Kirk Hamilton

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Never Looked So Good

When I imagine Sonic and Mario finally duking it out, I come up with something like this. These shots are from an up-res’d PC version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, as collected by Duncan Harris at Dead End Thrills. They are just lovely, and hopefully the start of a longer run of screenshots. More shots…

Careful, Don’t Fall In: This amazing chalk drawing of a Monopoly board by Leon Keer may look like it contains a deep, deadly pit, but that’s just perspective screwin’ with ya. More pics of the work—made for the Victoria International Chalk Art Festival in Canada—after the break.

Look On My Works, Ye Mighty: I gather that a lot of you felt rather strongly about Sunday’s incredible episode of Breaking Bad—if so, you might enjoy this terrific, spoiler-laden Vulture interview with the episode’s writer Moira Walley-Beckett and director Rian Johnson.

Congratulations Breaking Bad, You Broke Us

Good lord. Last week, I asked you guys to make some predictions about what would happen in this week’s episode of Breaking Bad. While the specific predictions were all over the map, one thing remained constant: We were all pretty sure that this week’s episode was going to be bonkers. We were right. SPOILERS FOLLOW,…

How To Install GTA V On Xbox 360 Without Hurting Performance

Today, Rockstar support advised Xbox 360 players not to install Grand Theft Auto V‘s second “play disc” to their hard drives. Doing so, they suggested, would affect performance. The 360 version of GTA V comes on two DVDs. One is an 8GB “install disc” that you must install, and a second one is a “play…

That’s a lot of PS4. This delivery of 120 PS4 development kits just arrived at Uncharted and The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog’s studio in Santa Monica. Question: You think these boxes hold actual PS4s, or just PS4-like PCs? (Pic: Christophe Balestra via NeoGAF)

Why Tim Schafer Doesn’t Make A Lot Of Sequels

These days it can seem like every other video game is a sequel. Everyone loves sequels, right? They’re familiar, they let game-makers perfect their formulas and expand the worlds they’ve created. But a few developers still make mostly new games. Case in point: Tim Schafer’s Double Fine productions. Of the fifteen games the studio either…

Serenity Flies Again, Sort Of: Okay, it’s just a cloud. But it’s a cloud that looks remarkably like a certain beloved Firefly-class transport ship. Perhaps this apparition is a magical leaf on the wind, the product of all our collective wishes for another Firefly movie. Photo: jackie4kneeyay via Nathan Fillion

Why So Serious, Retro Batman?

Back in the day, there were plenty of 8- and 16-bit video games about Batman. But none of them retold the story of Christopher Nolan’s 2008 Bat-sterpiece The Dark Knight Here, from CineFix‘s 8-Bit Cinema, is a re-creation of what just such a game would look like. I always enjoy how these guys’ videos re-create…

Teamwork: It’s the key to fighting monsters. Of course, “teamwork” online usually means yelling “Oh shit!” at one another over and over. But the guys in this video (via PC Gamer) demonstrating Phosphor Studios’ in-development PC MMO Nether are much more communicative. For more about Nether check out this interview at Gamespot

Blonde Twins Playing Mario Music On Harps In Front Of A Castle

It’s been a while! Yes, it’s been some time since we’ve shared the musical stylings of Camille and Kennerly, aka the Harp Twins. Here they are, wearing moustache necklaces and playing Mario music while standing in front of a castle. As you do. You may remember Camille and Kennerly from such enchanting performances as Blonde…

Duke Nukem Creators Drop Lawsuit Over Unpaid Royalties

3D Realms, the studio that spent more than ten years working on Duke Nukem Forever, has dropped their lawsuit against Gearbox Software, the company that purchased the rights to the game and finally published it. The lawsuit was initially brought earlier this year after 3D Realms claimed Gearbox had refused to pay more than $2…

Just about time time to pre-load some pre-crime: Rockstar says that the PSN version of Grand Theft Auto V will be available for pre-load on Monday at 3am EST in the US; Sunday at 3pm BST in Europe.

“It can’t be for nothing.” Sure, this (spoilery) new montage of The Last of Us concept art is basically just a shameless feel-reel engineered to make people who played the game get all emotional. But guess what? It’s super effective!

Easily The Most Elaborate Breaking Bad Parody Ever Made

Just in time for Breaking Bad‘s grand finale, Jimmy Fallon comes along and makes the greatest Heisenberg tribute of all time. It’s the little things that sell this—the way they so perfectly mimic Michael Slovis’ iconic cinematography, or Hank’s gruff delivery, or the “cooking” montage… clearly, everyone at Late Night has a lot of love…

I Wish All Video Games Had Premises This Good

A good video game can get a lot of mileage out of its premise. Lots of games sell themselves on some sort of gameplay hook: It’s a stealth game… and you can fly! But how about old-school adventure games? They’re all story. To hook you, they’ve gotta start strong. Broken Age, the new game from…

Good morning, Crono! Check out this nifty re-creation of the Chrono Trigger SNES box art by The Lando Bros. They say it took about 3 years to complete, and that they left Marle’s fire off because A) her fire spell is difficult to get right and B) she actually uses water spells in the game.

We’ve Got A Wild Theory About The New Harry Potter Movie

Today, JK Rowling revealed that she’s going to be writing the screenplay for some new movies set in the Harry Potter universe. They’ll star a gentleman named Newt Scamander, author of the Hogwarts textbook “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” Well, we’ve got a theory about this Scamander fellow. When our own Jason Schreier…

Well, This Is The Weirdest Game Trailer I’ve Seen In A While

Yes, this new Stanley Parable trailer is more or less a game-trailer version of The Stanley Parable itself. It’s also a whole lot of fun. It’s also appropriate, given the nature of the game itself. The Stanley Parable is coming soon to PC in a full, final version. But if you’d like, you can play…

Forget The iPhone, Let’s Support This Thing

At some point, smartphone ownership can start to feel like a runaround. You buy the phone with the new! best! features! and a year later, Apple (or whoever) reveals a newer phone with the newer! bester! features! and your phone becomes obsolete. Enter Phonebloks, a brilliant modular concept phone. The concept, from designer Dave Hakkens,…