Japanese Plastic Model Trolls the Chinese Military

A new plastic model for a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force escort vessel is raising eyebrows in China. The model’s box art seems to feature the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning engulfed in flames and sinking. Japanese fighter jets fly overhead. Originally a Soviet carrier, the Liaoning is known for its curved incline to, as South China…

Recently, the rights to several classic game franchises, including Master of Orion, Total Annihilation, and Star Control, were auctioned off following Atari’s filing for bankruptcy earlier this year. You can see a list of the franchises involved, and whom they ended up with, below. Total Annihilation franchise bought by Wargaming [PC Gamer] Top image courtesy…

Apparently, Nintendo Is Refusing Japanese Indie Developers

Japan has a small, yet thriving indie game community. But does Nintendo want any part of it? Nintendo is trying to be more welcoming towards indie games than it has been in the past. At this year’s Game Developers Conference, Nintendo revealed Unity for Wii U and Nintendo Web Framework. These tools should make the…

Everyone Wants to Ride Motorcycles Like in Akira

You know the coolest scene in the classic 1988 anime Akira? It’s when Kaneda slides his motorcycle to a halt. Haven’t you wanted to do that? Well, you’re not the only one! Recently, a slew of homages have popped online in Japan; however, the GIFs are courtesy of Tumblr from a while back. The dog,…

Aaahhh, Don’t Do That To A Vita Screen!

I don’t care if this is the Japanese PlayStation equivalent of a ShamWow commercial, it’s still captivating/horrifying to watch. Peripheral and accessory company Hori have a new line of Vita screen protectors, and to demonstrate their toughness, they did the only thing a product like this asks for: they tried to scratch the shit out…

Guys, You Should Probably Go Play Mercenary Kings

Mercenary Kings is kinda out today, available as part of Steam’s Early Access program. I’ve played a bit (think Metal Slug with a pinch of RPG), and it’s pretty great. It’s not finished – you’re getting early access, not a final product, so it’s missing some stuff – but you’ll get that stuff when it’s…

A Video Game Sword To Give You…Nightmares

Casy Kovach wanted to build a replica of Nightmare’s Soul Edge blade from Soulcalibur. So grabbing some wood, paint and a glass eye, he went right ahead and did it. It’s the scale of the thing that’s so impressive. A lot of this kind of props work tends to be small in scale, but this…

A Tribute To One Of The Greatest Cars Ever Made

The Ford GT40. So fast. So gorgeous. Even decades later, it still turns heads, and it still stops hearts. So if a guy who draws cars in video games for a living wants to pay tribute to a vehicle, there aren’t many better options. The work you’re seeing here is that of Luis Nieves, who’s…

Turns Out $100 Gets You A Pretty Good Skyrim Movie

Cosplayer and props builder Shannon Clawson wanted to make a Skyrim movie. So he spent $100, went out in the woods with some friends, braved -10 ºC weather in little more than a tunic and got it done. It’s damn good! And before you ask “how the hell did he make that Skyrim helmet for…

The New Battle.net Is More Like Origin, Only For Blizzard Games

Given the popularity of World of Warcraft, StarCraft and…Diablo III(?), millions of people spend a lot of time using Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher. If you’re one of them, you might want to check out this video, showing the new, updated version of it. There have been screens floating around for a few weeks now, but this…

Mad Europeans Re-Enact Lord Of The Rings Battles In Full Armor

These images were taken at the “Battle For Middle Earth”. While it shares a name, I can assure you this is at least 100x cooler than EA’s middling Lord of the Rings strategy series. Taking place in the Czech Republic, it was an enormous LARP (Live-Action Role-Playing) event, mixed with more than a little cosplay,…

Breaking Bad Lead Actor Cosplayed As His Own Character At Comic-Con

Say you’re Bryan Cranston, the man behind Breaking Bad‘s suburban Scarface, Walter White. You’re going to Comic-Con. What do you wear? If you guessed, “A crazy-ass Walter White mask,” you guessed right! Here’s how Cranston looked on the show floor: And here’s the big reveal, at the Breaking Bad Comic-Con panel. Ha. Well played, Mr.…

Jenn Frank wrote a great review of AC:NL over at Paste. Give it a read!

Spelunky will get Daily Challenges starting August 8th, and these are new adventures that are randomly generated every day. They are the same for everyone, and you only get one chance to try the latest one. There are even special leaderboards…but this is for the Steam version only.

Chalk Drawing Of Donkey Kong Comes To Disorienting, Terrifying Life

Well, this is cool. And a little bit brain-hurting. The folks at AweMeChannel (previously of Duck Hunt drawing-fame) have done a new 3D Escher-inspired drawing of Donkey Kong that moves. You can watch them put it together, but that won’t make it make anymore sense once they set it in motion. Perspective! How does it…

The World Needs A Kanye West Video Game

Today is the official release of Kanye West’s music video for Black Skinhead, a song off his latest album, Yeezus. You can watch and interact with it here: the website lets you speed up and slow the song down, as well as take screenshots of a weird CGI Kanye. Strange, yes, and yet in-tune with…

It was raining today, so I stayed inside and watched cartoons. The mouse got away from the cat!

A Gorgeous Game Of Mystery And Survival On The Surface Of Mars

You’re alone on the surface of Mars, and you’re running out of oxygen. What happened? How did you get here? How can you stay alive? And what mysteries lay hidden upon the Red Planet? Those are the questions at the heart of Lacuna Passage, an in-development exploration game from Random Seed games. We’ve been following…

All Of Hyrule Clashes In Bloody, Total War

Most conflicts in Hyrule, the setting of the Zelda games, are small-scale. A young man enters a dungeon, fights some monsters. That’s about it. But what about the BIG Zelda wars? Those are what’s on display in Hyrule: Total War, a mod for Total War: Medieval 2. The mod has been around for a while,…

Watch Us Play… DARK, And See Vampire Sam Fisher Kill Everyone

Well, to be honest, a vampiric Sam Fisher would be far better at killing everyone than Eric Bane. At the very least, he’d make it fun. I suppose it’s hard being a vampire though, I shouldn’t judge. DARK is out now on Xbox 360 ($50) and PC ($40). But so are other stealth games. Just…