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8-Bit Inspired Disney Toon Wreck-It Ralph Features Villains from Real Video Games
Last month, we first saw concept art from Disney’s upcoming animated feature Wreck-It Ralph. Set inside the world of video games, the film features a game villain — the titular Ralph — in his quest to become more than the sum of his pixelated parts. Disney today released the first teaser poster for the film,…
By Kate Cox -
Esports
Gamers Watch Over 3 Billion Minutes of Competitive Gaming Per Month
Thinking of “CBS” and “sports” conjures up images of quiet rounds of golf, or the contained frenzy of a college basketball game. Now, however, CBS Interactive is throwing its hat into the world of virtual competitions, focusing its energies on the rapidly growing world of eSports. Competitive gaming is growing rapidly, here in the early…
By Kate Cox -
Nintendo Registers “Super Mario 4” Domain Name, Hinting at Future Game
Nintendo has just managed to throw massive fuel onto the fire of rumor and speculation with a simple domain name registration. On April 3, Nintendo of America registered the website “supermario4.com,” as recently spotted by an IGN reader. Currently, navigating to the site only results in a redirect to Nintendo’s main page. Mario, Luigi, Peach,…
By Kate Cox -
EA Wants Need for Speed to Race into Movie Theaters
For all that movies and games so often feel like they should be a natural partnership, they usually aren’t. A huge number of films based on game franchises have been developed in the last thirty years or so, and most of them were awful. This doesn’t seem to be deterring EA, who are shopping around…
By Kate Cox -
Dabble With Word Puzzles and Just Enough Strategy
Dabble is an incredibly simple but satisfying game that combines two of my favorite things: words and puzzles. Like any other word game, Dabble gives the player a bunch of tiles and asks them to form words; this is fairly straightforward. Then the puzzle catch comes in: each round has exactly 20 tiles, from which…
By Kate Cox -
Two-Thirds of Parents Admit They Don’t Bother Checking Video Game Age Ratings
The ESRB has a fairly detailed and complex system that determines what games are marked kid-safe and which are considered appropriate for adults’ eyes only. All major publishers participate in the voluntary rating system, and it is instrumental in physical, retail game sales in stores like GameStop and Walmart. But does any of it actually…
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Developer Hopes Microsoft and Sony “Go Nuclear,” Destroy Used Game Sales
Many, many rumors continue to fly around the internet concerning the future of Microsoft and Sony’s game consoles. One of the most contentious and repeated assertions about the next iterations of both the PlayStation and the Xbox is that neither will easily support used, rented, or secondhand games. Gamers and developers have gone back and…
By Kate Cox -
Braid‘s Jonathan Blow on Art, High Standards, and Games as “Shitty Action Movies”
Game creator Jonathan Blow is best known for developing 2008 indie hit Braid, and perhaps second-best known for his prickly views on games and the game industry. He aims to be profound with his games, and hopes that his next project, The Witness, can proudly stand in the “games are art” column. The May, 2012…
By Kate Cox -
Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Events Continue, But Not on the PS3
Many players have by now completed the Mass Effect 3 single-player story, but the multiplayer keeps ticking along. To maintain interest, BioWare has been running promotional weekends in the multiplayer game, setting certain goals for players to meet both individually and en masse, and promising item packs for players who meet those goals. One challenge…
By Kate Cox -
Watch Foxconn Workers Make an iPad
Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and other companies have repeatedly come under scrutiny in recent months and years for the conditions under which their high-tech gadgets are made. Reporter Rob Schmitz visited Foxconn’s Longhua facility in Shenzhen, China. The video from his trip shows the actual process of making an iPad, which is surprisingly fascinating. It’s one…
By Kate Cox -
Free-to-Play GraFighters Lets Players Make Their Own Doodles Fight to the Death
With Kickstarter all the rage these days, one can’t help but wonder: what about all those projects that don’t get fully funded? What happens to those games, to those plans, to those dreams? For two college friends, Eric Cleckner and David Chenell, a venture capitalist steps in and makes the game happen anyway, providing ten…
By Kate Cox -
Hitman: Absolution Joins the List of Games Screwing You Over With Pre-order Weapons
Square Enix today announced the fancy version of Agent 47’s continuing stealth saga Hitman: Absolution, called the Professional Edition. The Professional Edition and standard edition are both now available for pre-order at multiple outlets, but with a small catch. Like so many other publishers and game releases before it, Square Enix is offering different pre-order…
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The Secret World Reveals Deep Mysteries, Intuitive Play, and Deadly Zombies
Norwegian game designer Ragnar Tørnquist is perhaps most associated with the classic PC adventure game The Longest Journey and its sequel, Dreamfall. The two posit that our world is really only half of the world-that-is, and that our Earth as we know it has remained sundered from its more magical, mystical half for ages. In…
By Kate Cox -
Peter Molyneux Explains Why He Left Lionhead and Microsoft to go Indie
Game designer Peter Molyneux surprised many when he announced his departure from Microsoft last month. Molyneux is best known for heading up the Fable franchise and for his ambitious, unusual game ideas, both the successful and the cancelled Speaking with Eurogamer, Molyneux finally explained why he chose to leave Microsoft when he did, and why…
By Kate Cox -
Party Game Inspires Man to “Go Bonkers,” Smash Room
Cards Against Humanity was a popular late-night diversion at PAX East last weekend, making appearances at gaming tables after midnight and after a few adult beverages. The game, it seems, is indeed as antagonistic as advertised, and can be dangerous to a player’s health under the wrong circumstances. A group of friends in River Falls,…
By Kate Cox -
BioWare Developers Discuss Ideas and Share Concept Art For the “Hypothetical” Next Dragon Age Game
Some fine folks from BioWare held a Dragon Age panel at PAX East this weekend in which they emphatically did not talk about still-unannounced Dragon Age 3 Creative Director Mike Laidlaw, Executive Producer Mike Darrah, Lead Writer David Gaider, and Assistant Art Director Shane Hawco presented an array of slides, displaying and responding to fan…
By Kate Cox -
Street Fighter x Tekken Vita Version Features New Characters, Cross-Console Play with PS3
We’ve got new trailers for the PS Vita edition of Street Fighter x Tekken. Capcom promises 55 characters in the Vita version: the 43 available in the console game as well as six more from each side. Blanka, Cody, Dudly, Elena, Guy, and Sakura round out the Street Fighter crew, and Alisa, Bryan, Christie, Jack,…
By Kate Cox -
Fighting Gamers Tell Their Stories of Loss And Redemption
Competitive gamers play to win — it goes without saying, really. The desire to come out on top is what motivates almost every conflict, especially among professional and competitive fighting gamers. But every time there’s a winner, there’s a loser. And even the best players can’t go forever undefeated. Fighting game site I Play Winner…
By Kate Cox -
David Gaider, Ken Levine, and Chris Avellone Discuss What Matters Most in Games: the Words or the World?
This Saturday, at PAX East, I had the pleasure of attending the “Plot vs. Play” panel, moderated by Joystiq’s Ben Gilbert and Kotaku‘s own Jason Schreier. The panel brought together three developers who have all worked on landmark, story-driven games to discuss their differing philosophies on the presence and purpose of story in gaming. Ken…
By Kate Cox -
The 1.2 Update Warzone for Star Wars: The Old Republic Is Pretty Good
MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic has been churning along pretty well since its launch late in December of last year. Developer BioWare is now preparing to release update 1.2 for the game, which will add a rather significant amount of content. One of the features arriving in SW:TOR with the 1.2 update is the…
By Kate Cox
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