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Here’s Your Full First Season of Retro Game Master, Why Not Have a Viewing Party?
Last week we wrapped up our first experimental season of Retro Game Master Sure this is the Internet, but we thought it would be fun to run a full season of the first official U.S. airing of the popular Japanese television program, known as Game Center CX in Japan, as if it were airing on…
By Brian Crecente Published September 23, 2011 -
UncategorizedThe Beautiful, Mysterious Classic Another World is Reborn on iOS
Silence and danger; stark, foreboding mystery, and the wonders of a truly alien world. Eric Chahi’s Another World stands as one of the great video games of the 1990’s, a testament to the power of one man’s creative vision. It was a game that was so far ahead of its time that many of today’s…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
Blizzard: Diablo III Hits Early 2012
Looks like we’re going to have to make do with a beta for longer than some of us had hoped, Blizzard this morning said that Diablo III won’t be hitting computers until early next year. “With every game we make, the temptation is always very strong to launch as soon as possible. However, we didn’t…
By Brian Crecente Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
New World Order
The BRIC group of nations – that’s Brazil, Russia, India and China – have never looked cuter than in this pixel art. | by Dave Wilson Dark Souls: My First 24 Hours in Hell I’m now 24 hours into Dark Souls, the successor to 2009’s brilliant and challenging role-playing game Demon’s Souls. I have, of…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
An Xbox, a PlayStation and Batman Walk Into a Bar…
Actually, it’s not a bar. It’s a Chinese market, where this abomination hails from, bringing together the very worst in Xbox, PlayStation and ill-advised superhero movie sequels. Called the Battman, there’s something that looks a lot like an Xbox, only it’s in a hideous “Christmas Tree” colour scheme. There are also two controllers that look…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Culture
We may Never Play the Aliens RPG, but we can Look at its Concept Art
There once was a time Obsidian was making an RPG based on the Aliens universe. That game has since been cancelled, but today we’re looking at some art done for the project by Charles Lee. We’ll also be looking at some of his other stuff, as he’s also recently been involved in the production of…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 -
UncategorizedPlay the Layton RPG, From Some guys who Made Mother 3
Nintendo studio Brownie Brown helped make Mother 3. It also, quietly, made a Professor Layton role-playing game, available only in the Japanese and American versions of DS game Professor Layton and The Last Specter It’s called Professor Layton’s London Life, and while it was a “mere” unlockable in the Japanese version, in the US edition…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
Let Mr. Zelda Walk you Through Zelda’s Most Notorious Dungeon
The earlier Zelda games were tough, but ask most people on the street what the toughest dungeon in the entire series is and they’ll probably say it’s Ocarina of Time’s Water Temple. Even over a decade on, it still hurts to say it out loud. Water Temple Ungh. I never thought it was that hard…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
Don’t Blame Team Ninja for Metroid: Other M’s Story
The latest Metroid game, Other M, took some…liberties with the universe’s story, and what it did to hero Samus in particular didn’t go down too well. Many people blame the game’s developers, Team Ninja for this, but that’s not very fair. You need to blame someone from Nintendo instead. Something Team Ninja is only too…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
The Snatcher Radio Drama has Been (Unofficially) Translated
Reader Peter was “sick at the end of last week and had a few days off work”. So he did whatever a good man does and translated the first two episodes of the Snatcher radio drama, Sdatcher
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
Remember, Electronic Arts Won’t let you Sue Them, Either
While Sony’s new “don’t sue us” terms of service are terrible, let’s not focus just on Sony. Other companies are now free to do the same thing One example: Electronic Arts. If you scroll down to the bottom of EA’s most recent terms of service, which includes both accounts made for the publisher’s online services…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 -
UncategorizedThis Looks Like the Worst (and yet Best) Game On Kinect
You might watch this trailer for Michael Phelps: Push the Limit on Kinect and wince. At the awful acting, the uncomfortable hand gestures, at the sight of a man in speedos bending over more than once. You might then, and this is entirely reasonable, decide never to watch it again. But then you’d be missing…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
Uncharted Once had “Elements of Tolkien” In it (wha?)
Uncharted, Naughty Dog and Sony’s sexier, more contemporary take on Romancing the Stone, was at one stage a little more Romancing the Grail/Maiden/Orcs, according to a former developer. Speaking with NowGamer, ex-Naught Dog environment modeller Don Poole reveals “We were talking about a more ‘realistic’ game in terms of how it was modelled and rendered…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
Deus Ex Mod Removes “Gold” Filter, Game Suddenly Looks Even Better
Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s “gold” filter may be a visual trademark, but it also affects the way you see the game world. A new mod for the PC version removes this (and makes a few other changes), and boy, do things look different. The ENBSeries mod for the game, made by the same community responsible…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - CultureTotal Recall
It’s the end of the World as This Game Knew it (and Nobody Felt Fine)
Our younger readers won’t have lived through it, but the 1980s were in in many ways a bleak time, the spectre of nuclear holocaust hanging over the world for much of the decade. For such a dominant political topic, however, few games chose to address the subject head-on. Ground Zero was one of the few.…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 23, 2011 - Uncategorized
Is MMO Loot a ‘Jackpot’ Under the Law?
Video games regulators in South Korea say MMO publishers there have obstructed an investigation into “jackpot items,” predicated on the idea that players risking in-game currency for random-item payoffs is in fact a form of gambling. While publishers have cooperated so far as to provide the virtual items’ names and virtual costs involved, they haven’t…
By Owen Good Published September 22, 2011 - Uncategorized
Sniper Voice Actor’s Book Picks Up Plugs from Team Fortress 2 “Reviewers”
You may not be familiar with the name “John Patrick Lowrie.” You probably are familiar with the name “Sniper,” whom Lowrie voices in Team Fortress 2. He’s just published the novel Dancing With Eternity and, well, his friends are giving it some kind reviews on Amazon. Heavy gave it five of five stars: Even if…
By Owen Good Published September 22, 2011 - Uncategorized
Valve Wants to Release DotA 2‘s Beta “as Fast as we can”
How very unlike Valve. In a post on the game’s official blog, DotA 2 developers say that while they had planned to keep testing the game for another year or so in a very private beta, they now want to “get it out there as fast as we can”. “Our original plan was to spend…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 22, 2011 - Uncategorized
Dark Souls: My First 24 Hours in Hell
I’m now 24 hours into Dark Souls, the successor to 2009’s brilliant and challenging role-playing game Demon’s Souls. I have, of course, died many times in my struggle to become un-undead. I have killed a half-dozen of its major demons, explored deeply its open world, but have just barely begun to scratch its hard surface.…
By Michael McWhertor Published September 22, 2011 - Uncategorized
In Between System Shock and BioShock, We Almost Had Irrational’s Dungeon Duel
Over at the Irrational Games’ Blog, the BioShock Infinite developer has posted concept art and documents from an old, abandoned game called Dungeon Duel. The game had made it all the way to development back in 2002, based off of a pitch that described it as a “fast-paced RTS strategy with the addictiveness of card…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 22, 2011