• Uncategorized

  Report: Zynga Creators Wanted To Buy PopCap

  According to Forbes, Zynga, the folks behind FarmVille, CityVille and Mafia Wars, apparently wanted to buy PopCap, which was recently sold to EA for $750 million, for $1 billion in cash. [Gamasutra]

  By Brian Ashcraft Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Netflix Hits the 3DS Today, 3D Movies On the Way

  Starting today, Nintendo 3DS owners across the United States and Canada can download a free application that allows Netflix members to watch TV episodes and movies streaming from Netflix with an Internet connection. The 3DS will also also soon have access to “an additional library of select movies” that can be viewed in 3D, Nintendo…

  By Brian Crecente Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Lady Goes Bananas over Zelda Commercial Appearance

  Robin Williams and his daughter are in a commercial for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. They both were probably pretty stoked, but did they go mental? Like this? This is nerd heroine and Pokémon queen Shoko Nakagawa, who previously freaked out on her blog when she bought Ocarina of Time 3D. Now…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Get Your Call of Duty Convention Tickets July 19

  Tickets for Activision’s paintball-playing, Modern Warfare 3-sampling, fundraiser celebration of all things Call of Duty go on sale July 19, at 10 a.m. Tickets for the two-day event will sell for $150 with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit that helps returning veterans find employment. The Sept.…

  By Brian Crecente Published July 14, 2011
• Culture

  Where Does Batman Get All This Wonderful Concept Art?

  There may be over seventy years worth of Gotham City imagery to draw from, but that doesn’t mean the developers of Batman: Arkham City were allowed to get lazy. Continuing on from their work on Arkham Asylum, the artists at Rocksteady Studios have again drawn on the inspiration of famous comics, awesome cartoons and the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• 

  Uncategorized

  It’s Minecraft, (Sort of) Running On the Nintendo DS

  A DS homebrew developer by the name of smealum is taking indie smash Minecraft and bringing it to Nintendo’s portable system. Unofficially, of course. At this stage there’s not much running but the world itself and the ability to smash blocks around, but it’s a start! Hopefully he can get some other stuff, like random…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Where Zelda Meets…Magic Cards?

  A Games Radar contributor by the name of KREATIVEassassin has built an entire 242-card deck of Magic cards. Out of characters and locations from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past What’s great about these is that it looks like you could actually use them, as he’s gone to the trouble of not…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Does Working at Square Enix Suck?

  Square Enix makes Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Making those games might not be easy. It might be hard. Really hard. No fun hard. Making video games is not easy. But some companies, like Insomniac are supposedly terrific places to work, with employees skipping to work. Singing. But does working at Square Enix totally bite?…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  The Horror of Mario’s Enemies

  It’s a good thing the early Mario games were so low-fi. If they’d shown your enemies in as high a resolution as they appear here, we’d have all been crapping our childhood pants. These, uh, interpretations of some of Mario’s foes were drawn by Mike Puncekar. Some of them, like Lakitu, are just cool. But…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• 

  Uncategorized

  Watch Ezio’s Dad at Work This November

  Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, the series of short, live-action films serving as a prequel to Assassin’s Creed II (and its own to “sequels”), will be out on DVD this November. To be released by New Video, they’ll be collected into the single volume on DVD and Blu-ray and released on November 15. Included with the set…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• 

  Uncategorized

  Let’s Look at Nintendo Video. Together!

  It might not be exciting, but Nintendo Video is free. And that’s all that counts, no? Nintendo recently launched a new video service cleverly called Nintendo Video. Geddit? In the above clip, I check out some of the new clips and recommend that you attend a fashion show in Tokyo. You really should. Really.

  By Brian Ashcraft Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  The Strange Studio Born of Two Rival Companies

  The Ridge Racer game for Sony’s upcoming PlayStation Vita will be the product of a unique studio: one that was established not by one major publisher, but as part of a partnership between two Cellius, the developer in question, is a joint venture between Sony Computer Entertainment and Namco Bandai, born of 2007 negotiations between…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Bread. In a Can.

  Mmm. Bread. Delicious (well, somewhat) canned bread. In Japan, canned bread is a tasty treat for otaku. Don’t believe me? Among the t-shirts and hug pillows being offered at an upcoming event for Xbox 360 game Dream Club, there are cans of bread. The cans feature characters from the virtual hostess game. If you’ve never…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Yup, Another Obscure Japanese Game is Coming to the PC

  Carpe Fulgur, the same guys who brought 2010 surprise hit Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale to the West, is back with another obscure Japanese game soon to be an obscure Japanese games with English language localisation. Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone will be CF’s next title, their third (the second being Chantelise) since…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Two Million People Signed Up to Test a Call of Duty Community Feature

  The beta test for Call of Duty Elite kicks off tomorrow, with invitations to be sent out to those selected for the the first run. Does that mean you? Maybe. Depends if you signed up to test something that’s not even a game! The first emails for successful applicants (of which there were around two…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• CultureTotal Recall

  The Mario Movie Could Have Been so Much Better

  The Mario movie we ended up with in 1993 was nothing like the games it was based on. An earlier draft for the film, however, was a lot more faithful. It’s impossible to tell whether it would have been any good, of course, but in sticking to the basics of the Mushroom Kingdom it at…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 14, 2011
• 

  Uncategorized

  You Can Win for Losing in Super Smash Bros.

  From the creator of “Elemental Kombat” comes this, a tale of cosmic justice delivered when some guy wins four in a row with Kirby in Super Smash Bros and starts douching it up. He totally had that coming.

  By Owen Good Published July 13, 2011
• Uncategorized

  Microsoft has Rights to Make Another South Park XBLA Game

  Microsoft has a two-game deal with Comedy Central for its South Park license, which implies that another Xbox Live Arcade game could be on the way, following 2009’s South Park: Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! Joystiq uncovered that nugget in a discussion with Prithvi Virasinghe of 345 Games, which is the games production arm of…

  By Owen Good Published July 13, 2011
• Uncategorized

  The Big Games and the Can’t Miss Events of Comic-Con 2011

  Are you going to this year’s San Diego Comic-Con? Then you must love video games, a medium that has a stronger presence than ever at the annual gathering of people passionate about comic books, toys, superheroes, sci-fi and everything nerdy enough to pack a convention center. Video games are big—really big—at this year’s show. Top…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 13, 2011
• Uncategorized

  NBA Jam Creator Leaves EA Sports for Zynga

  Mark Turmell, the creator of the NBA Jam series that saw a revival last year on modern consoles, has left EA Sports for the social games developer Zynga, Kotaku has learned. Turmell’s is the latest in a string of notable departures from EA Tiburon, one of two EA Sports studios and the production site of…

  By Owen Good Published July 13, 2011