The World’s Most Boring Viking Game Is A Blast

There’s a point, maybe around an hour in, where you might feel a little disappointed with The Old Gods, a new Viking expansion for epic strategy game Crusader Kings II that was released this week. When you think Vikings, you think looting, pillaging, beards, fire, axes, mayhem. Yet this expansion delivers almost none of that.…

Blurring The Lines Between Video Game Concept Art & Cosplay

Justin Murray, a concept artist who worked on Injustice: Gods Among Us, sent us some pics of his contribution to the game. But he didn’t just send the art. He brought it to life. With cosplay. Teaming up with his girlfriend Jia Jem, Murray went down to the same Chicago locations they shot scenes from…

When A Star Wars Hotline Broke AT&T

If you suffer under the yoke of AT&T, and enjoy tales of their suffering, this will cheer you up: back when Empire Strikes Back launched, an automated call-in line designed to market the movie broke part of the network. How? This was 1980, and the technology for that sort of stuff just wasn’t there yet.…

Darksiders III Sounded Great. Pity It’ll Never Happen.

The Darksiders series isn’t really dead. Nordic games owns it, and will presumably do something with it. But the series as we knew it, developed by Vigil Games, may as well have died earlier this year when Vigil went off and joined Crytek and left Darksiders behind, where no major publisher on Earth wanted anything…

Why The Xbox One Is The “Blackest Black” A Black Can Be

The Xbox One is not just black. It is “liquid black”. There’s an element of marketing fluff behind this, of course, and the console’s design team are not short on marketing fluff, but behind all that, there’s some interesting reasons for the decision. No, really. Here’s an excerpt from a design piece on Microsoft’s new…

EA’s Getting Rid Of All Online Passes, Not Just For New Games

Earlier this month, publisher EAmade the decision to stop offering controversial “online passes” with its upcoming games. It’s now getting rid of them for its older games, too. A new FAQ on EA’s site explains the move, saying “we are in the process of eliminating Online Pass requirements from existing EA games. This process will…

The Story Of An Indie Game’s Life (And Impending Demise) On Steam

There are literally thousands of games on Valve’s Steam service, and a growing number are small, independent titles. You’ve probably never even heard of many of them, but for the tiny teams (or sometimes individuals) behind them, their success or failure can be literally life-changing. Take Lunar Flight, for example. The game, developed solely by…

Let’s Take A Closer Look At That Multiplayer Dinosaur Hunting Game

Last time we took a look at The Stomping Land—that DayZ-like survival game, only with dinosaurs—we learned about the general ideas behind the game. This time around, we have a couple of videos which detail hunting tactics, setting up camp, and customization options and more. So far, still looks great. Of course, I’m less interested…

Marine Vet Justifies His Argument For Xbox As “Anti-Empathy Machine”

Today on televison, somebody said something reasonable about violent video games. Karl Marlantes, an author, Marine veteran and author of the book “What It Is Like to Go to War” fielded a question on C-Span2 about the long-term effect that unrealistic depictions of war in media and specifically gaming will have on the military. Despite…

Why Tim Schafer Has A Second Kickstarter

“Look, we just made $70,000! Not that I have it up on auto-refresh or anything…” That was beloved game designer and Double Fine Games founder Tim Schafer watching the growing total for Massive Chalice, less than an hour into the company’s latest Kickstarter game development funding campaign. Double Fine, of course, helped birth the onslaught…

It Looks Like Wind Waker and Plays Like Super Mario 64. Fantastic.

We’ve been covering the delightful A Hat In Time for a while now, but not only have the developers recently launched a Kickstarter to help fund the development, I also finally got a chance to play it. Now I can tell you that without a doubt, this is project worth supporting. If you’ve not heard…

The Most Terrifying Mystery Mansions In Video Games

You gotta love horror games with mysterious, haunted mansions. They work so well. You enter the estate, or wake up in a calm part of it, only to find hordes of traps, the undead and a bevy of haunted horrors waiting to overwhelm you. It’s still a preferred setting for horror games, action-adventures, and for…

“Both kink and games involve and even require co-operation and trust: between the player and the author, between the players themselves, between someone experiencing pain and someone inflicting it.” Game devs Porpentine and Merritt Kopastalk about the intersection of kink and video games over at Trash Babes.

Daft Punk + K.K. Slider = This Song

Sure, the original version of Get Lucky is catchy—but Pharrell’s smoothness is no match for K.K. Slider’s animalese vocals. It’s not even a fair fight. This video by Alex Romeroproves it. Awww yeaaaah. Truly, K.K. Slider has come a long way: (Source unknown, but can update this post if that changes.) Get Lucky feat. K.K.…

Time To Call Out Iron Man 3‘s Biggest WTF Moment

You know what, it’s hard to argue with some of the stuff in this (spoilery) Iron Man 3 video from How It Should Have Ended. Specifically, how it calls out the movie’s biggest WTF moment. I liked the movie a good deal, but I had the same question at the end: Why on Earth did…

The Phoenix Wright HD Trilogy Is Finally Out On iOS Today

After several delays, the HD remake of the planet’s best lawyer simulator is finally live on iOS. You can get the first three Phoenix Wright games on iPhone and iPad right now The app is totally free, and it comes with the first two cases of game #1. If you like what you play, you…

Razer Debuts The World’s Thinnest Gaming Laptop

Ever since Razer started making their skinny 17-inch Razer Blade laptop, I’ve been wondering when a gaming PC company was going to come along and deliver a powerful gaming laptop with the slender form factor of an Ultrabook. That would be today. Meet the new Razer Blade, a 14-inch gaming laptop that’s skinnier than Apple’s…

Is David Hayter Playing Snake In MGS5? We’ll Find Out Next Week.

Ever since David Hayter tearfully announced that he wouldn’t be returning as Snake for the next Metal Gear Solid game, I’ve had a gut feeling that he will be returning as Snake. Get this: the longtime Snake voice actor tweeted yesterday that he’ll be making an appearance at E3 in a week and a half:…

The Elder Scrolls Online Finally Looks Like an Elder Scrolls Game

They said they weren’t going to do it. People objected. They changed their mind. And now, behold: The Elder Scrolls Online has a first-person-with-hands mode. Ahhh. This game now looks like a Skryrim MMO. Add +100 to me giving a damn. I explain what the deal is in the video, which you really should watch…

HeroClix TabApp Elite Turns DC Superheroes Into Skylanders

Late last year the HeroClix folks introduced TabApp, an iOS and Android app that utilizes physical toys to play a relatively limited video game. This year they spice things up with TabApp Elite, giving the toys a Skylanders-esque base station and a much more interesting game to play. My main complaint with the original TabApp…