-
Madden‘s New “Draft Duels” Sounds Sort of Like Madden: The Gathering
An update to Madden NFL 13 rolling out tomorrow will deliver something called “Draft Duels” to Madden Ultimate Team, the game’s hybrid fantasy team/card collecting mode. In it, players will open packs of cards, construct a team from their holdings—and their opponent’s—and then duke it out in a standard multiplayer game. In a Draft Duel,…
By Owen Good -
Culture
The Week in Games: Blank Friday
For the rest of the year, the major release calendar is looking at Far Cry 3 on Dec. 4 and Hawken on Dec. 12, which means this week—the Tuesday after Black Friday—is looking at very little in the way of new releases. Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault is the big name leading the lineup.…
By Owen Good -
College Basketball is Officially Dead to Video Games
For years, 2K Sports maintained server support for the final edition of its defunct series, like All-Pro Football 2K8, NHL 2K10, and, most importantly, College Hoops 2K8, where a robust user community was updating, re-rating and sharing rosters well into this year. It now appears online support for all of these titles was quietly pulled…
By Owen Good -
The Games for All of Us
With respect and admiration for, if not apologies to, the late Ernie Harwell, here’s something adapted from his famous Induction Day speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Aug. 2, 1981, which itself was adapted from this 1955 essay Stick Jockey has published this annually on the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend. I’ve updated it…
By Owen Good -
If Dark Souls was an Arcade Cabinet …
Assuming three lives per quarter, you can die 720 times in Dark Souls before you’d have to spend more than its original retail price of $59.99. Yet, I think 720 deaths might be on the low side for most folks in this game. deviantART user semsei imagined Dark Souls as a 1980s arcade cabinet promo…
By Owen Good -
Wii U Marks ‘the End of an Era,’ Says Pong‘s Creator
Nolan Bushnell, the man behind Pong and Atari’s first home video game console, says he doesn’t get the attraction of the Wii U. “I actually am baffled by it,” he told The New York Times for a weekend feature. “I don’t think it’s going to be a big success.” What’s more, Bushnell doesn’t think the…
By Owen Good -
Madden Plants the Flag on the Wii U, but Doesn’t Gain Much Ground
At no point during its E3 2012 keynote did Electronic Arts mention what it would be delivering when the Wii U arrived later in the year. There could be any of number of good reasons for this, but a major publisher’s total silence on a new console was enough that I had to double-check with…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Bleak Friday
Father and son sharing a happy moment before purchasing the Wii U at a GameStop on Black Friday. Not pictured: Police barriers, trampled bodies. Here’s an image supplied to us by Nintendo of America, under the heading “Photos of Black Friday Shoppers Purchasing Must-Have Nintendo Products.” While their expressions don’t speak of combat-weary triumph seen…
By Owen Good -
You’ll Love and Tolerate the S*** Out of This World of Tanks Mod
The Brony Reconquista claimed another significant beachhead with this mod for Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks. The mod is 5GB large, stuffed with glitter and rainbows and throat-gagging irony. See for yourself in the video above. Following mods for Minecraft and other games, this one perverts WoT with more than 90 audio tracks, new pony-themed tank…
By Owen Good -
Culture
Sunday Comics: The Kitchen Sink
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. ActionTrip by Borislav Grabovic and Ure Paul published Nov. 17.—Read more of ActionTrip Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Nov. 19.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!!…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Spike This Award: The Winners
Samuel L. Jackson is the host of this year’s Video Game Awards, and even though the man has hosted it three times before, for some reason this glassy expression communicates everything I expect from a movie star handing out this particular trophy. So, we handed the publicity stills to you folks to see if you…
By Owen Good -
Ubisoft Boss Hopes the Next Console Generation Doesn’t Last As Long As This One
Many of us would consider a long console lifespan to be a good thing, but Yves Guillemot, the CEO at Ubisoft, says it’s bad for the industry. Bemoaning a “very long” transition to new hardware, Guillemot told Polygon that “we are used to changing machines every five years.” At the end of a hardware cycle,…
By Owen Good -
Japanese Groom Ritually Destroys Love Plus Save Data on His Wedding Day
One day in college, a friend of mine* was awakened by the distinctive sound of a man’s porn collection in a garbage bag hitting the bottom of an empty Dumpster (which was right next to my apartment.) “Ah, someone must have gotten a girlfriend,” my friend said. A similar act of purification, contrition, devotion, whatever,…
By Owen Good -
Space Harrier Going 3D and Coming to Nintendo eShop
If Space Harrier is coming to the Nintendo 3DS, strangely enough, that won’t be the first ever 3D treatment the Sega classic has gotten. Gamer, a Japanese publication, reports that Space Harrier is going 3D and will come to Nintendo’s eShop. A release date overseas was not specified, nor were any western release plans. Its…
By Owen Good -
Studio Says Antipiracy Measures in Football Manager 12 Helped Make 13 Much Better
Last year, Sports Interactive moved its management simulation/obsession Football Manager over to Steam, citing rampant piracy of the game. At the time, figures the developer cited said for every one person who bought Football Manager 09, four others acquired it illegally. How as Football Manager‘s Steam strategy gone? Miles Jacobson, the studio’s head, told MCV…
By Owen Good -
“Hot Coffee” Scandal was an Attack on Video Games, says Grand Theft Auto Maker
The “Hot Coffee” scandal—a sex minigame found by a modder inside the code of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas—still weighs on Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games, which makes the series. In an interview with The Guardian, Houser said he views the seven-year-old incident as an attack on video gaming in general. “We never felt…
By Owen Good
Owen Good
Owen Good's posts