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Category Shuffle Improves Video Game Composers’ Shot at Grammy
In March, a five-year-old song for Civilization IV became the first original composition for a video game soundtrack to win a Grammy. While no award has been created specifically for video game scores – in fact, more than 30 categories have been eliminated for next year – a renaming of four categories means games will…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
Study of 1980s Gamers Finds Them Less Likely to be College Graduates
A researcher at Oxford University queried adults who were 16 years old in 1986 and found a correlation between an interest in video gaming and a lower likelihood of going on to college. The researcher himself is a PC gamer – four hours a week, he says – and appreciates that video gaming as an…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
You Won’t Have To Wait So Long For L.A. Noire‘s Pre-order ‘Bonuses’ To Become DLC
Next week, a trio of Red Dead Redemption‘s pre-order bonuses—the Deadly Assassin Outfit, the Golden Guns Weapon Pack and the War Horse—will finally be made available as downloadable content via Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. If you’ve been waiting for those digital rewards, you’ve been waiting for close to year. Rockstar says that won’t happen…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 -
UncategorizedMaking a Point About the Pointlessness of Unboxing Videos
Having done only one unboxing – and it was of fried chicken – I feel I may post this video without it being an overt display of my hypocrisy. Unboxing videos have always struck me like childbirth videos, albeit without the blood, umbilical cord, placenta, etc. As YouTube’s Cool Gear Reviews notes, they’re exciting only…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
Alice: Madness Returns Returns With Some Very Lovely Images
Spicy Horse’s long-in-the-waiting sequel to 2000’s American McGee’s Alice looks lovelier than ever in a quintet of new images released by Electronic Arts today. See the intricate detail of Alice’s vorpal blade and pepper mill-on-evil teapot action in the gallery above. Alice: Madness Returns comes to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac and PC on…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
Sony’s Hosting Provider Calls Anonymous’ Cyber-Attack an ‘Annoyance’
Ars Technica reports that sources within Sony’s hosting provider belittled Anonymous’ cyber-attack as “medium strength,” and something that only “annoyed our network engineers.” The hosting service’s plan is to wait out Anonymous until the attackers get bored. Sony sites have gone up and down through the week, to the point that Anonymous called off an…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
The Shadow of E3 Looms In The Distance
Famicom Carts | Mint condition Nintendo games from Super Potato, from a long time ago. (Photo: Michael McWhertor) Bedtime Stories The Time Michelle Pfeiffer Healed a Lizard, and Other Ghost Stories from the Filming of Super Mario Bros: The Movie There’s a reason most people remember The Super Mario Bros. Super Show or The Wizard…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 -
UncategorizedYou’ve Never Heard A Game Boy Make Music Like This Before
Nintendo’s Game Boy is the instrument of choice for some musicians, due to its charming chiptune sound and the prominence Little Sound Dj. But artist Sebastian Bender has taken a different approach to using the 8-bit handheld as musical maker. Listen as Bender flicks, taps, scratches and drums the body of the Game Boy to…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 -
UncategorizedHas Someone Already Won a Million Dollars from MLB 2K11?
Yesterday someone uploaded a YouTube video purporting to show him completing 2K Sports’ Million Dollar Perfect Game Challenge in MLB 2K11. While it’s confirmation of nothing, it may signal another early end to the game’s sweepstakes promotion. [Warning: The audio gets very loud and NSFW after the final out.] Excusing the lag-fest and skipped audio,…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 -
UncategorizedUnless You’re Easily Offended, Meet The ‘Babes’ Of Duke Nukem Forever
One of these jiggling, scantily clad ladies may be the “babe” you’ll be slapping on the keister in Duke Nukem Forever‘s “Capture The Babe” mode. So why not familiarize yourself with the various fetishes and archetypes of the game’s fairer sex. Yes, there are schoolgirls and strippers and even girls wearing cat ears. Yes, Duke…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
Preorder Dungeon Siege III Through Steam, Get The First Two Games Free
Dungeon Siege III might be delayed, but that just gives Steam users more time to play through Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege II. They’ll get both games free as soon as their preorder goes through. That’s a lot of dungeons.
By Mike Fahey Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
Read Portal 2‘s Very Informative Digital Comic Right Now
As forewarned, Valve has released the first portion of its Portal digital comic at IGN. In it, we meet Rat Man, rank and file Aperture Science workers and learn more about the origins of GlaDOS. Read Portal 2: Lab Rat now.
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
What Are You Playing This Weekend?
The old PSP gets a little love from me this weekend, thanks to the copy of Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection that showed up at my door this week, courtesy of the FedEx man. Now, I’ve never played Final Fantasy IV, so I’ll be going into this fresher than most. I’ve played some Final…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
Sony Bigwig Trash Talks Nintendo 3DS and Hurts Our Feelings
During an interview with Fortune Magazine, SCEA’s charming CEO Jack Tretton discussed the company’s business strategies…and then indulged in some nasty smack talk. “If you’re really going to sustain technology for a decade, you have to be cutting edge when you launch a platform,” Tretton explains to the business mag. Reasonable enough. But the Playstaion…
By Drew Cohen Published April 8, 2011 -
UncategorizedExploding Barrels Have Their Revenge, Angry Birds Style
Fed up with his shitty flip phone’s inability to play a game of Angry Birds, one man turns to the most incendiary of video game cliches, the exploding barrel, to scratch his itch for destruction. This is the game of Angry Barrels. It’s the latest effort from special effectsperts Corridor Digital, makers of must-watch YouTube…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 -
UncategorizedMineCraft-Inspired FortressCraft Is Building Excitement On Xbox Live
While it may look and smell like Mojang’s hit PC building game MineCraft, ProjectorGames’ FortressCraft, now available via Xbox Live Indie Games, is a slightly different animal. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? If you love the building aspect of MineCraft but aren’t too keen on the actual harvesting of materials, then…
By Mike Fahey Published April 8, 2011 - Uncategorized
Where Does Portal 2‘s Co-Op Campaign Fit Into the Half-Life Universe?
From an interview with Valve Software’s Chet Faliszek from Beefjack.com: With regards to the co-op campaign, how does it fit in the Portal universe? Chet Faliszek: It has its own separate story, with its own characters, and takes place after the single-player game. GLaDOS has a little thing for you to do, and I’ll say…
By Joel Johnson Published April 8, 2011