PC Gaming Room Looks Like
I am not what you would call a hardware fetishist. I came to be a PC gamer because when I was a child and, later, a student and early twentysomething, I never had the money for consoles but there was a computer in the house. I came to it from convenience first, and only later…
By Kate Cox
Kate Cox
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