-
Maker of PSN Game Being Offered for Free Worries About PlayStation Store’s Viability
When PlayStation Store returns (reports suggest that will be May 24), PS3 account holders may choose two free games from a list being offered by Sony. One of those is Dead Nation (pictured), and the studio behind it told Edge magazine it’s worried what the glut of free games might do to efforts to sell…
By Owen Good -
Sony Online Entertainment Fully Online; Account Holders May Claim 45 Days of Free Time
Sony Online Entertainment this afternoon sent password reset emails to its account holders, notifying them that all SOE services are back online and that they may claim 45 days of free playing time for any game they had activated on their Station Account before the massive cyber attack of late April took SOE’s servers offline.…
By Owen Good -
Why Does NBA All-Star Blake Griffin Want to be in Rage?
The tie-in between reigning NBA Rookie of the Year Blake Griffin and Rage, the forthcoming post-apocalyptic first person shooter from id Software and Bethesda Softworks, eludes me. Griffin’s last (and only) video game gig came on the cover of NCAA Basketball 10, canceled four months after release. Maybe he’s seeking redemption? Maybe he hung onto…
By Owen Good -
Forever a Champion
Forever a Champion | Randy “Macho Man” Savage, one of the greatest performers in the history of all professional wrestling, died today in a car accident in Florida. He was 58. (Photo: Frank Micelotta | Getty) It’s Our Last Day on Earth. What are you going to play? Tomorrow is the Rapture, according to a…
By Owen Good -
Mortal Kombat‘s Multiplayer is Free to All While PlayStation Store Remains Offline
Until PlayStation Store returns, Warner Bros. has suspended the “Kombat Pass,” the one-use code (included free in retail copies) that enables online play for Mortal Kombat. That means anyone with a copy of the game, used or new, can play online for free. However, when PlayStation Store comes online, “users will be able to enter…
By Owen Good -
Minecraft‘s Label Eyes Publishing Other Indie Games
The folks at Mojang, the publisher behind the PC indie sensation Minecraft, “get requests every week,” says the company’s business development director. It’s tough to figure out what’s worth a “yes,” and what gets a “no,” but the company is listening to proposals to co-publish upcoming indie games. “We are in a great spot right…
By Owen Good -
Yes, This is Actually LittleBigPlanet 2
More than four million levels have been created by the LittleBigPlanet 2 community, but few-if any-are like this: A first-person shooter apparently set inside a mecha suit. I seriously have no idea how this was built. But the creator says it is just “a cinematic game play trailer for an upcoming project.” So, bigger things…
By Owen Good -
Oregon Trail Copyright Owners Sue Frontierville Maker
The May 30 launch of an “Oregon Trail” expansion pack in the popular Facebook game Frontierville has caught notice of the company holding the copyright to the edutainment classic, and it has sued to put a stop to the plans of Frontierville maker Zynga. The lawsuit, filed by The Learning Company in federal court in…
By Owen Good -
The Winter Classic At Last Comes to EA Sports’ NHL
How many new features can you spot in this first screen shot of NHL 12? For starters, that’s the Capitals and the Penguins playing the Winter Classic at Heinz Field, which means the NHL’s outdoor New Year’s Day gala will appear in the EA Sports series for the first time ever. The Winter Classic played…
By Owen Good -
Standalone Alan Wake Followup Coming to XBLA?
The site XBLA Fans, citing “an extremely trusted source,” says Alan Wake: Night Springs will be an Xbox Live Arcade release and not a retail release. XBLA Fans says it has seen screen captures of the game. This is not entirely unforeseen; earlier this month, Wake studio Remedy told Eurogamer that another installment in the…
By Owen Good -
Rapture Ready
Rapture Ready | Perhaps you’ve seen these billboards in your neighborhood. Word has it Judgment Day begins on Saturday; or about 12 hours if you live in New Zealand. Because the New Testament follows the International Date Line, of course. (Image via) Welcome to Games Reviewing, Carolyn Petit. You’re Doing Just Fine. Carolyn Petit, one…
By Owen Good -
SOCOM Studio Hit With Layoffs; Sony Calls them Routine
Scuttlebutt has it that the Sony Computer Entertainment studio Zipper Interactive, maker of combat shooters MAG and the SOCOM series, lost several employees in a round of layoffs today. Reached for comment, a Sony spokesperson confirmed layoffs at Zipper, characterizing them as “normal business practice and a result of cutting back on production resources after…
By Owen Good -
NBA 2K11 Predicts Bulls Beat Mavericks in Seven
2K Sports ran a simulation of the remaining rounds of the NBA Playoffs – the conference finals and the NBA Finals – and found the Chicago Bulls defeating the Dallas Mavericks in seven games. The simulation calls for both Dallas and Chicago to win seven-game series in the conference finals (versus Oklahoma City and Miami,…
By Owen Good -
Turns Out Kinect Can Read Sign Language
Kinect’s patent application said the device could recognize American Sign Language. Microsoft then backed off the claim, at least for the initial generation of the device, saying that sort of application would be supported in later models. Then people started developing open-source Kinect drivers and doing all sorts of cool things with them. And lo…
By Owen Good -
Fortified With Vitamin D
As a guy who works from his home and plays video games as part of his job, you can guess which vitamin deficiency my doctor found during my last physical. It’s the big D, i.e. the one you get from being out in the sunshine. (You do get some from milk, but not as much…
By Owen Good -
Record-Seeker Restarts 70-Hour Assault on All-Time Q*Bert Mark
Last month, George Leutz set out to topple a high score nearly 28 years old: Q*Bert‘s all time mark of 33,273,520. It’s believed that it would take playing for 70 hours on a single quarter to beat that score. Halfway into it, someone kicked a power cord, (seen above) and all of Leutz’s work was…
By Owen Good -
Video Game Hall of Fame Cancels This Year’s Gala Weekend
After a grand opening that last year enshrined the first class of the International Video Game Hall of Fame and attracted nationwide media exposure, the IVGHOF has found it does not have enough money for an encore. The Hall of Fame, based in Ottumwa, Iowa, is indefinitely postponing the “Big Bang” but says a second…
By Owen Good -
We Have a Winner in MLB 2K11‘s Million-Dollar Perfect Game Challenge
When 2K Sports vowed to declare a winner in its second Million-Dollar Perfect Game contest as soon as a winner could be verified, most assumed we’d have heard of a winner in April. Last year’s inaugural challenge was won on the very first day, as a matter of fact. Yet as April dragged into May,…
By Owen Good -
Check Out the World’s Largest Working NES Controller
Students at a Dutch university on Tuesday unveiled what they claim is the world’s largest working Nintendo Entertainment System controller, some 30 times bigger than the console’s actual game pad. It’s so big, the only way to manipulate the D-pad or buttons is to stand on them Built by electrical engineering students at TU Delft,…
By Owen Good -
Madden NFL 12‘s Franchise Gets Its Upgrades — by Popular Demand
When Madden NFL 11 released last year with a virtually unchanged Franchise mode, Josh Looman expected to hear about it. He just expected to hear it on the message boards. “I was hearing it in the grocery store,” said Looman a longtime designer on EA Sports’ bread-and-butter series. “If I wore a Madden t-shirt to…
By Owen Good
Owen Good
Owen Good's posts