Games Reporter Matt Hughes Dies In Apparent Suicide

Matt Hughes, a freelancer who wrote about gaming for outlets like GamesRadar, Joystiq, and Mac|Life, passed away Tuesday in Commerce, Michigan. On Tuesday, Hughes sent out an e-mail to several of the editors he had worked with at those sites. He said he would no longer be able to contribute or take on more freelance…

Original Mass Effect Available For PS3 On December 4, Some DLC Included

The Mass Effect Trilogy, due out for PC and Xbox 360 on November 6, will be available for PlayStation 3 on December 4, BioWare announced today. The trilogy brings the first Mass Effect game to the PS3 for the first time, although Mass Effect 2 and 3 were both available on the console. Where the…

Here’s The First U.S. Wii U Commercial

And it’s not bad! Lots of diversity. Some people making faces that people don’t normally make while playing video games. Weird dubsteppy music. But at least nobody’s saying things like “I’m not a gamer, but…”

The state of Rhode Island is suing Curt Schilling over the 38 Studios debacle.

The state of Rhode Island is suing Curt Schilling over the 38 Studios debacle. [wpri.com]

There Are 145 People Playing Competitive Halo 4 Multiplayer Right Now

Call it the calm before the storm. (And the calm after the Superstorm.) Only 145 people are playing competitive games of Halo 4 online right now-a fraction of the number that will be playing next week. Microsoft’s sci-fi shooter leaked on the Internet a while ago. A great deal of people have pirated and started…

After a Sandy Delay, CityVille 2 Launches Today

Hurricane Sandy’s reach extended far beyond the real world, causing the unexpected delay of the millions of potential virtual towns of CityVille 2. Originally slated for launch on Monday, Zynga’s brand-new 3D city-builder goes live today. The Baltimore-based Zynga studio working on CityVille 2 wanted to kick off this week with a flurry of city…

Rise of the Collectible iPhone Robots

Backflip Studios takes the addictive formula of the wildly popular Dragonvale, swaps colorful lizards for quirky machine creatures, and guarantees that I’ll be obsessing over robot breeding and battling for the next year. I’ve written about Gizmonauts a couple of times already, back on that website that’ll be returning any day now, but I’ve been…

Anatomy of a Whale

Tonight, Lee’s iPad questioned him with a blue pop-up window: “Do you want to buy one Chest of Gems for $99.99?” Lee could use those gems to immediately fortify his army. He tapped “Yes,” almost without thinking. In less than a month of playing around two hours a day, he’d spent nearly a thousand dollars.…

I’m Surprised By How “Black” Assassin’s Creed Liberation Feels

History often seems lightyears away, doesn’t it? Even game franchises like Civilization-where you zip from ancient Rome to space flight in the span of hours-put a layer of abstraction over the experience that make it feel distant. The Assassin’s Creed games use history exceedingly well, but none of them have felt as personal as Assassin’s…

NO HEADLINE

Who shoots first in Angry Birds Star Wars? Update: Dammit, Rovio

Nintendo Wants to Be Friends With Your Cell Phone

“We have two things to do,” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently said to what may have been the 1,000th person to ask him about the house of Super Mario is going to cope with that fact that people really, really love their cellphones and that that might hurt their ability to love Nintendo machines. The…

NO HEADLINE

There’s a new Angry Birds Space update out, with a rather curious cameo.

Amazon’s First Mobile Game is a Fresh Take on Tower Defense

After mixing up the hidden object genre with its first Facebook game, Living Classics, Amazon Game Studios takes on tower defense with its first mobile game, Air Patriots. Create a squad of planes and guide them about the screen with your fingers, drawing attack paths in order to efficiently destroy enemy forces. It’s a more…

Dreamfall Chapters Is Real. Actually Happening. Ragnar Tørnquist is ON IT.

Adventure game fans, now is the time to begin squeeing and flailing with joy. Ragnar Tørnquist, the man behind The Longest Journey and Dreamfall-and recent MMO The Secret World-has formed a new studio and actually begun production on Dreamfall Chapters, Funcom announced today. In a press release, Funcom said that Red Thread Games, Tørnquist’s new…

This Week’s Windows Phone Charts: Xbox SmartGlass is Not a Game

Our week of emergency visual representations of our daily top app charts continues with the latest and greatest for the Windows Phone crowd, who seem to be playing a lot of SmartGlass and Xbox Live Extras. My high score in SmartGlass would blow your mind. Cracking Sands continues to dominate the paid charts this week,…

This Hawkeye Figure Aims for the Bull’s-Eye

Adding to their long list of pretty amazing look-alike figures, Hong Kong collectible company Hot Toys has recently released the underappreciated archer, Hawkeye, to their Avengers lineup of the 6-inch Movie Masterpiece collection. The figure was originally slated for a September release, but was delayed until late October. Was it worth the wait? I’ve always…

The Rise of China’s Board Game Cafes

China is a big place but with its huge population (1.4 billion) mostly gathered in urban environments, space is becoming more of a commodity. Grown from this need for space, “board game cafes” began to spring out in major cities much like internet cafes did. In early 2010 a new trend broke out in China,…

My Model Building Skills Are Not This Awesome

Gunhed, the 1989 film that’s since become a cult hit, is getting a new Gunhed plastic model kit from Kotobukiya. At the Kotobukiya shop in Akihabara, there’s a big display on the kit, showing off various versions of the kit completed by several highly talented model makers. The resulting pieces are wonderful. If only I…

Hatsune Miku on the PS3 Lets Players Pick Up Where They Left Off

Hatsune Miku -Project Diva- f has been one the biggest PS Vita titles as of yet. Selling over 159,000 copies in its first week, the PS Vita rhythm game featuring the famous virtual idol will be getting a PS3 version, Hatsune Miku -Project Diva- F. Notice the big F! According to the developers, in an…

From the looks of it, Scott Holden had an epic Halloween with his ATST costume. Above, you can see it in motion.