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UncategorizedFinally a Strong Contender for Best Game Starring Classical Composer Frederic Chopin
For years I’ve had to deal with those insufferable Eternal Sonata fans boasting about how their game was the only one to star 18th century romantic composer Frederic Chopin as a playable character. Guess what, Sonatees? There’s a new game in town, and it makes yours look like cheap anime RPG fluff. I really have…
By Mike Fahey Published January 24, 2012 -
UncategorizedThis Deus Ex-Inspired Short Hacks Its Way Into Your Eyeballs
Seems to me that fan films inspired by video games can go one of two ways. Either they try to perform the stunts and action in titles like Batman: Arkham City or they focus on recreating the look of the fictional worlds in the games they draw from. Extraction Point—sent in by its director Simon…
By Evan Narcisse Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
It’s Mario Versus Braid in the Ultimate Bar Conversation Battle of Indie Cred
Call him a sell-out. Call him a suit. Call him too mainstream. It doesn’t change the fact that Mario was jumping and saving imperiled females before it was cool. Ah yes, those young, hip fellows at the bar, sitting together exuding an aura of inapproachability. No one can get close enough to point out that…
By Mike Fahey Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
Sony Designer Wanted a Thinner PS Vita. Will Sony Make One?
Takashi Sogabe knows a thing or two about the PS Vita. He should. He designed it. Sogabe, who also designed the Walkman, said at a recent Sony roundtable (via website CVG), “The original design of the PS Vita…was very much thinner than the current retail product. From a designer’s point of view, thinner is better-looking,…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
Punch These Buttons. Punch Them!
Fighter | TOKYO, JAPAN: Pro-gamer Daigo Umehara plays the Street Fighter cabinet with big, punchable buttons. (Photo: 4Gamer) Photoshop Disaster, Diet Disaster Westerners notice it. The clothes run slightly smaller, and a medium in Japan would be a small-or even a petite-back home. Barring the exception here or there, Japanese people tend to have smaller…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
Time to Visit Capcom’s Bar!
Capcom, who makes video games, has a bar, which serves food and drinks. Today, Japanese website Famitsu.com posted photos of a recent visit to the establishment. The place serves Capcom themed food, and it’s on the pricey side. Famitsu‘s photos, in the above gallery, don’t exactly make the dishes look appetizing. But maybe the food…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 -
UncategorizedEzio Auditore vs. Ezio Auditore. Who Would Win?
Well, duh. Skip to the 46-second mark to see the Assassin’s Creed assassin to take on himself in this latest round of SoulCalibur V gameplay footage. Besides fighting with himself, Ezio takes on Nightmare, Raphael, Viola, Mitsurugi, and Hilde. SoulCalibur V, the latest in Namco’s Soul series, will be out Feb. 2 in Japan and…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
Japan Makes a Nice Iron Man Statue
Kotobukiya, the famed Japanese figure maker, released photos of its upcoming Avengers Iron Man Mark VII ARTFX Statue. It’s stunning. According to the press release, the statue comes with a three-mode LED chest light-up feature and can be triggered by an on-board motion detector. Iron Man’s eyes also light up with LED! The figure is…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
Japanese People Sure Love Pissing on Sega
And who doesn’t? Kidding! (I love you Sega. I think.) Back in Dec. 2010, Kotaku broke the news that Sega was working on a urine-powered game system for Japanese toilets. The result, now installed at bars throughout the country, is doing more than measuring urine speed. “This gives bar customers more things to talk about…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
Photoshop Disaster, Diet Disaster
Westerners notice it. The clothes run slightly smaller, and a medium in Japan would be a small—or even a petite—back home. Barring the exception here or there, Japanese people tend to have smaller frames. People are, generally speaking, thin. So what the hell is up with diet ads like these? The above photos appeared recently…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
BioShock: Infinite Has Never Looked Better
Comic book artist Alex Garner had so much fun with his Portal 2 fan piece that he decided to do his own take on upcoming game BioShock: Infinite The result pays homage to the iconic Saturday Evening Post covers of illustrator J.C. Leyendecker “But after drawing my layout, I discovered that the smart folks at…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 -
UncategorizedMinistry: Just One Fix
Sorry if this finds you groggy and early in the morning. Though, really, what better way to blow out the cobwebs than with a little Ministry circa 1992? Having been around for over three decades, Ministry have been called a lot of things over the years, most of them with the word “industrial” somewhere in…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
Portal 3 Box Art Has a Sex Joke. It’s Fake.
If you’ve played any of Valve’s Left 4 Dead games, you’ll know how the zombie hand (and fingers) played into each subsequent installment. Artist VutiAru wondered if the still-unannounced Portal 3 could do the same thing and created this concept box art. According to VutiAru, it hints at a total new direction. That it does.…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
How Much Junk Gets Uploaded to YouTube Every Second of the Day
Trailers. Walkthroughs. Cat videos. Whatever it is you waste your time watching on YouTube, have you ever considered the sheer scale of content being uploaded to the service’s servers? YouTube has, and has put together this awesome site to help you visualise it. Basically, every second that passes in the real world, an hours’ worth…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2012 -
UncategorizedJailed Megaupload Founder Loses His Call of Duty Crown
Bizarrely, the imprisoned founder of file-sharing site Megaupload – Kim Dotcom, formerly Kim Schmitz—was also until this week the world’s number one Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 gamer on Xbox Live. A week in the slammer will do things to your top ranking, though, and while he’s been cooling off in a New Zealand…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
Forget MacBook Pro, This Guy Is Playing His Xbox 360 at Starbucks
At Starbucks, you see people with their iPads, their MacBooks, and, yes, their gaming portables. What you don’t usually see are people with their home consoles. There’s a reason for that! “Home consoles” are called “home consoles”, because gamers play them at home. “Portable consoles” like the 3DS and the PS Vita are created for…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 24, 2012 - Culture
Some Burly Dudes From Mass Effect 3 (and Some Mass Effect Guns)
As a principal artist at BioWare, and before that EA, Rodrigue Pralier has built (and dressed) some pretty badass game characters over the years, up to and including a certain Commander Shepard. Working on the Mass Effect series Pralier has helped build some cool models and costumes, including Shepard in some Mass Effect 2 DLC…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2012 -
UncategorizedIdiot TV Program In Serious Trouble For Using Game Footage as “News”
Late last year, a British documentary used footage from a video game and amazingly labelled it as a secret IRA recording. It has now, a few months later, been given a severe dressing-down. British communications regulator Ofcom, which began an investigation into the incident last October, has this week issued its report on the matter,…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2012 - Uncategorized
The Occupy Movement Needs an Arcade Cabinet. Help It Get One.
The Oakland branch of the Occupy movement is moving off the streets and into an abandoned building later this week. In doing so, they get facilities like kitchens, meeting rooms, etc. All that’s missing is an arcade machine. So Anna Anthropy wants to build them one. It’ll run on batteries, move on wheels and should…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2012