The Week in Review: Hot Fun in the Summertime

When I was a kid, summer meant saving up my paperboy money for two things: Fireworks and video games. Both necessities converged in 1985 – which staggers me to realize it was 25 years ago. Growing up in a newspaper family, the big deal each July was the North Carolina Press Association’s “Summer Institute.” NCPA…

Why Is StarCraft So Popular In Korea?

StarCraft might not be South Korea’s national pastime, but that doesn’t mean sometimes it seems like it is. While not everyone in South Korea plays StarCraft (or plays computer games, for that matter), the game is big there. No, it’s huge — twelve years after it launched. There are professional StarCraft leagues, pro StarCraft players…

Designing Beautiful Guns For Video Games

Pascal Eggert, gun nut and currently artist at Crysis developers Crytek, got his job doing what he loves: designing firearms for video games. Some of you may think he’s crazy, but I think having someone onboard who is so into his shit that he designs not only a weapon’s appearance but its inner mechanics as…

Let’s Get A Good Look At Square Enix’s Halo: Reach Action Figures

Square Enix, in addition to making fancy video games, also makes a fancy toy or two. The company’s Play Arts Kai line of highly detailed figures is welcoming Halo: Reach to the fold with two waves of posh toys. Halo: Reach’s Noble Team squad will be immortalized in high grade materials starting this fall, when…

The Arguments For, And Against, Another Jaws Video Game

There have been two (well, technically three) games based on the world’s first Summer blockbuster, 1975’s Jaws. And they all sucked. Doesn’t the quintessential underwater villain deserve better? Ashcraft, our resident film expert, and myself, our resident shark hater, decided to find out. What follows is an informal email discussion on the subject, which begins…

Marvel vs Capcom 3 vs Comic-Con Screenshots

It may not be making an appearance at this year’s Gamescom, but Capcom’s Marvel vs Capcom 3 is in attendance at this year’s Comic-Con. We’ve seen some new characters and new trailers for the game already, but here are some new screenshots, showing off the game’s roster of both two-legged and four-legged characters.

These Three Screenshots Are From The Same Game

Three screenshots, all from the same PlayStation 3 game. Look closely and you can figure out which one. Credit the developers for diversity of content, shall we?

scii sweden

scii taiwan

scii korea

scii moscow

SCII paris

Space Combat Is Part Of Star Wars: The Old Republic

While running about doing quests and exploring planets makes up most of the Star Wars: The Old Republic experience, during a Comic-Con panel today, BioWare revealed that space combat will play a part in the massively multiplayer role-playing game. What good are free spaceships if you can’t use them? At today’s Star Wars; The Old…

SCII Australia

Images courtesy of Kotaku Australia

THQ Blames RDR for MIA UFC

UFC Undisputed 2010’s poor sales, earlier reported to be down more than 50 percent from last year’s breakout hit UFC 2009 Undisputed, now have a reason: THQ says Red Dead Redemption sucked up all the oxygen in May. “Our sales were softer than where we would have liked them to be,” THQ’s Jon Rooke, the…

A Tour of Capcom’s Comic-Con Booth

Didn’t make it to Comic-Con? Don’t worry neither did we. But Capcom did and they were nice enough to film this video for us of their booth. Man, it’s packed in there, even the Capcom guy, WITH a camera, had to wait in line in the Capcom booth. Insane.

Kane & Lynch 2 Achievements! Kane & Lynch 2 Achievements Here! Who’s Ready?!

As we reported earlier, the Kane & Lynch 2 demo is already available for PlayStation Plus subscribers, with the rest of you rabble getting it on July 27. IO Interactive also released the full game’s trophy and achievement set today. Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days releases on Aug. 17. Here’s all the glory you’ll…

How To Write A Post Apocalyptic RPG, The Fallout: New Vegas Way

It starts with a box, says the developer of the follow up to the hugely successful Fallout 3. Oh, but don’t call that box a post apocalyptic role-playing game. That’s a pretty crappy way to describe it. So says, Fallout: New Vegas lead creative designer John Gonzalez, the man responsible for the over-arching story in…

You Are Much Smaller Than This Pixel

And now for some much-needed perspective on our place in the universe, courtesy of science and Photoshop. In this image, we see our fiery life-giving orb the Sun, represented as a single pixel. And this is the more flattering picture. The sun, as the story goes, is a mass of incandescent gas; a gigantic nuclear…

Thor Kicks a Puppy in Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Were I Thor, this isn’t the debut I’d want to make, being paired against Amaterasu from Okami. Because if you win, which he is, briefly, you’re a god beating the crap out of a dog. And if you lose … We’d heard earlier that Thor and Amaterasu would be a part of the lineup. That…