Backhanded Box Quotes: BFG is a POS.

Welcome back to “Backhanded Box Quotes,” a collection of measured, thoughtful criticism from the user reviews of Metacritic and elsewhere. Doom? James Bond? Dragon Ball Z? Big names, big deal. With critic scores inflated like your typical Ivy League comparative lit final, we’ve got to go to the vox populi to get the real word…

I Hate That I’m Addicted To Boring Video Game Challenges

I’m having the same, recurring nightmare of late. It’s one of those stupid ones where something that’s normally inane and innocuous becomes unreasonably horrible. Here’s what happens: I’m on Pandora, out on a mission—to kill someone, probably—when I notice something. Maybe it’s a a box or a locker. And the second that I notice that,…

Their Studio Gave them an Amusement Park Ticket—and Then a Pink Slip

How would you like to be fired? Do you want to go out in a take-this-job-and-shove-it blaze of glory? Would you like security to martyr you, marching you out by the elbows, as you clutched your box of things like Richard Gere carrying off Debra Winger? Would you just want the chance to look into…

This Dishonored Skin For Minecraft Is Pretty Damn Impressive

It’s tough to get really excited about Minecraft mods these days, but I have to admit this one got me. You can get the mod right here. And the map here Minecraft – Dishonored Mod [YouTube via PC Gamer]

Two Years Later, Sleep Researchers Now Say Gaming Before Bed Is Bad

Two years ago, sleep researchers at Flinders University of Australia found that playing video games before bed was indistinct from watching a movie, in terms of the good night’s rest a teenager would have after either. This week researchers at the same university said that “prolonged gaming” before bed is disruptive to that longtime childhood…

He Raised $25,000 To Make A Game. Then All His Programmers Quit.

2012 in gaming may well be remembered as the year of the Kickstarter. Crowdfunding, in all its forms, took off into the stratosphere with the DoubleFine drive back in February, and has just kept going since. Many gaming projects have been successfully funded, from little $5000 art and experimental games to multi-million dollar juggernauts like…

Today is the 40th Anniversary of the World’s First Known Video Gaming Tournament

In October 1972, video games were still mostly an after-hours pastime in corporate or university laboratories. Pong had been installed only one month earlier at a Sunnyvale bar called Andy Capp’s Tavern (today a comedy club.) Forty years ago today, just up U.S. 101, on Stanford’s campus, computer science students saw this flyer tacked to…

ChefVille Great Pumpkin Hay Bale Quests: Everything You Need to Know

As the Halloween event continues to expand in ChefVille, we’ve seen players become more stressed about Wild Pumpkins (or the lack thereof) within the game. Zynga has automatically programmed Wild Pumpkins to grow at random on our land, but that takes time, which is something we don’t have in the game’s limited time Halloween Event.…

There’s Just Too Much Beauty in The Week in Gaming Apps

Sometimes there’s so much beauty in Google Play, iTunes and the Windows Phone Marketplace I feel I can’t take it; like my heart’s going to cave in. That’s my completely original explanation for why I did three of our Gaming App of the Day entries this week. I might have done five, but Ashcraft loves…

These Former Big-Budget Shooter Devs are Overjoyed to Bring You the $.99 Twist Pilot

Steve Ellis is responsible for the beloved multiplayer aspect of Rare’s classic Nintendo 64 shooter Goldeneye 007, and was a founder of Free Radical Design, the studio behind the TimeSplitters franchise. Martin Wakeley was a designer and producer at Rare, creating beloved titles like Blast Corps and Jet Force Gemini before joining Ellis at Free…

Your Favorite Video Game Is Probably Part of This Guy’s Amazing Tattoo

This is Charles Wheeler’s right arm. In case you can’t tell, he loves video games. A couple of years ago, he decided to get a major tattoo. “I had wanted to do a sleeve but could not figure out an idea,” he told Kotaku. “Then I said, ‘Why not a gaming sleeve?'” The 30-year-old native…

Nine Words Have Sold Me On Jason Rohrer’s Next Game

From Jason Rohrer, the maker of Passage, Sleep is Death and Diamond Trust of London, we’re getting a new PC/Mac/Linux game called The Castle Doctrine This is the description: “a massively-multiplayer game of burglary and home defense”. I don’t need to know anything else! Sign me up. Follow the game at the official Castle Doctrine…

If You Want To Be Taken Seriously, Don’t Call Your Game Warface

Crytek, the studio behind the Crysis series and its eye-bleeding Cryengine graphics tech, are getting ready to launch their newest game. It’s a free-to-play shooter. It’s already out in some parts of the world, and will be out in North America pretty soon. And it’s called Warface Yes. That is the name. “Warface.” Crytek would…

EA: Social Games Aren’t Dying, But Consumers ‘Won’t Pay for Crap’

With player numbers dropping and the recent revelation that 85 percent stop playing after the first day, a shadow hangs over the once ridiculously profitable social gaming scene. Speaking today at App Conference in San Jose, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said that the decline of social gaming is overplayed; it’s not dying, it’s evolving.…

After some technical difficulties, the Quest for Glory creators just launched the Kickstarter for their upcoming game

Goldfinger Is A Silly Movie. It’s An Even Sillier Chapter of 007 Legends.

Goldfinger might be the most iconic of all the James Bond films. Even if you’ve never seen it (or, like me, saw it once, long ago, at about three in the morning while not really paying attention), you know its big beats. Goldfinger is the one where Bond is strapped to a table with that…

The BioShock Infinite board game sounds pretty neat. Lots of stories, cards, dice, figures, and all that jazz.

How To Fix The Best RPG Series On The Planet

Suikoden is a video game series about destiny. About fate. About people who fight against near-insurmountable odds to accomplish things that shouldn’t be possible. So in a twist of morbid irony worthy of The Twilight Zone, this wonderful RPG series has spent the past 15 years embroiled in its own battle against fate, its own…

Sleeping Dogs Is About To Get A Little Crazier

Just in time for Halloween, Sleeping Dogs developer United Front Games will be releasing add-on content for the amazing hands-on, kung fu combat, open world game. And there will be zombies. And vampires. Sort of. It’s called Nightmare in North Point, and instead of slapping rival Triad members in the face with a fish, you…

Thank God I Can Make My Borderlands 2 Character Stop Yapping

Considering that the point of Borderlands 2 is to use the biggest possible gun on the biggest possible dude, it sure is a chatty game. Even the guns talk! It’s basically a comedy; a machine-gun barrage of riffs, references, and cheeky toilet-humor. The jokes are pretty good, generally speaking, even though they have a tendency…