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Trust No One in DayZ—Especially Those With a Helicopter
It’s tempting. You’re in an ultra-realistic, post-apocalyptic fight for survival, and some helpful human players show up in a goddamn helicopter of all things, blow away the zombie menacing you, and invite you aboard. And why wouldn’t you join them? It’s great to have friends with aircraft. Except these aren’t your friends. If you’re playing…
By Owen Good -
Weak Traffic, Low Subscribers Meant Something Had to Happen—but OnLive Employees Didn’t Expect the End
All of OnLive’s 200 employees worked daily with the cloud gaming service’s traffic numbers, and knew that something big had to happen for the company around this time of the year. That’s not to say everyone expected to lose their jobs together on the same day, no severance, no benefits, no nothing. That’s according to…
By Owen Good -
Borderlands 2‘s Official Rating Description is Outstanding
Back at E3 I was dismayed to learn that, thanks to prudes overseas, Borderlands 2‘s darkly humorous death animations would have to be toned down from the original’s, which included eyeball-exploding electrocutions. Well, if the official ratings description handed down by the ESRB is any indication, I needn’t have worried. Borderlands 2 went to gold…
By Owen Good -
The Moneysaver: War for Cyberdeals
A combo pairing Transformers: Fall of Cybertron with its predecessor leads our list of 60 bargains, 35 of them digital downloads and, as usual, most of them available from online retailers. NCAA Football 13 is down to $40 about a month after its release, and the PlayStation Move game Sorcery is just $14.99. Appropriately enough…
By Owen Good -
In the Background of Video Games’ Exclusive Deals, There’s More Than Meets The Eye
They are the heroes of our childhoods. The glory of their times. Their video game comes out later this month. For the entirety of the current console generation, just one mega-publisher has solely controlled the exclusive right to immortalize their triumphs. It’s a deal that has reaped gobs of cash, and the latest edition of…
By Owen Good -
Video Game Makers Aren’t Your Friends. But If They Were …
Today, Dorkly broke down the major players of the video gaming industry into commonly understood archetypes: Your friends. Doesn’t make them any more tolerable, but it does make them more understandable. Still, I would have figured Activision for your gun-obsessed weightlifter friend who drives a 1989 Celica and listens to the Iron Eagle soundtrack, and…
By Owen Good -
OnLive Assets Acquired by ‘Newly Formed Company,’ Vows to Continue Service [Corrected]
Bad news always slides under the door at the end of Friday, and today’s was a rumor of some kind of quasi -bankruptcy for the cloud gaming service OnLive and, more importantly, mass layoffs of its employees. After a series of officious no-comments to reporters, OnLive has issued a statement confirming that its sale to…
By Owen Good -
Playing Again, as Sam, in Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Splinter Cell: Blacklist is next year’s update of the venerable Tom Clancy series from Ubisoft, promising new weapons and classic method, if not the classic Sam Fisher voice actor. Nonetheless, you can catch 12 minutes slam full of gameplay in this annotated developer video. Using the “killing-in-motion” bullet-time feature, watch Sam cut like a hot…
By Owen Good -
Get Ready for Madden‘s “Connected Careers” With This 175-Page Guide
Madden NFL 13 this year merges its Franchise, Online Franchise and Superstar modes into a single suite, called “Connected Careers.” We’ve done our best to explain what it is, but in a nutshell, gamers controlling a single player will be able to play in the same league against gamers controlling a single player (edit: and…
By Owen Good -
Hyrule Historia, the Zelda Encyclopedia, Will Be Localized for North America
Serious Legend of Zelda fans in the West have treated Hyrule Historia something like a venerated text—and one in a language many of them couldn’t read. Today, Dark Horse Comics announced that it at long last would be bringing an English-language version of the Zelda encyclopedia to North America, the UK and Australia. Known for…
By Owen Good -
NBA 2K13 Isn’t the First to Feature the Dream Team. This Genesis Game Is.
Not only that, Team USA Basketball featured all of the Dream Team’s 12 players, including Scottie Pippen, who won’t be in NBA 2K13 because he and 2K Sports couldn’t reach an agreement on his appearance. It’s remarkable that 1992’s Team USA Basketball by Electronic Arts—then under the “EA Sports Network” label—is the only video game…
By Owen Good -
Speak Clearly—But Carry a Fast Joystick—If You’re Using Madden‘s Voice Commands
Of all sports, American football would figure to be the most natural fit for voice command support in a video game, if for no other reason than play doesn’t begin until the quarterback orders the center, usually by voice, to snap the ball. Say “hike,” and Madden NFL 13 will, in fact, hike. You can…
By Owen Good -
When I See the Blitz Coming, I Audible to a Dragon Shout
Review copies of Madden NFL 13 arrived today. EA Sports usually sends out funny premiums with its review guides, like it did with a yardage book for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13. This year, they included a quarterback wristband—the kind you see Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers flipping up and staring at during a two-minute…
By Owen Good -
Anonymous Claims PSN Hack Affecting 10 Million Accounts [Update: It’s a Hoax]
Anonymous claims it broke into the PlayStation Network and has a 50 gigabyte database of email accounts and their passwords. Ten million accounts “are at risk,” says the hacker involved. The passwords appear to be encrypted, and many of the accounts published in this document appear to be from northern Europe. This still would be…
By Owen Good -
Michael Jordan and the Dream Team Meet the 2012 Gold Medalists in NBA 2K13
When Kobe Bryant hypothesized that the 2012 U.S. Men’s Basketball Team would beat the 1992 squad—the original Dream Team—Michael Jordan just laughed. Charles Barkley said only three players from the current team could have cracked their roster. Video gamers can settle it for themselves this October when both squads, in their United States Olympic uniforms,…
By Owen Good -
Culture
The Week in Games: Canis Major
Square Enix picked up Sleeping Dogs from Activision’s scrap heap and early word is it’s worth a good look. Maybe being freed from True Crime‘s heavy yoke of disappointment will help the concept live out its promise. Darksiders II also hits shelves, and the Summer of Arcade closes out as the kids return to school./…
By Owen Good -
The Game is the Same and the Rules Don’t Change—So Why Do the Controls?
In basketball, it was the three-point line, or the reintroduction of the zone defense. In baseball, it’s the designated hitter, or an All-Star game played for stakes. In American football, it’s instant replay, or the two-point conversion, or moving the goal posts to the back of the end zone. All sports have confronted and incorporated…
By Owen Good -
Sons Of Anarchy Game Adaptation Has ‘No Traction,’ But That’s Better Than Being ‘A Piece of Shit Like Game of Thrones‘ Says Creator
Done right, the well regarded FX biker gang series Sons of Anarchy would seem to be a natural fit for a game adaptation. It’s got guns, violence, antiheroes and a natural open-world setting. Doing it right, however, takes a lot of money and commitment. That is is why the series is getting “NO TRACTION” toward…
By Owen Good -
Epic Confirms Three More People Fly from Gears of War: Judgment
People Can Fly, the Poland-based studio behind 2011’s Bulletstorm and the upcoming Gears of War: Judgment, said goodbye to creative director Adrian Chmielarz (pictured) and two top artists today, according to Gears developer Epic Games and Chmielarz himself. “Gears fans, you’re going to love Judgment. It’s in great hands,” Chmielarz said via Twitter about 1…
By Owen Good
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