Luke Plunkett

Activision Is “Somewhat Disappointed” With The Launch Of The Wii U

It seems that Activision, the biggest video game publisher in the world, wasn’t exactly thrilled with the Wii U’s launch. Why? Forget Call of Duty’s performance, it’s the console’s potential for Skylanders that has Bobby Kotick and co. worried. During the company’s latest earnings call, Kotick was asked about the future of the money-printing Skylanders…

The (Fake) Mass Effect Characters Of The Future Are An Amazing Sight

There’s currently a competition running over on CGHub, a big community of artists who (mostly) work in the entertainment industry. It’s to design a new Mass Effect character. Some of the entries are impressive, some especially so, but there are others which will absolutely blow your socks off The rules are simple: “create a character…

Skyrim’s Theme, performed By… The Chocolate Rain Guy. What Year Is This Again?

When I rolled out of bed this morning, I never expected the world would decide to present 2009’s biggest internet sensation singing the theme song to 2011’s biggest video game in… 2013. A little late on both fronts, then, but it’s not without a certain charm. Or, it will be, once I manage to get…

RIP, The Man Who Made Yoda & Chewbacca

Legendary British special effects wizard Stuart Freeborn, who is responsible for some of science fiction’s most memorable on-screen characters, has passed away at the age of 98. Freeborn, who made the ape-men from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, will be remembered most for his contributions in the Star Wars franchise, where his puppet-building and make-up skills led…

Printer Is Coming With This Incredible Model Of Winterfell

This incredible, miniature rendition of Winterfell—as it’s seen in the opening credits to the Game of Thrones TV show—was done by Daniel Ammann. if you’ve got access to a 3D printer, or as I like to call them “boxes of dark sorcery”, he’s made the plans for the model publicly available, so you can print…

You Might Get a Surprisingly Classy Skyrim Series. If You Pay.

A group of very serious fans want to make a web series based on Skyrim. So far, so modern internet, but what’s setting the pitch for Skyrim: The Shadow Cult apart is the level of professionalism that’s going into the production. Instead of just tossing robes on a few friends and letting computer effects do…

Sometimes, Koreans Can Give Western Fantasy A Shot In The Arm

Maybe it’s because Western artists are dealing with a genre that’s so close to their own culture and history (or at least close to it), but there’s a reason the majority (though not all!) of fantasy art ends up looking the same. It tends to stick too close to the real deal. Unless it’s some…

Crytek, Long Ago, Were Working On Their Own Take On Deus Ex

Waaaay back in time, long before even the first Far Cry was released, Crytek were working on a game called Engalus. Envisaged as a first-person game with an emphasis on story and role-playing, it actually made a small public appearance in 2000 as a tech demo for Nvidia before disappearing from sight, never to be…

Website Finds Chink In Steam’s Security Armour

Ars Technica’s Kyle Orland recently found a security issue with Valve’s online marketplace, Steam. “Out of respect for the privacy of Steam’s more than 50 million users”, Ars didn’t immediately publish the article. Instead, they contacted Valve. Barely three hours after being notified, the exploit had been fixed. That’s fast. But what’s really interesting is…

Author Says Games Workshop Is Trying To Own The Term “Space Marine”

It’s about as ubiquitous a term in science fiction—and video games—as “starship”, “lightspeed” and “datapad”, but an author at the centre of a copyright struggle claims that Games Workshop, the company behind the Warhammer 40K franchise, is trying to take legal possession of the term “space marine”. Author MCA Hogarth, who wrote the book “Spots…

If You Expect The JJ Abrams Half-Life Movie To Actually Get Made, You’re Gonna Have A Bad Time

You may have gotten awfully excited today when you read that not only is JJ Abrams talking to Valve about making a game, he’s also talking about making a movie with the studio. That’s OK! Perfectly understandable. He’s a talented guy, and the prospect of seeing Gordon Freeman on the silver screen is enough to…

Things. They Fit Into Other Things. Like Super Nintendos.

Probably the best thing on the internet today is the Tumblr “things fitting perfectly into things.” Which sums up the mission goal pretty neatly. Drinks fitting into other drinks, yoghurt fitting into sinkholes, God, the mind boggles the more you scroll down the page. The infinite happy coincidences we walk past every day without realising.…

Ever Wonder What Nintendo’s President Looks Like As A Walking Google Camera?

Wonder no more. Part of an Iwata Asks section over on Nintendo’s website, celebrating the launch of Google’s Wii Street U on the Wii U.

Iron Man’s New Armour Can Fit On Your Desk

I’m not sold on the Mark XLII armour in the upcoming Iron Man 3. There’s just so much gold. But hey, colour preferences aside, you can at least count on Hot Toys to nail the plastic representation of the thing in adult collectible form. Priced at $165, he’ll be out in May, comes with a…

Microsoft’s Surface Pro sounded pretty good for gaming. Shame getting Civ V running sounds like pulling teeth

A Most Unexpected GI Joe Recruitment Video

Well, this didn’t end like I thought it would. And by that I mean, I was hoping to actually get a look at Keith David. Ah well.

You’re Going To Have To Hack Your Brains Out In This “Twentieth-Century Cyberpunk” Game

Here’s the brief for Quadrilateral Cowboy, an upcoming PC game by Blendo Games: When you have a top-of-the-line hacking deck armed with a 56.6k modem and a staggering 256k RAM, it means just one thing: you answer only to the highest bidder. The video above shows… well, I’m more interested than I was after reading…

The Cold, Not-So-Lonely Art Of Dead Space 3

The game itself may be dividing critics, but I’d hope there’s one thing we can all agree on, and that’s the fact that before the game’s frozen wastelands could be played, they first had to be drawn by some very talented people. We’ve featured Patrick’s work here before, but now that Dead Space 3 is…

Sony’s Most Forgettable Game Will Soon Be Forgotten

There have few more puzzling game releases in the last decade than Bullet Run, a game published by Sony Online Entertainment that looked so generic and commercially pointless that you wondered how it was ever green-lit in the first place. Surprising absolutely nobody, then, aside from maybe those who had forgotten the game even existed,…

An Idea Of What A Future Link & Zelda Could Look Like

Let’s close our eyes and dream that, after post-apocalyptic waterworlds, train rides and gritty cowboy tales, Nintendo gets even braver and pushes the Legend of Zelda series into the future. Hoverboards, Robopona, the Master LightSword, the works. What could Link and Zelda look like? Well, they could look a lot worse than these ideas by…