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Sazh, Card Games, and Bikinis All To Be Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC
Square Enix is continuing to keep the ball rolling on Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC. Their previous entry brought Lightning and Master Sergeant Amodar to the game; the next will bring Sazh. The downloadable episode, called “Sazh: Heads or Tails?” allows players to take the title character through a story of his own that runs in…
By Kate Cox -
Irritating Mass Effect 3 Facebook App Could Use Some Calibrations
The massive marketing juggernaut is in full effect (sorry) for Mass Effect 3. The long-anticipated conclusion to the epic space marines vs. eldritch horror aliens trilogy becomes available on March 6, a few short weeks from now. Fans of the franchise (a category that decidedly includes yours truly) have a new wealth of trailers, screenshots,…
By Kate Cox -
Facebook Emerges as Victor in The Hunger Games
Games and movies have long had a somewhat tempestuous relationship. Film adaptations of popular video game franchises can be entertaining when done well, but they also have seemingly infinite potential to go bad. Likewise, video game adaptations of popular, blockbuster films often lack the magic of the movie they’re meant to market, and end up…
By Kate Cox -
Typographic Prints Make Art From Gamers Favorite Quips
Via NerdWire, we have today a set of typographic prints and t-shirts representing some of gaming’s most famous icons, old and new. These aren’t quite the “standard” typographic style where the words themselves form the entirety of the art, but I enjoyed how the minimalistic icons and colors worked together with the words to evoke…
By Kate Cox -
Quiet Indie Mystery Dear Esther Profitable in Six Hours
This February is proving to be a fascinating month for non-traditional development and funding paths in game design. While Double Fine’s Kickstarter proposal has been in the news, indie title Dear Esther has been making small waves of its own. Dear Esther became available for purchase on Steam yesterday, and launched to mixed reviews. (The…
By Kate Cox -
Fifth-Grade Game Designer Exhibits her Video Game at White House
New game designer Hannah Wyman won a trip to New York, got a grant for her school, educated kids, and met the President of the United States. And she managed it all around her dance lessons and her homework, because she’s eleven years old. We may keep seeing the same old arguments over whether games…
By Kate Cox -
Sony’s Old Position on Touch Screen Gaming Is Incompatible With The PlayStation Vita
It doesn’t feel like 2005 was all that long ago… until you remember that the first iPhone didn’t launch until 2007. In the many years since a former Sony executive could make an offhand remark about the Nintendo DS, touch screens have taken over, and the tech is getting sharper every year. The future, it…
By Kate Cox -
Kill a Room Full of People With Your Brain (For Fun)
This Darth Vader may not have James Earl Jones’s wicked baritone or David Prowse’s imposing height (nor even Hayden Christensen’s adolescent whine), but the evil overlord skills on display simply cannot be denied. It just goes to show: there’s a little force-wielding maniac in all of us. Seriously, how great would it be to be…
By Kate Cox -
Survey: There’s a 1 in 10 Chance Words With Friends Will Get You Some Action
We all know that the “social” space has changed the dating scene. Facebook has thrown all sorts of new tools and little wrinkles our way. Now that the virtual hangouts have caught up with crowded bars as a place to meet a mate, social games are finding a new way to shine. Zynga ran a…
By Kate Cox -
Mostly Dead is Slightly Alive: Where Adventure Games Are Hiding
Double Fine’s record-breaking Kickstarter adventure has, over the past few days, rekindled the perennial discussion about the entire genre of adventure games. The classic adventure has had its death announced dozens, if not hundreds, of times over the past decade or so, with at least an equal number of rebuttals. When adventure game god Tim…
By Kate Cox -
The Many Helmeted Faces of Halo‘s Master Chief
The impressive array of Halo toys at the McFarlane Toys booth at the New York Toy Fair features Master Chief. And a bigger Master Chief. And a frozen Master Chief. And Master Chief with a gun. Happily, however, the franchise’s protagonist is not the only figure featured; the display contains a number of incredibly detailed…
By Kate Cox -
Yuna’s Bobbling Bobblehead and Other Square-Enix Toy Wonders
The Square Enix booth at the New York Toy Fair doesn’t just figure the adorable and dramatic RPG figures one might expect. Among the many others, we’ve spied Nathan Drake looking manly, Meryl Silverburgh looking deadly, and Garrus Vakarian looking, frankly, badass. [music by Anitek]
By Kate Cox -
Find Out Today if Zynga’s New Game Is Actually a Tiny Tower Rip-Off
Zynga’s controversial new mobile game, Dream Heights, is now available for iOS devices. The tower sim gained notoriety well before launch as back in January, the announcement of Dream Heights kicked off another round of the “cloning vs. inspiration” discussion that seems endemic to the social and mobile development space. Zynga faced accusations of blatantly…
By Kate Cox -
The Most Adorable Exploding Humans I’ve Seen All Day
We reported last month on EA’s upcoming Warp, a top-down puzzler featuring Zero, a cute and cuddly little orange alien who makes humans (and anything else) explode violently into bloody goo. Today, we get to see Warp‘s gameplay in action! Really, there’s something deep-down comically satisfying in seeing a burbling little colorful G-rated guy pop…
By Kate Cox -
Concept Artist Behind Fallout 3, Skyrim Has Died
I played something like 130 hours of Fallout 3. I adored many things about it — and, admittedly, hated a few others — but my absolute favorite part was exploring the world. The entire history of this never-quite-was version of Washington, DC could be read in its architecture, its artifacts, and its people. The game…
By Kate Cox -
Proceeds from Banned Foxconn iPhone Game Given to Foxconn Employee Who Attempted Suicide
Molleindustria’s critical protest game Phone Story was designed to achieve two ends: to raise consumer awareness of the conditions under which smartphones like the iPhone are produced, and to help serve as a fundraising tool. The game, originally released for iPhone last September, traces the life of a modern mobile handheld device. It starts with…
By Kate Cox -
PlayStation Vita, Unboxed Before Our Very Eyes!
While the PlayStation Vita launched in Japan in the tail days of 2011, gamers in North America and Europe are still eagerly awaiting their turn to get the new handheld on February 22. Over at the official PlayStation Blog, Sony has posted a teaser today to whet everyone’s appetites, sharing the unboxing of the First…
By Kate Cox -
A Follow-Up with David Jaffe About that Oral Sex Remark
In a promotional video interview that went live on February 6th, David Jaffe included a statement that I and others found objectionable. So I objected. After the piece ran, Jaffe reached out to me through Twitter and we agreed to schedule a call. Yesterday evening, we spoke about the issue by phone for roughly half…
By Kate Cox -
Epic Fan-Created Battle Rages Across Skyrim
In this skillfully-assembled scene that feels straight out of the siege of Minas Tirith, a cast of hundreds go to war. Featuring undead, a dragon, and a couple of decidedly irritated mage-generals, “The Great Battle of Skyrim” lives up to its name. I, for one, walked away curious to learn more about the reasons for…
By Kate Cox
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