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I Was Wrong To Blow Off this New Kirby Wii Game
One month ago, in the Nintendo booth at E3, I asked Nintendo people to tell me which Nintendo game I shouldn’t overlook. Kirby Wii, they told me. But I was never a Kirby fan. I never played the pink puffball’s original enemy-inhaling games. I was ready to ignore them. I’ve cherished only two Kirby games,…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 11, 2011 -
This is the Correct Way to Beat a Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Boss
When last we showed you the boss battle in the demo of the next major Zelda game, the boss won. Link died. Very sad. Today, in New York City, Nintendo’s J.C. Rodrigo heroically agreed to conquer that boss live on video for us. The boss battle is just a slice of the demo for this…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 11, 2011 -
This Grenade Toss is Unrealistic and Great
Yes, yes, Namco’s February 2012 game Inversion will let you raise and lower the gravity of enemies and objects, letting you toss them and crush them. Plus the game includes zero-gravity combat and neat sequences that have enemies (or you!) running around on the walls and ceilings, as if up was down or right was…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 8, 2011 -
The 3DS Game I Didn’t Know I Wanted: Pac-Man, Plain Old Pac-Man
I think I was supposed to get excited about playing Pac-Man Championship Edition and a new 3D first-person version of Galaga when I played the anthology game Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions on the Nintendo 3DS at a Namco press event earlier this week. I do appreciate the greatness of Pac-Man CE on any platform where…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 8, 2011 -
Gaming’s Favorite Camera Angle
Misinformed people used to complain about the preponderance of video game sequels. They saw video game titles that ended with a number as markers of creative drought. The excellence of Grand Theft Auto III, Super Mario 64, Halo 3, Burnout 3, Call of Duty IV, Mass Effect 2, Assassin’s Creed 2 and so many other…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 8, 2011 -
The First Major Dragon Age II Expansion Seems Like an Apology
What was wrong with Dragon Age II, Dragon Age fans? Too many recycled environments? Not enough tactical variety? It seems that BioWare has heard you. At a summer showcase for EA games in California, one of Dragon Age‘s producers, Fernando Melo, said that Dragon Age II: Legacy, an expansion set for release on July 26,…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 7, 2011 -
Section 8 Gamers Have Fallen 328,924,042,920 Meters (And Other Crazy Game Stats)
In 11 weeks, players of the PC and Xbox Live Arcade shooter Section 8: Prejudice have air-dropped their super-soldiers and machine-gunned their friends, many, many times. All virtual. All for fun. Who is counting? The people at GameSpy who track the game’s online play on PC and Xbox 360. They’ve crunched numbers and created a…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 7, 2011 -
10 Tips for Achieving CivWorld Greatness, From the People Behind the Game
The people who make Civilization have given the world CivWorld, a free Facebook version of their legendary strategy series. The game is complex and kind of tough! Today, the makers of CivWorld are giving us tips. (Thank you!) We asked for them. We needed help. So, courtesy of the people at Civ studio Firaxis and…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 7, 2011 -
Halo, Batman’s Dad and… What On Earth is Pinocchio Doing With His Nose?
Regular readers of our regular new-comics recommendations round-ups may have noticed that I always list the week’s new video game-related comics, but never recommend them. That’s because I rarely read video game comics. But, hey, maybe you would like them. As is the case each Wednesday, I do have new comics to recommend to you,…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 6, 2011 -
Can CivWorld Save Facebook Gaming From Itself?
I’m not sure Facebook can handle CivWorld, the brand new version of Civilization that launches on America’s favorite social network today. I’m not sure if Facebook is ready for Civilization, though I hope it is. What we’ve got today on Facebook is a free game that’s more cluttered and clunky than the likes of the…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 6, 2011 -
Maybe Al Gore Should Play a Video Game
I have not confirmed this, but I believe that you would not be allowed to keynote a climate change conference if you hadn’t sweated in the past 25 years. But a couple of weeks ago, former Vice President Al Gore keynoted the Games For Change conference—a conference about the potential for video games to improve…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 5, 2011 -
Our Favorite 2011 Video Games of The First Six Months
When 2011 ends and it’s time to inform the citizenry what the best games of the year were, let us not forget the games that delighted us in the first half of the year (in other words, the era before Uncharted 3, Skyrim and The Smurfs Dance Party.) Click through the gallery to see our…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 4, 2011 -
6 1/2 Minutes of the Most Gorgeous Game You’ll See This Week
This is Journey, a downloadable game for the PlayStation 3 that is coming out this fall and looks like a dream. The game’s creators at ThatGameCompany are running a beta for the Journey now, to test its quiet, anonymous multiplayer mode. I played through the beta. It takes about a half-hour to get to the…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 1, 2011 -
The Next Street Fighter Lets You Try to Re-Create the Coolest Street Fighter Moment Ever
At a tournament in 2004, facing near-certain defeat, Street Fighter player Daigo Umehara turned back a hurricane of an attack from another top player Justin Wong. What he did, under pressure, in front of a hollering crowd, was incredible. It was one of competitive game’s best moments—perhaps its most thrilling play ever. Now you can…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 1, 2011 -
How Zynga’s Billions Stack Up Against EA, Nintendo and Other Gaming Giants
The people who make FarmVille, CityVille and Empires & Allies think their company’s stock will be worth at least $1 billion when they go public. The New York Times thinks the company’s value could go up to $20 billion However it adds up, Zynga is clearly a huge player in modern video games. How do…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 1, 2011 -
The New X-Com is a Shooter, Advance Wars is MIA, So Thank Goodness for Fray
What’s a fan of strategy games supposed to do when all around him or her there’s news of delayed tactics/strategy games, metamorphosized strategy games and, well, not a whole lot to be cheerful about? Pin your hopes on the upcoming real-time and turn-based PC and Mac strategy game Fray. (Official site here.) This game is…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 1, 2011 -
Why the Street Fighter that (Almost) Killed Street Fighter Deserved to Come Back
After Capcom released Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike near the turn of the century, the company pretty much got out of the Street Fighter business. The series faded away for a decade and fighting games, once a marquee attraction became a side show. Good going, 3rd Strike. And…. welcome back? This year, riding the wave…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 30, 2011 -
Which Wii Game Did GameStop Refuse To Accept for a Trade-In?
We just sent our intern to GameStop to trade in a few games (we needed some other games for coverage… and a new PlayStation 3 power cable). GameStop accepted our copy of Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Xbox 360), our copy of WWE All-Stars (Wii) and even our DS copy of Beastly: Frantic Foto (DS).…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 30, 2011 -
Five Great New Ways To Kill Dead Rising Zombies
I learned new lessons in the art of zombie-killing in a noisy hotel suite in New York City yesterday. My textbook was the upcoming video game Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. In the demo of the game that I played, Dead Rising hero Frank West tests new, creative ways to slice, freeze, melt and…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 30, 2011 -
Bungie Aerospace is an Unexpected Twist from the Makers of Halo
While most of Bungie Studios is laboring on the next big thing to follow Halo, a small portion of the company is launching something called Bungie Aerospace. It’s not a game or a tech platform. It’s a plan, an initiative to partner with small developers to help them make mobile and social games—and to let…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 30, 2011
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