Culture

We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat… Well, A Bigger Luxury Automobile

Tonight's Fine Art looks at the work of Alex Brady

The Week in Games: Keep Our Honor Clean

PC, PS3 and 360 gamers are proud to wear the title Aliens: Colonial Marines this week. The turn-based gangster strategy game Omerta also looks to carry out its own Valentine’s Day Massacre on PC and Xbox 360. Today • Brain Age: Concentration Training (3DS) Tuesday • Aliens: Colonial Marines (PC, PS3, 360) • Omerta: City…

Sunday Comics: No Respect

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. Brawl In The Family by Matthew Taranto. Published Feb. 8. Read more of Brawl In The Family Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Published Feb.…

This Week in the Business: ‘It’s Highly Unlikely That PS4 or the Next Xbox will be Backwards Compatible’

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “It’s highly unlikely that PS4 or the next Xbox will be backwards compatible.”—Chris Morris, veteran game journalist, talking about what Sony needs to do to succeed with the PS4 QUOTE | “EA: Best major publisher of 2012.”—Metacritic’s ranking of Electronic Arts…

Please, Help, I’m Relapsing And Posting More Guild Wars 2 Art

You’d think that the game being out, and out for a while now, would have stopped me lusting after the concept art behind Guild Wars 2, but nope. Not gonna happen. Not when creative director Daniel Dociu is posting fresh pieces. The artist, who you may recognise as the face of Father Grigory in Half-Life…

Sometimes, Koreans Can Give Western Fantasy A Shot In The Arm

Maybe it’s because Western artists are dealing with a genre that’s so close to their own culture and history (or at least close to it), but there’s a reason the majority (though not all!) of fantasy art ends up looking the same. It tends to stick too close to the real deal. Unless it’s some…

The Cold, Not-So-Lonely Art Of Dead Space 3

The game itself may be dividing critics, but I’d hope there’s one thing we can all agree on, and that’s the fact that before the game’s frozen wastelands could be played, they first had to be drawn by some very talented people. We’ve featured Patrick’s work here before, but now that Dead Space 3 is…

Badass 90’s Starfighter Design Lives On With Star Citizen

Kemp Remillard’s been featured here on Fine Art before, for his work on Skyrim. Today, things are a little more technologically advanced. He’s provided art for Star Citizen, the upcoming space shooter from Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts, and that art is making my inner twelve year-old lose his shit. Seriously, there are cutaways. Cutaways…

The Week in Games: A Thief in Time Saves Nine

Fire Emblem: Awakening warms up the release schedule tomorrow in time for a new Sly Cooper and Dead Space 3 on Tuesday. Monday • Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) Tuesday • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dragonborn (PC DLC) • Dead Space 3 (360, PS3, PC) • Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (PS3, PS Vita)…

Sunday Comics: Starting Over

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. Brawl In The Family by Matthew Taranto. Published Feb. 1. Read more of Brawl In The Family Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Published Feb.…

This Week in the Business: “We know we’ve got a fast boat. We just don’t know how deep the water is right now.”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Wii U has failed to capture consumer imagination.”—Rob Fahey, former editor of GI.biz, talking about Wii U’s problems but ultimately why there’s no need to worry about Nintendo. UPDATE: Fahey also wrote: “Sentiment is negative right now, but fundamentals aren’t, and…

This Isn’t The Monkey King I Remember From Childhood

Maria “Ketka” Trepalina is a freelance Russian concept artist who has recently worked for Blizzard (on the WoW card game), game design house Sibilant Interactive and casual developer G5 What’s great about her work is the life. No barbarian girls with overly-large chests, no dystopian sci-fi futures, no epic medieval battles… just strong characters and…

The Girl With The Dragon…Well, Dragon

Oleg Saakyan is a freelance concept artist who has worked for clients like social game developer Distant Orbit and board game (and increasingly video game) powerhouse Fantasy Flight Games. Expect to see him a lot more in the future, because this guy is good You can see more of Oleg’s work at his personal site…

Watch this insanely perfect speedrun of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 done in under 4 minutes.

Concept Art For A Game That Has Never, And Will Never, Come Out

OK, you’re going to have to bear with me on this one. This art is for a project called Solace. The work of Judson “Tettix” Cowan, it’s an album, and for each song Cowan has drawn a piece of “concept art”, or a “screenshot”, imagining the game that would be based on the music, if…

A Man Who Made Jason Brody (And Master Chief, And A Badass Nord)

Mathieu Aerni is a character artist at Blur Studio, they of amazing video game trailer fame He’s worked on trailers and cinematics for games such as Halo 4, Far Cry 3, The Elder Scrolls Online, Lord of the Rings: War in the North and Dishonored Over the years he’s also worked on a number of…

A Very Animated Look At Halo 4

This clip, seemingly done for Spartan Ops, was done by Planet Jump animation studio for the launch of Halo 4 last year. Part-animated clip, part-motion comic, its got an anime style and helps explain, at least partially, why the Covenant are hanging around the game. Better than the game manages, anyway. The short was directed…

Snacktaku Special Report: Five Snacks I Must Eat in 2013

The majority of snacks I’ve reviewed over the past couple of years for Snacktaku have been happy accidents. I wasn’t planning on putting them in my mouth and writing about them—it just happened. This year I am changing things up. This year I have an eating agenda—there are five foods that shall not escape my…

A Beginner’s Guide To Making Your First Video Game

Game development has exploded over the last few years, and now it seems like everyone is making a video game. You’ve got big studios full of hundreds of people. You’ve got small teams making incredible games. There are more people in independent game development than ever. This is an amazing thing, because everyone brings their…

The Week in Games: Antichamber and Omerta

Sort of a quiet week coming for new releases, though a couple arrive on PC that many have noticed: Antichamber, the indie, non-Euclidian mindfuck puzzle that has gotten plenty of attention, and Omerta, which interprets gangsterin’ as a management sim and turn-based combat. Here’s what you’ve got coming this week. Monday • Heavy Fire: Shattered…