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Lobo Gives Batman the Finger in Injustice
We’ve known for a week that Lobo, the superviolent, self-regarding antihero biker, would be the first DLC character for Injustice: Gods Among Us. (Rumors have it that Barbara Gordon Batgirl, Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, and General Zod, who just read an amazing letter for Funny or Die, are the others). Here he is in action…
By Owen Good -
Flash-Game Hit Super Mario Bros. Crossover Resurrects an Obscure Port
Super Mario Bros. Crossover, the flash game in which you play through the levels of Super Mario Bros. as Samus, Link, Ryu Hayabusa and other heroes from the Nintendo Entertainment System’s glory days, is readying a 3.0 update with even more obscure nostalgia and retro goodness. The centerpiece of 3.0 will be playing through Super…
By Owen Good -
Activision’s Boss Got an 800% Raise, and a Watchdog Doesn’t Like It
Activision has a lot of money. Bobby Kotick has fat stacks, too. The publisher’s CEO saw his total cash-and-prizes compensation jump from $8.1 million in 2011 to $64.9 million in 2012, reports Bloomberg, a figure that would make him the second-highest paid CEO among publicly traded U.S. companies. Kotick is due for another $16 million…
By Owen Good -
2K Games Bails on E3, Too
Earlier this week Nintendo said it wouldn’t do a pre-conference keynote event at E3, though it’ll still have a booth there. 2K Games isn’t even doing that. A post on the publisher’s blog says they won’t be on E3’s floor. “While 2K will not have a booth on the show floor at this year’s E3…
By Owen Good -
All-Time Great Barry Sanders Runs Away with Madden NFL 25‘s Cover
Barry Sanders may have once appeared on the cover of Madden, but until today he was, technically, never its cover star, subjected to the fame, celebrity and, yes, the curse that supposedly goes with it. Now he is, thanks to the fans. Sanders, the Detroit Lions’ hall-of-fame running back, prevailed over the Minnesota Vikings’ reigning…
By Owen Good -
No Sales Projections From Nintendo Hint at the DS Going Into Sunset
The long-lived and long-loved Nintendo DS, the thing that’s sold more than 150 million devices (in four formats) and damn near a billion games, received no projected sales in financial statements the company filed today. Is this the end of the world’s most successful gaming handheld? If it is, Nintendo probably won’t announce or formalize…
By Owen Good -
Minecraft Builders Re-Create MC Hammer’s Hometown for Museum Exhibit
Oakland. The town. Birthplace of Luke Skywalker and MC Hammer. The city of champions and the Golden State Warriors. An enterprising group of Minecraft enthusiasts sought to recreate it over the past 10 days in the game, and their work goes into a museum this weekend. The kicker is that most of the team building…
By Owen Good -
Real-World Team Executives in Madden Signal the Return of Owner Mode
Monday, Madden‘s publicity operation notified writers that its “playbooks”—the weeks in which they discuss features of the upcoming game—begin this week. In it, “Connected Careers,” the mode introduced last year, was rebranded as “Connected Franchise.” A GameStop listing sheds a little more light on what that could mean. It means, I think, that in addition…
By Owen Good -
CultureTroll Your Pals With Pineapple, Onions, and Xbox Live’s Pizza Hut App
Jesus Christ, you can order a pizza from your Xbox 360? Yes, thanks to Pizza Hut and Xbox Live, whose 172.65 megabyte food-downloadin’ app is now available for hungry hungry neckbeards like me and Fahey. The delivery app—demanded five months ago by Xbox Live users in this thread—went live this week. I so wanted to…
By Owen Good -
Man Busted with Pot-Stuffed Pac-Man Machine; Sheriff has Witty Retort
Luis Tyler, a small businessman from Orangeburg, S.C., needed a creative shipping solution for acquiring 55 pounds of a common agricultural product. So he asked that his vendor stuff it inside a Pac-Man arcade cabinet. Which the cops knew all about, of course. Tyler, according to the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office, was busted by feds…
By Owen Good -
Dead Island Special Edition Includes the Headless Bikini Statue Anyway
Just because Deep Silver apologized profusely for Dead Island: Riptide‘s rather tasteless “Zombie Bait Edition” premium—a severed, bloodied, big-boobed bikini-clad torso—doesn’t mean they actually pulled it from distribution. The statuette is still included in special editions sold in Europe and Australia. Back in January, when the offer came to light, Deep Silver all but disowned…
By Owen Good -
Call of Duty Rep Stole from Activision to Pay for Engagement Party
An Activision PR manager who stole nearly $30,000 from the launch budget for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2‘s UK release and used it to finance her engagement party avoided active jail time in a sentencing hearing today, reports The Daily Mail. Kathryn Kirton, 35, stayed out of prison because a judge noted her prosecution…
By Owen Good -
Watch a Game of Pong Played on the Side of a 29-Story Building
Frank Lee, a professor at Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media and Design, brought a five-year obsession to a successful conclusion on Friday: play the world’s largest game of Pong, using the side of a building in Philadelphia. Lee pulled it off on Friday, using the north wall of the Cira Centre, which over looks…
By Owen Good -
NCAA 14 Brings Back the Halftime Show—Yes, They Know NFL 2K5 Had It
Last year, in a visit to Electronic Arts Tiburon, the NCAA Football development staff told me about plans to introduce more lifelike broadcast presentation to the game. It was going to be a tiered thing all along. NCAA 13 got the studio cut-ins, where ESPN’s Rece Davis—in voice only—updated you on scores from around the…
By Owen Good -
Still Traveling the Road to the Show, Even After Flunking Out of It
Ten years ago I was demoted in my job at the now-dead Rocky Mountain News. The subject is not something I talk about much, but it happened, and I worked with plenty of people who knew the score. The situation wasn’t handled well, by either me or my bosses. Ultimately, it ended my newspaper career.…
By Owen Good -
Matt Bai of The New York Times has authored a lively, comprehensive deconstruction of the downfall of 38 Studios, makers of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and a planned MMO. The story weaves in Rhode Island’s political and cultural forces in explaining the debacle. It’s a superb Sunday read.
By Owen Good
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