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More New Vita Content, Starhawk and SSX Demos New This Week on the PlayStation Store

The PS Vita rollout continues with another stacked week of new digital content at the PlayStation store. Vita owners get access to all manner of stuff, from a few free augmented reality games to apps for Netflix, Flickr and Twitter, demos for a few more titles, and several new digital-only games including Plants vs. Zombies,…

Bending the Rules as an Art Form

A man who applies a particular mental skill to play Blackjack, counting cards, will eventually find security standing behind him, strongly suggesting he vacate the premises, when someone working for the casino figures out what he is doing. That man has not brought any external items to the table. He has not smuggled certain cards…

In Syndicate‘s Corrupt Corporate Future, Roving Bands of Game Critics Fight a War of Opinion

It’s not like the original Syndicate. We’ve accepted that. Moved beyond it. This is not Bullfrog’s beloved tactical shooting game from 1993. This is something altogether different, and not every game reviewer likes it. The future changes with each passing moment, ladies and gentlemen, so the future Bullfrog painted in the original Syndicate could easily…

Vita Values

This Wednesday edition of Kotaku’s The Moneysaver catches all the offers, promotions and bargains that can’t wait until the weekend. The Midweek Moneysaver is brought to you by Dealzon. Software • For the new PS Vita, Amazon and Best Buy offer “Buy 2 Games, Get a 3rd Free” sales. Example combo: Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Lumines:…

“It’s a Pac-Man Sun!”

Won’t You Come, Wash Away The Rain | A partial solar eclipse described by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory as a “Pac-Man Sun” (Photo Credit: NASA/SDO via Space.com.) Pouring Like an Avalanche Down SSX’s First Mountain The SSX demo landed yesterday, with the full title arriving, at last, on Tuesday, rebooting EA Sports’ much-loved snowboarding series.…

Pouring Like an Avalanche Down SSX’s First Mountain

The SSX demo landed yesterday, with the full title arriving, at last, on Tuesday, rebooting EA Sports’ much-loved snowboarding series. The last SSX release was the Wii-only Blur in 2007; before that, SSX on Tour in 2005. It’s long enough that even some old hats may feel like newcomers in the seven-year layoff this game…

Huge FIFA Roster Update Kicks Off Tomorrow

News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming: • Managing the player population for more than 30 professional leagues means that when FIFA drops a post-release roster update, it’s usually a whopper. That will arrive tomorrow, per Romily Broad, the game’s community manager. The title update will address the changes that took…

WWE Wrestlefest iPhone and iPad screens

From Tebow Time to the “Tecmo Bowl MMO”

Whatever you think of him, Tim Tebow has made a contribution—if indirect—to video games development. Last fall, as the quarterback was leading the Denver Broncos to an improbable six-game winning streak, David Murray got an idea to create a “Tecmo Tebow” image—Tebow, as an 8-bit Tecmo Super Bowl player, kneeling in the end zone. The…

Taco Bell Blames Vita Contest Debacle on ‘Technical Issues,’ Enrages Misled Winners

More than a week after informing PlayStation Vita contest winners that their entries were invalid, fast food corporation Taco Bell has told them that it messed up, blaming “technical issues” for the confusion. The misled contestants, who were told they won PlayStation Vitas on or around January 30, will all enter a “separate drawing” to…

Horror Game Amnesia Scores A Terrifying Sequel

Gaming site Joystiq reports that it will be called Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. It will feature a wealthy industrialist who is haunted by dreams and disaster following an unfortunate trip to Mexico. [Joystiq]

Introducing ZiGGURAT.

[Editor’s Note: Every month, we pay Tim Rogers to share his unique view of video games. But Tim has gone and made a video game. For free, we’re letting him introduce his new game as only Tim can. He’ll be back later this month with stuff we actually pay him to write. Take it away,…

American Game Developer on Death Row in Iran Receives Family Visit

The fate of American game developer Amir Hekmati, currently on death row in Iran, remains in question weeks after the original deadline for appeal has passed. As we’ve previously reported, Hekmati was arrested in Iran late last summer under allegations of being a CIA spy. In December he issued a public “confession,” the validity and…

Captain Carpet: Creating Arcane Worlds With a Single Mouse Click

Republished from Rock, Paper Shotgun I feel like I’m cheating a little here, because I’m going to tell you that Arcane Worlds aims to be a modern take on Magic Carpet but then I’m going to admit that nothing of the sort yet exists. That idea is something to giddily anticipate but the tech demo…

How Does the Razer Blade Handle Guild Wars 2? See for Yourself

When I asked you folks to suggest games for me to test out the Razer Blade, Guild Wars 2‘s name came up an awful lot. At the time I replied that I wouldn’t have the Blade when the press beta rolled around. Well, turns out I lied. I managed to hold onto the system for…

Watch This Amazing 16-Bit Legend of Zelda PC Case Come to Life Block-By-Block

You’ve seen his classic Final Fantasy-inspired PC cases. Now Richard “8-Bit Builder” Clinton upgrades to 16-bit with his amazing PC case rendition of Link from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. How does he do it? Watch the video and find out. Not only did Dr. Clinton (probably not a doctor) spend…

Six Classic and Contemporary HTML 5 Games You Can Play Free Right Now

A lot has changed since the days when web developers relied almost exclusively on Flash for media-rich interactive content. Although the technology is still very much alive and may not see a replacement anytime soon for certain uses, more and more websites are implementing HTML5 for streaming audio and video, and we are also starting…

Tera Asks Guild Leaders: Are You an MMO-FO?

Tera is an upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game that emphasizes action-packed combat mechanics over traditional MMO click battles. Bas Rutten is a legendary mixed martial arts fighter with a penchant for kicking his opponents in the liver until they fall down. Put them together and you get a room full of mildly terrified guild…

I Just Spent a Week With a Very, Very Expensive Gaming PC

Alienware has recently launched a new line of its Aurora desktops, a range of very pretty, very expensive gaming PCs. And I just spent a week playing video games on one. The Aurora R4, unlike the mildly surprising X51, sticks firmly to the company’s brief of making high performance hardware at a relatively high cost…