What Not To Name Your Spacefaring Raccoon Video Game

A browser-based game from a group of students from the Utrecht School of Arts & Technology in the Netherlands starring an adorable raccoon trying to reach the moon sounds like a lovely idea. Just might not want to call it Starcoon Starcoon is a game that brings the “as high as you can get” games…

Who Cares if The Game is Short? Hideki Kamiya Wants To Ensure It’s Fun

The ever-colorful Twitter feed of top Japanese game developer Hideki Kamiya (Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and the upcoming Wonderful 101 for Wii U) imparted some wisdom this weekend. I believe in this wisdom as well. Game length is over-rated. Game fun should be paramount. Sadly, I think the padding of games is still widely accepted.…

Amazing Physical Health Bar Mimics In-Game Changes Perfectly

YouTube user bfayer‘s wasn’t satisfied with watching his life slowly seep away on a computer monitor, so he built a lighted water tower that tracks the ebb and flow of his virtual vitals in real-time. It’s basically a glass tube of modded water, controlled by an Arduino Uno microcontroller board and an air pump that…

Rural Chinese Libraries Have Become Unofficial Internet Cafes

Over the weekend, the National Library of China released a report on the state of the country’s libraries. According to the report, the state of China’s libraries is pretty bad with many rural libraries being turned into make shift net cafes. The report, republished by various media groups, doesn’t really get into much detail about…

A Japanese restaurant chain is filing an objection with the country’s patent office over Nintendo’s trademark for the word “WaraWara”, asking for it to be cancelled, reports 47News. The long-time Japanese restaurant chain is called “Wara Wara” and is quite well known in Japan. Nintendo’s trademark is related to the WaraWara Plaza; however, the restaurant…

China’s Military English Is Deep. Like, Really Deep.

The People’s Liberation Army (AKA the Chinese military) has a guidebook of English language phrases. Most of them are pretty basic, such as “Are you a new soldier?” or “We treat POWs well”. Other phrases are so profound. Located on People’s Liberation Army Daily, the guidebook has been online forever; however, website ShanghaiIst recently stumbled…

Update: Dating Show Staple Wants to “Evaluate” DOTA Player

Update: During this week’s episode, Zhang Ning was able to walk away with Zhao. There are loads of female contestants on Chinese dating shows. Contestant Zhao Jie, however, is different. Over the course of the last two years, Zhao has turned down every man. That is, until recently when the head of a Chinese pro…

Sega’s Joypolis amusement center is rolling out Sonic Athletics. It’s a treadmill-based arcade game that allows up to eight players to race in the 100-meter dash or the 110-meter hurdles, reports Siliconera. There’s also a long jump, too, but you don’t exactly jump on the treadmill. Instead, you simply press a “jump” button.

Larry Page Shows Bill Gates How It’s Done in South Korea

Last week, Bill Gates caused a brouhaha in South Korea because of the way he shook hands with President Geun Hye Park. In the wake of that, Google co-founder Larry Page schooled Gates on Korean manners. Page was in South Korea late last week to visit Samsung’s OLED factory for about an hour and have…

Woman Almost Dies After 40 Hour Gaming Session

Traveler’s Thrombosis, or deep vein thrombosis is an affliction that is often associated with flying. However in China, it appears that it is more commonly associated with video gaming than it is with air travel, especially now that after a young woman developed the condition after a 4o hour gaming session. The People’s Daily reports…

A new Dead or Alive 5 project is “coming soon” to the PS3 and the Xbox 360. Yosuke Hayashi, Team Ninja’s leader, recently announced that the “newest work” (最新作) for Dead or Alive 5 was “currently in development” and showed a very brief trailer. It sounds like a stand-alone title, so it might be a…

How to Make Piccolo from Dragon Ball Look “Ordinary”

Piccolo is a character in Dragon Ball. He’s green! But what if he wasn’t green? And didn’t look like a bad guy, but a bald guy? On 2ch, Japan’s largest online forum, drawings of Piccolo with light-colored skin were posted, with the uploader apologizing in jest. (You can use these Piccolo images as masks, if…

Japan’s Leader Appeals to Geeks with a Military Tank

Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ticked off people in South Korea and China. This weekend, he hung out with nerds and got in a tank. NicoNico Douga, Japan’s popular video channel, hosted a big meet up this past Saturday and Sunday, celebrating the country’s internet and geek culture. It seemed like an unlikely…

3D builder/magician Psychobob – you’ve seen his stuff before – is selling these Portal-themed drinks coasters, so your companion coffee cup has somewhere to rest its weary butt.

Art Dealer Is Selling The World’s Most Expensive Screenshots

Art dealers Cook & Decker have teamed up with Irrational Games to sell some very large and very expensive prints, each displaying art from BioShock Infinite. Interestingly, the art isn’t taken from the game’s wonderful concept works. They’re screenshots, though the word does them a slight disservice. These are prints based on the super hi-res…

The Game In This Trailer Does Not Exist

The “game” in this trailer, Delirium, isn’t actually a game. You can’t play it, and you probably never will play it. So why is there a trailer? It’s the work of three students – Edgard Ortega, Connor McCampbell and Gudjon Larusson – whose senior thesis project involved constructing a mock video game trailer. The onus…

This Is The World’s Most Fabulous Halo Action Figure

It’s large, detailed and expensive as only a threeA figure could be, but then, Halo is a series that’s long deserved this kind of top-shelf action figure. Though “action figure” kind of sells this thing short. Recreating Halo Reach’s Carter down to the tiniest detail (look at those fingers), this thing will cost $220 when…

Arkham City’s Batman Actor Won’t Be Back For The Next Game

Kevin Conroy, who has voiced Batman in all kinds of stuff, from the classic 90s animated series to Rocksteady’s last two masterpiece video games, will not be reprising his role in the upcoming Batman: Arkham Origins. Unlike the drama surrounding another long-time fan favourite voice actor, though, at least in this case it makes sense.…

Who Said There Was No Future In Starfighter Video Games?

For a genre that was once dominant in the mid-90s, with classics like X-Wing and Wing Commander, the space combat simulator is by 2013 on its knees. Sure, indies and mods try their best to keep things ticking, but one Kickstarter project aside, it’s been a very long time since a developer with serious resources/money…

If BioShock Infinite Was An…Anime

The architecture and setting is about as far removed from Japanese animation as you could get, but that only makes these anime-styled images by doubleleaf all the cooler. We’ve featured doubleleaf’s art here before, and with good reason: it’s not only great art but is often hilarious as well. Not in this case, sure, but…