• Uncategorized

  Activision Goes Indie with Dark Reign on Xbox Live [Update]

  Dark Reign Redux, a remake of 1997’s Dark Reign: The Future of War, a real-time strategy game for PC, just published on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel yesterday, without Activision so much as stapling a flyer to a telephone pole or putting up a card on a café barter board for its marketing. [Update]…

  By Owen Good Published January 28, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Selling Your Soul

  The first big week for new releases is upon us, and while most everything is running full price, there are some incentives and values to be had for ordering online. First up, Soulcalibur V, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Neverdead, leading more than 50 other deals on hardware, software and digital downloads. Software • Jan. 31…

  By Owen Good Published January 28, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Gregethor Returns and is Robbed Blind in Live-Action Skyrim Sequel

  Having been thwarted in their efforts to loot Gregethor’s Convenience Store in Whiterun, (and taken a detour into Battlefield 3 by way of Dead Island) the Grosjean Bros. have returned to Gregethor’s home to take his most treasured possessions, including his cat, in this sequel to last week’s live-action Skyrim video. No bucket-on-the-head gags in…

  By Owen Good Published January 27, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Outrun Justice in this MegaUpload-Inspired Xbox Indie Game

  Well, that didn’t take long. The foaming outrage over the arrest of Kim Dotcom and the shutdown of his MegaUpload empire needed all of five days to result in this, MegaUP: Upload If You Can, a protest title released Wednesday on Xbox Live’s Indie Games service. Proceeds from the sale of the game (after Microsoft…

  By Owen Good Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Beware The Demon Death-Baby!

  Yow! Sorry for that. That was a pretty terrifying way to start off the open thread, I know. Everyone recovered? Welcome to the week-ending open-thread! I hope you’re as excited for the weekend as I am. That image is taken from a great list of weird toys you’ll find among the links we’ve tracked down…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  The Week in Unbelievably Gorgeous Screenshots: Bioshock and Mass Effect 2

  Since we ran a feature on Duncan Harris, the groovy “video game photographer” behind the website DeadEndThrills, I’ve been sharing some of his work each week here. This week Harris wrapped up Mass Effect 2 and dug into the original Bioshock, while throwing in a couple of enjoyable one-offs, as well. But first, he did…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Humans vs. Zombies Nerf Shootout Triggers Campus-Wide Alert

  I’d love to see the paperwork at N.C. State public safety after a Nerf-war staging of the popular “Humans vs. Zombies” tag game resulted in an emergency alert of gunmen roaming the campus. “Cause of disturbance: Zombie Apocalypse”? State (full disclosure: my alma mater) staged an HvZ event sometime this week. During daylight hours Wednesday,…

  Owen S. Good | Technician Published January 27, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  101 Seconds Of Soulcalibur V, Which Sure Seems Better Than IV

  I played a little bit of Soulcalibur V today. I recorded some of it, cut out all the parts where I lost horribly, and made this video for you to watch. I’ve got glimpses here for you of the story, the character creator and the excellent new Critical Gauge. Plus, I’ve got Ezio fighting for…

  By Nick Vannucci Published January 27, 2012
• Culture

  This Week in the Business: ‘PlayStation is the Most Powerful Game Brand in the World’

  What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “PlayStation is the most powerful game brand in the world.”—Jack Buser, Director of PlayStation Home, gives his obviously biased opinion on Sony’s gaming brand at a CES panel on the future of consoles QUOTE | “I think it’s over, and Zynga…

  Steve Peterson Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Glasses-Free 3D

  Glasses-Free 3D | Spike Lee, screening his latest feature Red Hook Summer at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, enjoyed some downtime with a 3DS at a promotional event held by Nintendo this past weekend. (Jason Merritt, Getty Images). The Soul Still Burns for the Week in Gaming Apps How does one of the greatest…

  By Owen Good Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Red Dead Redemption Voice-Actor Details Cast’s ‘Redneck Zombie Romantic Comedy’ quasi-reunion

  The cast of Red Dead Redemption are no strangers to rednecks, nor to zombies—Rockstar’s wild-west open world game featured plenty of the former in its original incarnation, and added an invasion of the latter added to the game via downloadable content. As we found out last fall, several members of the cast are reuniting to…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  The Soul Still Burns for the Week in Gaming Apps

  How does one of the greatest fighting games of all time wind up one of our least favorite gaming apps of the week? Was it the power of Chopin, the combination of Minesweeper and Minecraft, or the $11.99 price tag? I’m going to go with the price tag. If SoulCalibur for iOS was just a…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Check Out The Dramatic, Not-Quite-Emo New Trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines

  Slow-mo trailers are all the rage these days, usually depicting extreme violence set to moody, emo pop music. It’s certainly become a popular practice in gaming advertising, and with good reason—those moody, introspective ads for intense action games can be pretty cool. Case in point—the above trailer for Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines, which IGN posted…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  How BioWare Writes A Mass Effect Game

  You may think, with all the fighting and decision-making of two games, that you’re the one who ultimately controls the fate of Mass Effect‘s player-created hero Commander Shepard. You do not. The person actually in control of your Shepard’s destiny is BioWare lead writer Mac Walters, who heads up the team of writers who’ve been…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 27, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Everybody Was Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fighting, Even Chase the Chocobo

  Yesterday Square Enix released a video demonstrating all of the nifty things you can do instead of fighting in Final Fantasy XIII-2. Today? Today is all about the battles, which are arguably as entertaining. My favorite aspect of Final Fantasy XIII-2‘s battle system is definitely the ability to recruit monsters to your party. Every time…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Warning: I Dared To Imagine What Famous Video Games Would Smell Like.

  The 2012 Consumer Electronics Show has come and gone, and still no smell-o-vision inventor has stepped forward to wave the flag violently enough. The next big thing in movies—once they figure out 3D—is probably going to be smell-o-vision, and this will be pretty awesome, as long as you’re watching independent films about bakeries or pizzerias.…

  Tim Rogers Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Scientists Discover a New Pac-Man Frog

  Look at that badass up there! That, ladies and gents, is a Suriname horned frog, dubbed the “Pac-Man Frog.” According to Prensa Latina, scientists in the South American country of Suriname found 46 new species of animals, from insects to fish to frogs. One of those frogs was a new species of Pac-Man Frog, which…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Racial Epithet Shows Up on Minecraft Menu, Developer Apologizes [Update]

  The newest version of Minecraft greets players with the sentence “You are a NIGGER,” if they switch their language settings to Afrikaans, the language spoken in South Africa and Namibia. It appears to have been the doing of an unruly Minecraft user who was among many people who worked on language translations of the popular…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Mass Effect 3’s Multiplayer Turns You into Part of Shepard’s Kick-Ass Strike Team

  It was kind of surprising that Mass Effect 3‘s multiplayer looked better than expected. But this trailer makes it look like must-play content. You’ll see the various races of BioWare’s sci-fi universe playing through skirmishes as several classes, with missions that appear to happen all over the galaxy. Does this make you more excited or…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 27, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Developer Makes Disabled Gamer’s Wish Come True With an Arrow Click

  When a commenter on the website of Legend of Grimrock asked about clickable on-screen arrow navigation for the upcoming indie dungeon crawler, developers said they had no plans to implement such a feature. When they found out why the commenter asked, they quickly changed those plans. Legend of Grimrock commenter HarpoonIPA is a disabled gamer,…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012