Luke Plunkett

EA Giving Free Games to Some Black Ops II Players on PC

Never ones to let a chance pass them by to rain on an Activision parade, EA is giving away some free games to those affected by a Black Ops II disc printing error. The publisher is offering 50 copies of the Mass Effect Trilogy on PC for those who send in pictures of their dodgy…

Diablo III’s Auction Houses Down For “Emergency Maintenance” [Update]

Blizzard has taken down Diablo III’s gold and real-money auction houses for “emergency maintenance”. The company isn’t providing any ETA on when they’ll be back up. UPDATE – And we’re back AUCTION HOUSE MAINTENANCE – 11.13.12 [Diablo]

DayZ’s Creator Has Only Killed Another Player Once

Zombie survival mod DayZ is rife with player-killing, and even though it’s an integral part of the game’s experience, most people nevertheless tend to frown on it, seeing as survival is the name of the game, not murder. But once in a while, you run into a problem that can only be solved by violence.…

I Never Saw The Moment Video Games Hit The Mainstream. It Just Kind of Happened.

When something “arrives”, in a popular culture sense, it’s never to the tune of trumpets and a standing ovation. Nothing can ever be that spontaneous. Instead, you just wake up one day and realise that something which used to exist around the fringes, which people may have been aware of but were never that into,…

Here’s Some Early, Rough Gameplay Footage of Chris Roberts’ Star Citizen

The debut footage for Star Citizen, which sees Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts return to space games after a too-long absence, looked awesome. It was also short on raw gameplay footage, something this test clip makes up for. Is it boring? Yes. But boring can be good, because boring is also real, and that’s what…

This Might be Your Next Gaming Keyboard. If You Like Blue.

I tend to like most of my peripherals—as I would, since I paid good money for them—but of all the gear plugged into my PC, I think I have the softest spot for my keyboard. It’s a Corsair K60, and it looks like it could kill a man just for looking at it funny. I’d…

There are Already Snakes on Black Ops II’s Motherf**king Plane

Some people in some parts of the world already have a copy of Black Ops II. Know what that means? Yup, they’re finding awesome glitches. This is the “snake”, a returning issue from the first Black Ops, which while hardly fair does at least redeem itself by looking stupidly hilarious. Now all we need is…

Before WoW, WarCraft’s Online Wasn’t Quite as Exciting

Continuing his epic look behind the scenes of Blizzard’s early games, former exec and WarCraft developer Patrick Wyatt educates younger fans on the quaint nature of online play in the franchise’s early days. And makes me feel very old in the process. The making of Warcraft part 3 [Code of Honor]

Nobody Told Me Assassin’s Creed III Featured Such Dapper Gentlemen

I haven’t played much of Assassin’s Creed III. I put the 360 version down around an hour in, figured I’d wait and play it on PC instead. So I have no idea who the guy above with the sharp uniform and the tiny dog is. But I like him These images are all the work…

NSFW: The PS3’s New Wonderbook May Have Adult Uses After All

Sony’s Wonderbook copped laughs at E3 because it’s for kids, and grown-up gamers on the internet simply can’t abide that. But just when you thought the fancy book-and-wand set was only of use for wee ones, here’s a video from GameSpot’s Danny O’Dwyer showing its more… adult uses. In case the saxophone kicking in immediately…

Microsoft Sending Xbox Live Veterans a Custom, Free Xbox 360 [Update]

A few hours ago, Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb tweeted the following: Sounded largely unexciting, but then we got an email from a reader around the same time with these images, of a console his friend just got in the mail, emblazoned with Xbox Live 10th birthday graphics. In addition to a special box and…

You’ve Never Seen Star Fox Like This Before

Artist and reader Adam Vian certainly has a different art style. It’s more what you’d expect from the opening credits of a French movie from the 70’s than a major Nintendo video game series. Which is exactly why this looks so lovely. Star Fox Team [Adam Vian]

The Wii U’s Game Discs Have a Soft, Rounded Edge

Most have been so excited to get their discs open they haven’t been noticing, but Engadget have spotted something weird on the Wii U’s proprietary disc format: the discs’ edges are rounded. Because these are special Nintendo discs, and not DVDs or Blu-Rays, I guess the company needed to do something to differentiate their product,…

Listen to Trent Reznor’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II Theme Song (it’s Pretty Great)

That’s a headline I never thought I’d be writing, but it’s a funny old world we’re living in. Musician Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails fame, has as we know lent his talents to the soundtrack for Black Ops II, with a theme song you can now listen to courtesy of the video above. It’s……

Valve Was Once Making a “Space Pirate” Game

Whispers of the project have been doing the rounds for a while now, but last week Valve boss Gabe Newell gave the first confirmation that, yes, his studio had at one point been making a space game with the initials “SoB”. Where theories on what that meant ranged from “Stars of Barathrum” to the more…

Steven Sinofsky, the President of Windows and driving force behind Windows 8, has left Microsoft.

Darth Vader to Return From the Dead For New Star Wars Movies?

Chalk this up as either crazy or just wishful thinking, but Britain’s Daily Express is reporting that, according to a “film mole”, the new Star Wars movies will see the return of Darth Vader. You know, the guy who—SPOILERS—dies at the end of Return of the Jedi. So much so we see his body burning…

RAGE May Have Underwhelmed, But Its Characters Were Gorgeous

id’s RAGE may have its fans—and I’m one of them—but even they’d admit it never really hit the heights it could, or given the developer’s pedigree perhaps should have hit. Two two things I liked best about the game were its sky (seriously, it’s one of the best in video game history) and its characters,…

Pinch Me, I’m Excited About Halo 4’s DLC

Excited? About DLC? I’d normally rather throw myself under a bus, seeing as 90% of the stuff is usually over-priced fluff, but 343 look to be putting a ton of effort into Halo 4’s fancy Spartan Ops game mode. An episodic series of co-op and multiplayer experiences, I knew they’d have some sort of narrative…

Bad Things Happen When Team Fortress 2’s Medic Loses His Bird

Zachariah Scott, a cinematic designer at BioWare, may have an unfair advantage when it comes to Source Filmmaker clips, seeing as he’s not exactly an amatuer, but whatever. If professional videos are what we get when professionals use the tool, then we’re all winners. In this clip, TF2’s Medic has an…episode after the loss of…