Yannick LeJacq

Artists, Even Game Developers, Are Weird. That’s A Good Thing.

Video games have their rockstars. But they’re not the same kind of rockstars as the ones who strut around in dresses made of meat or go on talk shows to argue about their Twitter feuds. Compared to pop music or Hollywood, games often seem like they have a culture of celebrity that’s far more subtle.…

The Gaming Books You Must Read

This is embarrassing to admit, but I haven’t read much in the way of nonfiction books about video games. Don’t get me wrong: there’s some incredible work out there. In general, however, I’ve found that digging around for more books very quickly slides into work that is prohibitively technical, academic, or both. Seeing how all…

Kaos Hijacks Teaser For The Next Big Skylanders Game

Activision is planning to unveil the next big installment in its wildly popular (and lucrative) toy-video game combo Skylanders next week at an event in New York City. In preparation, the series publisher sent out some invitations that show chief antagonist and evil portal master Kaos being his lovable dastardly self. The invitation I got…

The Insides Of Video Game Hardware Make For Pretty Good Artwork

Consumer tech products are often imbued with a pristine, ornamental quality in our current design-crazed age. In spite of that, most gadgets aren’t exactly things that you could imagine hanging up on your wall to impress new guests. BRS Innovations, a small startup from Ottawa, Canada, wants to change that. It recently launched a Kickstarter…

Voice Of Planet Earth Making A Nature Documentary For The Oculus Rift

David Attenborough, the journalist behind many beloved nature documentaries including the Planet Earth series, is going fully next-gen for one of his upcoming projects. It’s a movie called Conquest of the Skies, and unlike any of Attenborough’s previous work, it’s being made for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, director John Morris told the website…

It’s Not Aladdin’s Magic Carpet But It’s Close

Earlier this month, French “transmedia installation designer” Miguel Chevalier (that’s Unnecessarily Pretentious Jargon for “artist”) turned the Moroccan cathedral Sacré Coeur into a shimmering spectacle of lights and responsive surfaces with his latest project, Magic Carpets 2014. At face value, the chunky and brightly colored pixel art looks an awful lot like that giant game…

Kerrigan has an axe to grind once again in the new trailer for Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard’s upcoming MOBA-style game that it’s not calling a MOBA. But it’s not like she doesn’t have plenty of totally valid reasons to be so pissed off, right? Personally, I’m really interested to see how playing as one…

Outer-Space Noir Adventure Game Looks As Cool As It Sounds

If you’re one of the (many) people who’s overjoyed by Kickstarter’s impressive ability to revive underappreciated video game genres, then you should be excited about Last Life. A stylish mashup of science fiction and noir set on a near future Mars, the game looks like it has all the makings of the next great episodic…

Scientists Use StarCraft II To Prove How Scary Aging Is

Getting old is never easy. Candy tastes less sweet. Hangovers get ever more brutal. Pop music becomes increasingly terrifying. And, of course, video games get harder. That last point might seem like common knowledge to anyone over the age of, say, 15, who’s suddenly discovered that mainlining Grand Theft Auto V or Diablo III for…

The Infamous Atari Landfill Dig Is Finally Happening

Come April 26, 2014, one of gaming’s greatest mysteries will finally be solved. Or maybe it will just be get even more convoluted and confusing. In either case, that is the official date Microsoft just announcedfor when someone is finally going to break ground on the infamous New Mexico landfillthat’s allegedly overflowing with discarded copies…

Sony Is Making A Zombie MMO

Sony Online Entertainment is making its very own massive multiplayer online (MMO) zombie game, SOE head John Smedley announced last night in an interview with the web show Game Talk Live. It’s called H1Z1, and it’s coming to PC via Steam early access in four to six weeks and the PlayStation 4 console at an…

Goats Screaming Like Humans Do The Game of Thrones Intro

We know all about humans learning to empathize with goats thanks to the instant classic that is Goat Simulator. But who knew goats could master such a wide range of human emotions? Here’s a whole different kind of game of goats. Be careful if you play this one, though. Because when you do, you win…

Huge Collection Of Classic Games Needs A New Home

Facing mounting financial pressure, the Danish museum Spilmuseet (“The Games Museum”) is about to jettison a massive collection of classic video games and related hardware. And with nobody opening their doors yet, all these refugees of console wars past are still in need of a new home. The collection consists of roughly “10,000 console and…

Lots Of Horrible Things Are Out To Get You In The Evil Within

With PAX East just days away, Bethesda has given us all a fresh dose of things to be terrified of with a new gameplay trailer for The Evil Within, the upcoming survival horror game being made by one of the great minds behind Resident Evil. The game launches August 26 in North America and August…

Here’s Franklin Jumping Over 28 Exploding Buses In GTA V

It may not be the single craziest Grand Theft Auto V stunt I’ve ever seen. But this video of an enterprising GTA V player who jumped over 28 exploding buses still earned a special place in my heart for the clever reference to Evel Knievel. Remember: in October 1975—less than six months after Knievel had…

Woody Was A Total Jerk In Early Drafts Of Toy Story

Before Pixar’s 1995 classic won over the hearts of children and the grownups they dragged to the theater with them, protagonist Woody was a very different character. A “sarcastic jerk,” to be precise. Speaking with Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal last night about his new book Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the…

Devolver Digital and Dennaton Games just released a new trailer for Hotline Miami 2, the highly anticipated sequel to 2012’s acclaimed indie gorefest and one of our favorite games for the PlayStation Vita. The video doesn’t court as much controversy as, say, that notorious sexual assault scene from an early demo did. But fans don’t…

What We Talk About When We Talk About Mario Kart 8

“Nintendo, man,” my friend Jeremy said to me. “You’ll fall in love with them. But then they’ll break your heart.” I had just shown up at his apartment to lend him my Wii U for the week or so I was going to be in California last month. Watching as I opened my bag and…

AirMech Arena is Like DOTA For People Who Love Robots

If you’ve always wanted to have more automatons in your DOTA experience, then I may have just the thing for you. AirMech Arena is a fast-paced free-to-play MOBA that puts you control of giant killer mechs that can transform into vehicles like a military jet or helicopter. And it’s coming out for the Xbox 360…

Here’s The Next-Gen Gaming Toothbrush

I’m guessing that you’ve played a lot of video games using your hands. Well, how many have you played with your mouth? Probably fewer. Maybe none? Well, that’s all about to change if one startup has its way. Grush (short for “gaming toothbrush”) is the latest in a still relatively short line of so-called “smart…