This Is Much Better

AKB48 member Mayu Watanabe was immortalized in Xenoblade CG for a commercial to promote the game. The end result was not so great. At the moment, AKB48 is the most popular idol group in Japan. It has many members. Mayu Watanabe is one of them. Above is what Mayu actually looks like. Say “hi” to…

Duct Tape And A Bag Of Rice Helps Disabled Man Get In The Game

Steve Spohn suffers from muscular dystrophy, leaving him physically limited. But thanks to duct tape, a bag of rice and an Xbox 360 controller, he can still get his game on. Evil Controllers, a company based in Arizona, specialises in modifying existing console peripherals to suit those with special needs. Like Spohn, for whom EC’s…

It’s Time For Star Wars Corsets [Update]

Currently, I’m not in the market for a corset. Perhaps one day, I will be. Right now? No siree. That doesn’t mean you aren’t though! Custom corset maker Evening Arwen has this “Galactic Lord Corset” and this “Galactic Trooper Corset”. (The “Galactic” moniker is code for please-don’t-sue-us-George-Lucas!) They ain’t cheap! The Galactic Lord bit is…

Star Fox’s New Friend Fights Like A Dairy Cow

Global dairy superpower Arla sure knows how to sell milk in Sweden: with Starfox, on the Super Nintendo. This new commercial, set in present-day Sweden, kicks off with a small boy in a rad knitted sweater playing some Starfox. There’s even a barrel roll. To keep his energy levels up, he can turn to a…

A Week In Comments

The Beauty of Human Error, Committed by a Computer Umpire Comment by: dandank Nominated by: BryanH Now I’ll admit that I don’t typically play sports games, but I have a theory: Say the game is set to call everything perfectly without error. If the game’s controls over the in-game players allow you to consistently replicate…

My Wii Remote Suddenly Isn’t Cuddly Enough

A pair of new Sesame Street games will come bundled with the cutest, furriest Wii Remote accessories we’ve ever seen, transforming the peripherals from hard plastic blocks into cuddly Cookie Monsters. Later this Fall, Warner Bros. will be releasing Elmo’s A-to-Zoo Adventure and Sesame Street: Cookie’s Counting Carnival. They’ll probably be forgettable Wii edutainment/shovelware, but…

What The Hell Is A Pinger?

“The Pinger attacks E3 2010,” warns this trailer for Crytek’s Crysis 2. Again I ask, what the hell is a Pinger? Oh. That’s a Pinger. It looks like a Metal Gear and a Cylon had amazing robot sex. I suppose I can get behind that. After all, the only acceptable porn these days is robot…

The Chinese Transformer Is More Than Meets The Eye

China copies pretty much everything else out there, so it only stood to reason they’d eventually get around to doing their own Transformer. Unlike most other Chinese knock-offs, though, this one’s pretty damn impressive. Built by students at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts and standing 32 feet tall (and weighing four tons), it’s…

Watch The Entire Red Dead Redemption “Short Film”

The half-hour “short film” for Red Dead Redemption, directed by Hollywood man John Hillcoat (The Proposition, The Road), screened on TV a few weeks back. Most of you missed that, though, so here it is. It’s…stylish, in a way, but no more stylish than the game’s regular cutscenes. And the speed at which is blows…

How Gadgets Are Rewiring Our Brains & How Games May Be Helping

Having access to the internet and its petabytes of easily available information is, for many of us, a good thing. Well, with the exception of our brains, which are being constantly distracted by e-mails, instant messages and video games. The New York Times explores the impact of a constant connection on the human brain’s ability…

LittleBigPlanet Meets Heavy Rain, Jam Is Spilled

The cuteness of Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet, with its adorable Sackboys, just waiting to be dressed, seems like an odd crossover for murder mystery and kidnapfest Heavy Rain. But cross the two PlayStation 3 games shall this week! Whether you prefer to dress your Sackboy in the leather jacket of Jayden or the facial hair of…

Twenty-Five Years Later, Goonies Still Never Say Die

With no sequel, no reboot, no spinoffs – just one movie and one video game – The Goonies is a rarity, a phenomenon supported by two decades of nearly unexploited nostalgia. The film’s 25th anniversary of its release is today. This weekend in Astoria, Ore., the real-life setting of the 1985 film saw a gala…

Gears 3 Screens

Hoard, A Game About Dragons, Treasure & Kidnapping Princesses

The PlayStation 3 and PSP get twin stick shooting action and fire-breathing dragons with Hoard, coming this fall. We’ll see it at E3 in person, first details at the PlayStation.blog

There’s A Little Captain In Fable III

The makers of the Xbox 360 and PC role-playing game with an emphasis on “touch,” Fable III, introduce us to the mysterious Captain, “a pretty angry man with a fierce smoking habit and wet boots.” Why is his name a mystery? Will E3 reveal more?

Pissed-Off Parents Find Math Game Too Violent for School

An action-packed math game students enjoy playing is a little too fun for some parents of the Albuquerque schools, one of whom went as far as accusing it of fostering video games addiction. KOAT-TV of Albuquerque ran a piece earlier about DimensionM, an edutainment game produced by Tabula Digital, which promises “all the action and…

We’re Due For A *Lot* Of Sonic Adventure

Surprise! Looks like Sega is planning to reissue Dreamcast and GameCube Sonic the Hedgehog games Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure DX to the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Hey… you don’t look very surprised. Why not? Oh! Because the ports of both versions of Sonic Adventure have been slowly leaking from Sega via Xbox Live…

Transportation Strike Delays Battlefield Bad Company 2 Patch

A transportation strike in Romania, of all things, is being blamed for a delay in the next Battlefield: Bad Company 2 patch on the PC. In a thread on the EA UK forums, DICE producer Barrie Tingle confirmed the patch has been sent to EA Europe’s QA department in Romania, but it isn’t being worked…

Take Your Shot With These Xbox Live Arcade Deals

Xbox 360 owners and fans of shooting things at other things, best to take advantage of these fine Xbox Live Arcade deals before E3 rolls around next week, tempting you will all-new shiny video games to covet. The deals are none too shabby on must-have titles like Peggle and Battlefield 1943, as well as other…

Modern Warfare: Frozen Crossing Outdoes The Previous Best Call of Duty Fan Film

How can this short action flick manage to knock out the previous title holder for best fan made Call of Duty movie? It’s bigger, bloodier and has a more substantial budget. And it’s from the same creative team. The second chapter of Niko Pueringer and Sam Gorski’s Modern Warfare: Frozen Crossing makes use of its…