Ace Attorney 5 Is Coming To The U.S. [UPDATE]

Update: Capcom has confirmed to me that Ace Attorney 5 is indeed coming to the U.S. Here’s their statement: Capcom is planning to release Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Ace Attorney 5) in the West. We’ll have more news soon. A Capcom representative also clarified that they use “West” to refer to both the U.S. and Europe.…

Zynga Thinks You’ll Like FarmVille 2. I’m Not So Sure.

“What does a re-imagination of virtual farming look like?” Something of a silly question on its face, and yet one that Zynga vice president of games Tim LeTourneau is fond of asking. Then again, what does a re-imagination of virtual farming look like? Do you farm on the moon? Must you plant crops while defending…

Minecraft Is The United Nations’ Newest Tool For Solving Real-World Problems

Minecraft has become an extraordinarily popular tool for gamers worldwide to create anything they can imagine, if in a blocky kind of way. Now, it’s going to become a tool for the United Nations. Mojang announced Block by Block today, a program they will be running in collaboration with UN Habitat. The idea is to…

Just In Time for the NFL’s Kickoff, it’s Tecmo Super Bowl 2013

New England’s Rob Gronkowski is the “cover” star for Tecmo Super Bowl 2013 a fan-made, free mod of the NES all-time classic NFL game that puts the modern game and all of its stars and uniform colors into the old Tecmo Bowl structure. The ROM is available for download now. Its rosters are current as…

EA Says They’re Not Killing Single-Player Games

Pop quiz: name the video game company leader that said the following: “I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single-player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365.” That’s EA Games President Frank Gibeau. His remarks—culled from promotional materials for an…

Ten Minutes Of The New Paper Mario Is Not Enough.

Few video game series are as consistently delightful as Paper Mario, Nintendo’s charming set of plumber-themed RPGs. Paper Mario: Sticker Star, out this fall for 3DS, looks to be no exception. It’s funny, weird, and quite charming. Now take my thoughts with a grain of salt, because the demo I played last weekend at PAX…

Zelda Violinist Rocks The Game of Thrones Theme

Violinist Lindsey Stirling has gained a ton of well-earned renown for (among other things) her truly epic rendition of the Legend of Zelda music, a performance immortalized when Olympic gymnast Elsa Garcia Rodriguez Blancas used it during her floor routine Now, Stirling has teamed up with vocalist Peter Hollens (with whom she recently collaborated on…

Guild Wars 2, Log Two: Five Things I Have Not Done In Tyria

My adventures in Guild Wars 2 continue. I’ve logged in nearly every day for the past few weeks, if only for a few moments. I remain enamored of the art, and in my sessions I nearly always feel like I accomplished something. I tend to like play sessions about 60 to 90 minutes long, it…

The Stalemate Against Piracy In PC Gaming Doesn’t Help Anyone. It’s Time To Let It Go.

The PC’s biggest asset, for users, is its amazing flexibility. The modern computer is both a tool and a toy, a generalist device customizable to nearly any needs. With the barest amount of prodding, comparatively speaking, it can be, and do, anything the user wants. The PC’s biggest liability, to games publishers, is its unpredictable…

This Gorgeous Wooden PC Makes Me More Jealous Than Zen Things Should

This PC case mod is a few years old, but that doesn’t make it any less gorgeous. It’s been easy for me to miss, because I speak approximately ten total words of German, and two of them are extraordinarily impolite. This PC, called Project Zen, was designed to emulate classic and subtle Japanese styles. If…

FarmVille 2 Launches Today. Here’s What’s New.

FarmVille 2 will launch today on Facebook and adds a number of new wrinkles to the tried-and-true social game’s formula. Here’s what’s new in FarmVille 2: 3D Camera – Thanks to the power of Flash 11, Farmville 2 is in 3D. It’s still an isometric game, and you can’t manipulate the camera, but it looks…

Yes, It’s About A Farting Cat. It’s Also The Funniest Game Trailer I’ve Seen In Ages

It can’t be easy to drum up excitement for your super-simple, cat-fart-oriented casual game. And yet the folks behind Fart Cat have done just that with this trailer, which is easily the funniest game trailer I’ve seen since the last funniest trailer ever, the one for Super Time Force Just watch it, already. I hope…

Why The Gears of War People Decided to Make Fortnite Less Dark

There are things that go bump in the night in Epic Games’ next title. Fortnite is like many games put into one, but at its crux it’s a survival, building game. So when the monsters start coming out, you’ve hopefully constructed some safe ground to defend against them. But when the team was first sketching…

Pissed Off ‘Employees’ Bash Pretty Much Every Major Video Game Company

For those who are not familiar with the site, Glassdoor.com is essentially a repository of information on companies—anonymous reviews, salaries, interview questions, etc. contributed by former and current employees—for job seekers seeking an “inside look” into those companies. In addition to that primary purpose, Glassdoor might actually be one of the most compelling sources discussing…

PlayStation Home Just Got a Lot Weirder

For some reason, Metal Gear publisher Konami will now let you buy these horse heads/”masks” in the PlayStation 3’s virtual world, Home, for 99 cents a pop. We’ve got a Home avatar modeling them here in this animated GIF. You’re welcome! Yeah, nothing strange about this at all. Nope. PlayStation Home: Out Of This World…

Ten Things You Should Know About Skyrim‘s New DLC

Skyrim‘s latest downloadable content is all about houses. Big houses, small houses, brown houses, and… well, they’re all kind of brown. Out this week for Xbox 360, Skyrim‘s Hearthfire puts you in charge of your very own dream mansion. You’ll get to collect lumber, mine ore, craft nails, and build a house from the ground…

Marvel’s Avengers Initiative Is Almost The Strongest Portable Game There Is

So, maybe Marvel’s console game portfolio is a collection of hits and misses. But Avengers Initiative sure makes it seem like the House of Ideas wants their portable releases to be a different story. Avengers Initiative will be very familiar to anyone who has played Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade title. Players will be controlling the…

Freddie Mercury as an Angry Bird Is Both Wonderful And Weird

I’ll be honest, I like Angry Birds. And of course I like Queen. But I’m really not sure how I feel about the two of them together. Rovio evidently envisions the late Queen front man as a yellow bird, complete with fabulous crown and mustache. The king pig is right to wilt in sad shame…

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is now in closed beta. You can opt in on your Battle.net account. Good luck!

The Extraordinary Quest to Put All the Super Mario Games On One Timeline

There are at least two timelines on the Internet that put the major Super Mario games in chronological order, as if they happened to one guy named Mario who has been living an extraordinary life. These timeline don’t present Mario as a real man. The people who make these timelines aren’t that free-thinking. But the…