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Hans Brix Might Want to Send Inspectors to Kim Jong-il’s Gold Farm
An awesome tale from Friday’s New York Times alleges that Mister Fun himself, Kim Jong-il, finances his nookular ambitions with the proceeds of an MMO-gold farming operation. Cops in Seoul on Thursday arrested five persons who engaged a team of North Korean hackers to breach the servers for South Korean MMOs Lineage and Dungeon and…
By Owen Good -
CultureShop Contest
Northern Overexposure
Nolan North appearing in a video game is not exactly news. It’s more newsworthy when he doesn’t. But voicing The Penguin, with a canon-defying cockney accent even, is treading the limits of overexposure even for him. One reason North can get away with this is because, in addition to having great vocal range, we never…
By Owen Good -
Weekend Talk Amongst Yourselves
Good morning. It’s Sunday. I’m here to ask you, how is your relationship with your fellow commenter. If you were to die right now, would you feel secure that the everlasting soul of your comments will find their eternal reward? Maybe it’s time you had a talk, amongst yourselves. Once againKyosen is your big winner…
By Owen Good -
Culture
Sunday Comics
Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Aug 1. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published Aug 3. – Read more of Nerf…
By Owen Good -
Master Floppy Winners
Last week I threw an open-ended challenge at the community and you guys responded more than admirably, turning a reimagining of modern games on ancient media from a silly what-if into one of our better contests in a while. We’ve got GiantBoyDetective’s overall No. 1 (pictured) plus the 20 finalists inside! So the point was…
By Owen Good -
This Virtuoso Live-Action Team Fortress 2 Video is the Best Fan Film You’ll See All Month
Corridor Digital’s video “Sentry Sabotage” explores very well known themes of treachery within Team Fortress 2 but it does so with unbelievable execution. I knew how this would end before I finished it the first time and I’ve already watched it a dozen times more. I realize that headline’s a bold claim, because we’re not…
By Owen Good -
Better AI, Awesomer Guns in Borderlands 2, or so I’m Told
My copy of Game Informer did not arrive today. Time and the Columbia alumni rag, which I actively do not want, did. So I will not be reading about Borderlands 2 this weekend, as some are. The game’s GI tract says the characters from the original will return as NPCs; enemies will have better AI…
By Owen Good -
The President Ends a Four-Year Term
In 2007, the NFL staged a regular-season game in London for the first time ever. The night before, the American ambassador invited several VIPs to the U.S. embassy there. Even diplomatic cocktail parties do not proceed without some formality. Guests, who had already been screened, were to introduce themselves to the embassy guards, two lantern-jawed…
By Owen Good -
Street Fighter‘s Producer Kiboshes Mortal Kombat Crossover Thoughts. Again.
Yoshinori Ono, the Street Fighter series producer, has shot down ideas for a Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat crossover before. He says he gets them the time “on my Twitter feed and elsewhere.” He got a question about it from the PlayStation blog earlier this week. Here’s why it ain’t gonna be a thing any…
By Owen Good -
Mega64 Reminds You—Painfully—That Catherine is not a Dating Sim
The premise to Mega64’s latest knee-slapper is rather obvious: Neckbeard beats Catherine-wait, that doesn’t sound right. Neckbeard finishes Catherine? Whatever. And he figures that his prowess in that game has some real world application. The comedy comes in the cringe-inducing series of candid-camera encounters with women who are not in on the joke and sure…
By Owen Good -
Hooray! Now We Know Why Bobby Kotick is in that Brad Pitt Movie
Bobby Kotick’s cameo in Moneyball, even after it was confirmed by Activision, remained quite the WTF mystery of June. Why was he appearing as the Oakland A’s owner in a sports flick? Did he know Brad Pitt? Did he know the director? Was this some hint at a Call of Duty movie? Actually, yes, he…
By Owen Good -
Not Only Does This Nerf Lancer Fire Darts, It’s Fully Automatic
Sure, Nerf Lancers have been done before, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be done better. This one, from reader Nick G., is also for sale on eBay. Perfect as a cosplay accessory, this build isn’t just a showpiece; it’s a fully automatic Nerf dart gun, carrying a 20-dart drum magazine. The foam chainsaw blades…
By Owen Good -
Unlock Left 4 Dead‘s Next Map Early By Play-Testing “Dead Air”
The importation of original Left 4 Dead maps into Left 4 Dead 2 rolls on, with the latest update to “Dead Air” delivering a new version of the Terminal map. Valve says the update brings matters “pretty close to being complete” but “at this stage what we really need is more testing.” It’s found a…
By Owen Good -
Get the Hell Off My Lawn
You’re wrong, eggroll, I know exactly what I’m talking about. I may not be the most pleasant person to be around, but I got the best woman who was ever on this planet to marry me. I worked at it, it was the best thing ever happened to me. Hands down. But you, you know,…
By Owen Good -
You Can’t Buy Battlefield 3 on Steam
The latest casualty of the EA/Origin-Steam war is Battlefield 3, a title of no small consequence to the PC gaming community. Electronic Arts has confirmed the heavily anticipated combat shooter will not be sold through PC gaming’s dominant digital distribution service, apparently for the same reasons that have seen other top EA PC titles removed…
By Owen Good -
As DC Universe Online Merges Into “Megaservers,” Which Hero Will Keep His Name?!
Four “Megaservers” unifying DC Universe Online by platform and region will deploy on Monday, offering larger populations for raids, alerts and other missions, as well as swapping between PvP and PvE on demand. Now, many of you are already wondering “Whoa, what about my hero’s name?” Or villain’s. See, if that cool moniker you thought…
By Owen Good -
Hold On, Wait, Whoa, Nolan North is Voicing The Penguin?
If, tomorrow, I got a news release telling me Nolan North was the new play-by-play man for Madden NFL I would not bat an eye. He has lent his voice to just about every major video game release imaginable in the past five years. Now he will voice, of all characters, The Penguin, in Batman:…
By Owen Good -
Mixed Messages in Battlefield‘s Chain of Command
One day before Electronic Arts’ reorganization, Patrick Bach, the DICE executive producer of Battlefield 3 said an annual publishing schedule “will eventually kill the franchise.” A day later, EA’s top general had a somewhat different tone “Focusing on … year-round business” does not necessarily mean a new title every year. A connected, persistent experience is…
By Owen Good -
Supreme Court Justice Opens Up About Her Vote on California Video Game Law
Justice Elena Kagan [back row, far right], whom Stephen Totilo said “did seem to get it” during oral arguments in Brown v. EMA, called the case the most difficult of the Court’s most recent term, one in which she felt she was constantly in the wrong no matter her current state of mind. Ultimately, Kagan,…
By Owen Good -
Esports
EVO Delivers Its Biggest Viewership Eva
More than two million viewers tuned in for the Evo 2011 World Finals last weekend, tournament organizers declared today. In a news release sent out this afternoon, the finals, held July 29 to 31 at Las Vegas, recorded more than 2 million unique viewers on its Ustream.tv feed, serving more than 1.9 million hours of…
By Owen Good
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