A Video Game That Doesn’t Actually Have Any Video

Video Game Sans Video is a project that satisfies just about all the criteria you need to call something a video game. Except, well, for the actual video. Michael Newman’s game instead plays like a live-action version of LittleBigPlanet, using a giant scrolling sheet of paper as the background while players control a motorised spaceship…

Why Be The Ruler In Civilization, When You Can Be One Of The Peasants

Yes, this is Minecraft. But it’s not a recreation of a pop culture icon/giant penis. It’s using the game for something really interesting. This modification to the game is called CivCraft, and to be crudely simplistic, casts you in the role of one of the poor little peons from a game of Civilization, as you…

Happy Birthday, Love, Oh, The Guys Who Made Journey

This isn’t a big deal. Let’s be clear on that. But it is a nice touch, the kind of nice touch that reminds you there are sometimes real, actual humans involved in the video game supply chain. Reader Kelsey bought a copy of the Journey artbook for his girlfriend’s birthday, and figured he’d try his…

“It’s Like EVE Online, With Guns!”

Jeff Miller is a 3D artist who works for CCP, the developers behind EVE Online and its FPS spinoff, Dust 514. Previous to that, he’s worked at places like Lucasarts and Ensemble, the Age of Empires and Halo Wars studio closed by Microsoft a few years back. Jeff has also done freelance work for stuff…

DOTA 2 Breaks Steam Gaming Record

Over the weekend, Valve’s DOTA 2 broke the record for most concurrent gamers playing on Steam. It surpassed the previous record set by…Valve’s DOTA 2. On Saturday, 328,713 people were playing the company’s still-in-beta MOBA title. At the same time. That’s crazy. Not as crazy as the numbers of its main competitor, League of Legends…

Oh My God, It’s (Probably) A New, Proper Syndicate Game

Don’t get me wrong. I quite enjoyed the Syndicate shooter from last year. But it wasn’t really Syndicate, was it? Now this teaser trailer, for something called Satellite Reign, this appears to be a Syndicate game. At least in spirit. Saying that the mystery project will be the return of a Bullfrog classic from 1996,…

One Person Tried To Put All Those PS4 Pictures Together

Trying to steal a little of Microsoft’s thunder ahead of the next Xbox’s reveal -and to remind us the PS4 is more than just a control pad – Sony teased the design of the PlayStation 4 with a number of small abstract images They’re meant to suggest, not give away the machine’s entire design, but…

These New Console Launches Are Bumming Me Out

From the time the Wii U was first unveiled right through to today, the eve of the new Xbox’s unveiling, I’ve found myself feeling something very strange. In years (and decades) past, the arrival of new hardware was exciting. Exciting because new consoles were the biggest and best, sure, but also because they were the…

Hey. Sega. Yeah, you. We’re still waiting for our Yakuza 5 localisation.

What Did You Think Of Last Night’s Game of Thrones?

Hope you like boobs! Because there sure were a lot of ’em on last night’s focused, largely enjoyable episode of Game of Thrones A strange structure for this episode, no? We spend almost all of our time with a mere three storylines, bookended by short but eventful spurts of time with Arya and Sam. I…

Krieg the psycho is Borderland 2’s new vault hunter. We know what he’s capable of, but here’s Anthony Burch—lead writer on Borderlands 2—on constructing Krieg’s personality. Krieg is a surprisingly complex person!

I Couldn’t See Star Trek This Weekend, So I Built My Own

I love Star Trek. Some of my fondest early memories are of staying up late to watch reruns on the old black-and-white television we had on the third floor of our duplex on Oakwood Avenue in in good-old Norristown, PA. With the exception of Enterprise (It’s been a long…no) I’ve watched it all, but I…

After tomorrow, the next new console announced will be the… 1) Apple Something, 2) The Wii 3, 3) The PlayStation 4 1/2, 4) ____________. Any guesses?

In This Year’s Bat-Stuff, Batman and The Joker Have the Same Voice

Batman and Joker are two sides of the same crazy coin, according to some comics in the Dark Knight’s 74-year history. The thinking goes that you have to be insane to do what each character does and that their unique relationship binds them in a symbiotic way. So it makes a weird bit of sense…

He Forged Cloud’s Buster Sword. Then, He Cut Stuff With It.

Man At Arms’ Tony Swatton has forged all sorts of nerdy swords. It was only a matter of time before he turned to Final Fantasy—specifically, Cloud’s iconic sword. And boy howdy, is the Buster sword huge and unwieldy. He says it’s one of the most ridiculous sword blades he’s ever made—which, after seeing him make…

Adorable Little Doggies And Kitties Do Battle As Pokémon

There’s a special bond that exists only between a human and a pet. And that bond only grows stronger when the human conscripts the pet to take on other pets in gladiatorial battle, Pokémon-style. In that spirit comes this video from Ty Green, which is just the right blend of incredibly dumb and goofily charming.

Katie Couric Offers ‘Mea Culpa’ For One-Sided Violent Video Game Show

At the beginning of the month, Katie Couric got some heat from gamers over her one-sided, fear-mongering episode about violent game addiction. On Friday, Couric gave voice to those dissenters and issued a ‘Mea Culpa’ follow-up on her show. Pulling some fairly ruthless quotes from both Twitter and Facebook, Couric admitted that it was probably…

Denis Dyack Finally Sounds Off On Our Article About Silicon Knights

Seven months after the publication of an article about the troubled development cycle of his studio’s last video game, Denis Dyack is finally sharing his views on the article. Naturally, we have some thoughts about his reply. Dyack’s response appeared online on Sunday in the form of a 33-minute video, which you can watch above.…

Good news: the next Penny Arcade RPG will be out on June 7. Even better news: the most recent one is free today. Go check it out!

Mario Party, A Game For People Who Want To Watch The World Burn

I’ve never met a person who likes Mario Party, the digital board game featuring iconic Nintendo characters. I mean, I know people who do like the games exist; we’re up to, what, Mario Party 9 now? Someone is buying these things. But nobody in my circles likes the game. A copy always finds its way…