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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 Feb. 14 – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. published Feb. 18 – Read more of Nerf…
By Owen Good -
Space Invaders, Played with Kinect
From France comes the latest Kinect mod – fully playable Space Invaders, whose control scheme turns the 1978 Taito classic into an exergaming ordeal. Extend left arm, move left. Extend right arm, move right. OK, but you have to extend both to fire. That means, even if you’re a perfect shot, you’re doing 55 jumping…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku ‘Shop Contest : Give This Guy His Game Winners
My absence last weekend created a bit of a stir. Never fear, we’re here to award the winners of the ‘Shop Contest of Feb. 6, featuring everyone’s favorite Darth Maul impersonator from the Hoosier state, Ricky Lee Kalichun. Since it’s been two weeks, we’ll bring you up to date on the ballad of Ricky Lee.…
By Owen Good -
Here’s Doom — Running on a Graphing Calculator
Here, folks, is gaming on the original handheld – a calculator. While you’re still snickering over spelling out BOOBLESS and HELL upside down on yours, some guy’s gone and run Doom – real Doom – on a Texas Instruments Nspire. The admin of the TI calculator enthusiast site (i.e. – gang o’ nerds) Omnimaga got…
By Owen Good -
Why the NFL’s Labor Strife Might Be the Best Thing That Happened to Madden
Even if a lockout doesn’t happen – even if the dispute between owners and players is solved tomorrow – the labor unrest in the National Football League will have ramifications reaching well into the future – for video games. This week, EA Sports and the NFL altered the terms of their notorious exclusive arrangement, which…
By Owen Good -
Hey, Whatever Happened to Marcus, the PSP Mascot?
A Sony executive recently declared that Marcus Rivers, the smartass ‘tween flack for the PSP who debuted at E3 last year, delivered “positive sales effects,” for the handheld. Near as I can tell, that’s the first anyone’s heard of the little twerp in more than four months. Marcus still anchors the front of Sony’s official…
By Owen Good -
Box Scores: Finns in the Finals
“Sports games are really the best RPGs,” writes reader ACES11, who inserted into the NHL a Finnish Elite League team that hasn’t won squat in 45 years, drafted smartly and played well, and made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals against Montreal. Playing NHL 11’s dynasty mode, ACES11 took Saiman Pallo, of…
By Owen Good -
Bulletstorm Once had Campaign Co-Op, but It “Broke Down” the Game
As an irreverent, dick-joking romp filled with guns and bloodshed, Bulletstorm would seem to be a natural for cooperative play in the game’s main campaign. It actually was much less than a perfect fit, said Epic Games’ design boss. A cooperative campaign mode “was in there at one point and it actually worked,” Cliff Bleszinski…
By Owen Good -
The Moneysaver: Does Barry Manilow Know You Raid His Wardrobe?
That’s the last time, Bender. That the last time you ever make me look bad in front of those kids, you hear me? I make $31,000 a year and I have a home and I’m not about to throw it all away on some punk like you. Here’s something I didn’t know. Molly Ringwald and…
By Owen Good -
The T-Virus Makes for a Charming Specimen
Resident Evil T-Virus charm. “The vial is about 1 and a quarter inches long … filled with my special, homemade, crystal clear goo, which has a few tiny real bubbles suspended in them to give the charm a more futuristic look to it. It has a double helix design embedded inside that almost seems to…
By Owen Good -
Bulletstorm’s PC Demo’s on the Way — After it Releases
Bulletstorm got a pre-release demo on the Xbox 360 and PS3. “In other news, PC gamers are grumpy about this,” Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski tweeted last month. Well, Bulletstorm will get a PC demo, but after its release. In other news, PC gamers are probably grumpy about this. Epic’s Mark Rein tweeted that the Bulletstorm…
By Owen Good -
Gamer Budgets Increase, but Tilt More Toward Mobile
Did you spend less on games last year? More on mobile purchases? Ratings research firm Nielsen said gamers shifted their budgets into mobile app purchases and “other leisure activities,” mirroring the widely-bemoaned sales decline seen last year. Curiously, the whole-dollar figure gamers put toward games purchases remained somewhat flat, even if its slice of the…
By Owen Good -
Hollywood’s Already Bought the Rights to a Dead Island Movie
That didn’t take long. Days after Dead Island’s haunting trailer hit, making it the most talked-about game in development (well, this week), a report already has it that the producer behind “The Mummy” bought the rights to a Dead Island film adaptation. Sean Daniel, a producer behind “Tombstone” and “Dazed and Confused” and, in a…
By Owen Good -
The Day Guitar Hero Died
I’ll never forget where I was when I heard that a plane had crashed in an Iowa cornfield, with Izzy Sparks, Johnny Napalm, and Lars Ümlaüt aboard. Here’s “The Day Guitar Hero Died,” by The Warp Zone, a tribute to the one-time phenomenon killed last week by Activision. Not to damn it with faint praise,…
By Owen Good -
Play “Human Tetris” with This Kinect Mod
Here’s another Kinect mod from the “Why haven’t they thought of that already?” file. This is a take on “human tetris,” one of the premises of Fuji TV game show Tonneruzu, albeit without boat horns, chortling audience, and a Japanese Chuck Barris as the host. Simple concept: The screen sends a virtual wall at you,…
By Owen Good -
A Vegas Club Offers a ‘Wine List’ of Vintage Games
The idea, says Christopher LaPorte, is you’ll come into his club, sit on a large, luxurious couch, and examine a list handed to you by an attractive cocktail waitress. You’ll then say something like, “I’ll have the Mega Man 3, 1990. Please bring two controllers.” “I really want it to be like a wine list,”…
By Owen Good -
MLB 11 The Show Is Ready for Its Closeup
Baseball fans will fetishize any detail. This year, MLB 2K11 will make the real-life broadcast camera angles of all 30 major league parks the default view in its game. MLB 11 The Show will, too, and add even more customization. Last year I tried to match the camera view of actual major league games in…
By Owen Good -
Does Seeing the Dead Island Trailer In Reverse Make It Any Less Traumatic?
Actually, this recut by IGN probably makes the story even worse. At least in the original, we know the little girl dies, and the focus then becomes the struggle. Here, the payoff of that struggle is a child’s death. Is this too depressing? Check out G4TV’s reverse chronology set to zany saxophone and slapstick sound…
By Owen Good
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