• Uncategorized

  Houston Chronicle: Video Game Racism “The New Norm”?

  No, not that guy. Norm, as in, status quo. As in, we’ve masticated the shooting-black-people argument in Resident Evil 5, now let’s pile on Call of Juarez and an unreleased game for good measure. It’s a blog post that’s a bit too sensitive and an argument that’s a bit too convenient and dramatic for my…

  By Owen Good Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Xbox Live Update: Games On Demand, Netflix Movie Party & More

  Next week, Microsoft will be previewing some of the new Xbox Live changes it announced at E3, updates that include improvements to Netflix streaming, Xbox 360 games on demand, an Avatar Marketplace and a whole lot more. That preview will roll out to media and select Xbox Live community members starting Monday. It includes new…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Sony Tries Pay-To-Play Arcade Pricing On PSN

  Japanese PlayStation 3 owners can experience the thrill of depositing credits to continue with today’s release of 100 Yen Gomibako, a special release of the PlayStation Network game known as Trash Panic in the West. This version of Trash Panic will cost only 100 yen—about one U.S. dollar—to download. But those who purchase it will…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Nobuo Uematsu Sells Out San Francisco

  If you missed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu in Seattle last weekend and you don’t have tickets to this weekend’s show in San Francisco, you’ll just have to move to Japan and stalk him. The July 18th San Francisco performance of Distant Worlds: the music of FINAL FANTASY sold out within weeks of the tickets…

  By AJ Glasser Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Spyborgs Gets Box Art, Drop Date

  Capcom just announced a drop date in North America for Spyborgs, its Wii-exclusive co-op brawler, and it is Sept. 29. It’ll set you back $49.99, of course. You may recall Spyborgs went off to a less-than-whelming reception in 2008, and Capcom took the shoulder-shrugs to heart. The game you’ll get is less of an homage…

  By Owen Good Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Shadow Complex Has Peter David Written All Over It

  Chair Entertainment‘s brilliant looking Metroid-esque adventure Shadow Complex appears to have some storytelling meat to it, not just tried and true side-scrolling gameplay. The developer announced today that comic book scribe Peter David penned the game’s original story. That story is based on the works of Orson Scott Card, whose novel Empire the Xbox Live…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Wii MotionPlus Sales Off To A Good Start

  June may not have been a good month for the video game industry, but the prospects for Nintendo’s motion-controller are looking promising. First month sales for Wii MotionPlus were what we’d consider a pretty good start. First month figures for the Wii Remote add-on were “nearly 374,000” according to the NPD Group. That was split…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  The Fantastic Fieldrunners Makes The PAX 10

  Fieldrunners, the pretty successful tower defense title for the iPhone, landed a spot today in the Penny Arcade Expo’s PAX 10 indie game selections. If you don’t own an iPhone, you might know the game from a panel I covered at a Game Developers Conference 2009 called “No Publisher? No Problem! iPhone for Indies.” Fieldrunner…

  By AJ Glasser Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Fun With Feynman

  To: Bash From: Crecente Re: Photoshop Alternative? Are you familiar with Richard Feynman, Safecracker, bongo-player, and, oh yes, physicist? While his eccentric personal life (he used a topless bar as an office while at Caltech and included among his hobbies safecracking, juggling, bongo painting and painting.) helped propel his name to fame, it was his…

  By Brian Crecente Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  NPD Instant Analysis: Things You Should Note [UPDATE]

  EA finally gets the Wii, and not in a way that will excite hardcore gamers. Ghostbusters goes missing. PSP jumps. And more observations you can use at cocktail parties from today’s June NPDs. (Check out our software and hardware reports for June here… then read this analysis and add yours.) EA Nails The Wii, Thanks…

  By Stephen Totilo Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Prototype, UFC Beat Up The Competition In June

  U.S. consumers liked what they saw in Activision’s Prototype making the open world action game June’s bestselling title by an impressive margin. Last month, its single-console sales doubled those of the game it was often compared to, Infamous. The same was true for THQ’s UFC 2009 Undisputed, which topped U.S. game sales in May. The…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  U.S. Console Sales Take Another Big Hit In June

  The NPD Group‘s sales figures for the month of June are in and they are not pretty. On the hardware side, sales dropped a painful 38% year-over-year, with nearly every console seeing a drop in sales from June of 2008. Month-to-month, things improved over May’s sales. But seeing big declines from the previous June were…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  PlayStation Store Update: Summer Savings

  North American PlayStation 3 owners looking for cheaper PlayStation Network games should run, not walk, to the online store. In addition to plenty of new stuff, the old stuff has been kindly marked down. Savings can be had for the next week on games like Wipeout HD, Savage Moon, PixelJunk Eden and more, some of…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  New Pro Evo 2010 Screens: Liverpool vs Barca

  While Konami are reluctant to show any gameplay footage, they’ve no such qualms about releasing in-game screenshots of the upcoming Pro Evo 2010. Here you’ll find some in-game shots, pictures of the new “card” strategy system, along with shots highlighting the improvement to the player models over last year’s version.

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Is Team Fortress 2’s Soldier Trying To Tell Us Something?

  Yesterday, Team Fortress 2‘s Soldier class took over the game’s official blog to inform players of new avatars and instruct them on the ways of military masculinity. Some speculative TF2 fans believe there’s something more substantive to that update. One theory currently running through the game’s Steam forums—a dark and dangerous place—is that the Soldier…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Resident Evil 5 PC Dated, Benchmarked

  Capcom not only brings us the final September release date for Resident Evil 5 on the PC, but a benchmark program to see if we’re better off buying a console instead. New costumes, an improved Mercenaries mode, and support for NVIDIA’s new GeForce 3D Vision tech will have PC gamers lording their superior versions of…

  By Mike Fahey Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  Taking Tony Hawk For Another Ride

  I came. I saw. I fell off the skateboard. Once. Gently. Not being known to be exceptionally skilled at video games, I play them anyway. But having limited athletic skill and no ability to roller-skate, I’ve never tried to skateboard more than a foot. Who better to try out the new Tony Hawk game played…

  By Stephen Totilo Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  New Star Wars: The Force Unleashed DLC Spoiled By New Achievements

  LucasArts may be ready to drop some new downloadable content for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, as five new Xbox 360 achievements have expanded not only the possible gamerscore, but the game’s character roster as well. Warning, spoilers ahead. The five new achievements boost the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed achievement count from 1220—220 of…

  By Michael McWhertor Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  At Least Sega’s Monkey Ball Countdown Is Interactive

  It may be another countdown clock, but Sega’s mysterious Jackpot page does have one thing most others don’t – a clickable button. Between that and the hidden Super Monkey Ball reference, we’re intrigued. It’s just a tiny difference, but we’ll take what we can get. The countdown page, located at www.Sega.com/Jackpot, features a circular tumbler…

  By Mike Fahey Published July 16, 2009
• Uncategorized

  And Now For The Games Inspired By Summer Blockbusters…

  We took a look yesterday at the games based on Summer’s biggest blockbuster movies. Today, let’s switch things up, and look at the games inspired by the movies. There’s a key difference! Unlike licensed fare, which are forced to stick to the plot and characters of the film, these games simply take a motivational cue…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 16, 2009