Report: Japanese Employees Vent Online About Square Enix

Last year, there were unconfirmed reports that Square Enix’s Tokyo headquarters was a dark place to work. This latest report doesn’t sound nearly as bad as those. Doesn’t sound like rainbows and sunshine, either. NicoNico News points to comments made on Japanese employment site Career Connection. The site aims to help jobseekers find out more…

According to Sony, the PS3 has sold 70 million units worldwide, and the PS Move has sold 15 million. That’s…a lot!

How Victoria’s Secret Bewildered a Japanese Animation Giant

Last week, Victoria’s Secret held a big fashion show in New York City with a bevy of models and Justin Bieber. There was the typical parade of silk and lace. And then, there was something unexpected: model Jourdan Dunn strutted down the catwalk in bodysuit, straight out of Japanese anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. You weren’t…

Take a Good Look at This “Real Life Kirby”

In Nintendo games, Kirby is round, pink, and cute. In real life, Kirby is apparently round, white, and, well… Japanese doll sculptor Honoka created the work, putting this photo up on Twitter. The reaction has varied from people calling the sculpture “frightening” or “creepy”, to others praising the artistry that went into creating the piece.…

Relive The Horrors of the Original Xbox Live Dashboard

Microsoft’s Larry Hryb has been digging through the archives in honour of Xbox Live’s 10th birthday, and has come up with a few dusty old relics. Above and below, you’ll find images of what the first, original Xbox Live dashboard used to look like. And you thought the current dash is bad. While it sort…

Yes, it is Off-Putting When There’s an Achievement for “Staring at a Woman’s Tits”

Rock Paper Shotgun points us towards this great video by OXM, on the subject of women in video games. It starts a little slow, but bear with it. By the time you get to Mass Effect’s “dicks in a cupboard”, you’re well on your way. I wouldn’t often say a video I post here is…

My Favourite Black Ops II Moment Was When a Hollywood Legend Gets His Dues

There are a number of Hollywood stars lending their talents to Black Ops II. Sam Worthington returns as Mason, for example. The only thing Worthington provides, though, is his voice. Others got to be in the game. You might recognise Admiral Briggs as Tony Todd, while Harper bears a resemblance to his voice actor, Michael…

Wife Leaves Game-Addicted Husband Who Spends 25 Hours a Week Playing… Second Life

No, you didn’t just wake up from a bad dream of the future and find yourself safely back in 2006. It’s still 2012, and an Australian man who still plays Second Life has seen it cost him his marriage. The 51 year-old man, who “cannot be named for legal reasons”, saw his 33 year-old wife…

Star Wars Action Figures Inducted Into the Hall of Fame. Let’s Celebrate With Awesome Pictures.

Because there is a hall of fame for everything you can put in a hall, there is of course a National Toy Hall of Fame in the United States. Which this week has inducted perhaps the most popular figures of all time into its ranks. From a rocky beginning in 1977, when not enough figures…

This Grand Theft Auto Movie Doesn’t Just Work, It’s Incredible

This is RISE, a Grand Theft Auto-inspired short film by director Gevorg Karensky. Whatever quality and budgetary limitations you might think this has because it’s “fan made”, you go right ahead and throw them out the window. If this is what Grand Theft Auto VII looks like on my ValveBox TVPC, then the future might…

Skyrim, Smooshed Into Teeny Tiny Little Planets

Drawing on some awesome photography work, Dutch artist midhras has taken three of the biggest video game worlds around—Skyrim, Fallout 3 and RAGE—and condensed them into tiny little planetoids. It’s like Super Skyrim Galaxy. You can see some here, but the whole collection is at the link below. Planetesimals [midhras, via Save Room Mini Bar]

Your First Dragon Age 3 Screenshot is Tiny, Blurry

BioWare revealed the first screenshot for the upcoming Dragon Age III yesterday at… the Bradford Animation Festival in England. It was only shown for a few seconds, but according to this report on Eurogamer that was long enough for an attendee to grab a shot. As you can see, Dragon Age III will feature both…

Black Ops II’s Ending Sure Was Terrible (For Me)

Stephen made a great point earlier in the week when he compared Black Ops II to, of all things, Mass Effect. The way the game is punctuated with moments that can re-shape an entire experience with a single decision is an unexpected and welcome move for a series that’s so often criticised for being little…

Over 100 Million Friendships have Been Made Over Xbox Live (And Over 200 Billion Achievement Points)

Amidst all the back-slapping and high-fiving going on at Xbox Live today, Microsoft released a statistic related to the service that I found pretty interesting. Seems that since Xbox Live’s inception in 2002, over 100 million friendships have been made. 122,265,266 at time of printing, to be exact. No word on how many friendships were…

Oh No Big Deal, It’s Just A Thought-Controlled Robot

I mean we all knew this was coming, but it’s still cool to see. Here’s a video of the progress of researchers working on a thought-controlled robot in a joint venture by the CNRS-AIST Joint Robotics Laboratory and the CNRS-LIRMM Interactive Digital Human group. We know this starts innocently enough, but it’s only a matter…

Spike VGAs Announce Nominees for Best Video Games of November

Assassin’s Creed III, Dishonored, Journey, Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead are the nominees, announced today, for Game of the Year at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards. The rest of the list contains, as you might expect, a number of nominees that were just released only days ago, if at all. Halo 4…

Next Year, Gabe Newell Becomes a Video Game Hall of Famer

John Carmack’s in there. Will Wright’s in there, too. So are Tim Sweeney, Peter Molyneux and Shigeru Miyamoto. And now Gabe Newell will be joining all of those video game luminaries in the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame According to the AIAS, the Hall of Fame Award goes to “game creators…

Black Ops II‘s Zombie Mode: a Bit of Left 4 Dead, a Bit of Adventure Games, and a Whole Lot of Fail

When I had enough of Call of Duty: Black Ops II’s campaign, I decided to spend some time with its more fantastical mode, Zombies. These are my thoughts. There are three game types: the story-based “Tranzit,” the classic “Survival,” and, less excitingly, the maliciously spirited “Grief.” All overtly have the same premise: using teamwork, survive/kill…

The Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation Soundtrack Is A Stealthy Success

Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation , the new portable entry in Ubisoft’s popular historical adventure series, offers up a few genuine surprises. It’s impressive how well Ubisoft managed to cram a fully-packed Assassin’s world onto the handheld PSVita, and players might be surprised at the myriad ways that historical tropes from the African-American experience show up…

The Sounds And Stylings Of Black Ops II‘s Kick-Ass Soundtrack

I haven’t played enough of Black Ops II to render a real verdict on how I feel about as a game, I can say for sure that I really enjoy the soundtrack. It’s a cut up from past games in the series, an exciting, diverse blend of whirling orchestral parts, ethnic instruments and atmospheric electronics.…