S&M Toy Removed From Popular RPG

This is a “wooden horse”, used for torture in Japan during the 15th century’s Warring States Period. These days it’s used in S&M play. But it apparently won’t be torturing the ladies of popular Japanese role-playing game Disgaea 4. The upcoming PS3 title is set in the Netherworld’s prisons, and an early trailer showed characters…

Mouse Trap’s Got Nothing On Minecraft

This isn’t the first Rube Goldberg machine we’ve seen built in indie PC game Minecraft, but it’s certainly the most impressive. if things start off looking a little pedestrian, give it a few minutes. By the time you hit 3:30, things are picking up, and by around 4:30, they’re getting faintly ridiculous.

Late December Is Japan’s Last Big Chance To Play Dress Up

Comiket, née Comic Market, is a twice-yearl event held in Tokyo for self-published comic books. Fans flock not only to check out comics, but check out the cosplayers. The comics might be total originals or could feature new spins on established anime, manga or video game characters. Most of the works are published in short…

These Are Some Of The Guys Who Made Red Dead Look So Good

Half the visual appeal of Red Dead Redemption is in the landscapes. Those were done by Rockstar. But the other half is John Marston’s swagger, or the way a bandit gets caught in his horse’s stirrups. That was done by these guys. NaturalMotion is a company that specialises in, well, natural animation for video games,…

This DS Game Walks Along The Avenue, Never Thought It’d Meet A Girl Like You

Radiant Historia is an upcoming role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. It’s developed by cult favourites Atlus. Who, it seems, are big fans of cheesy 80’s pop. New screenshots for the English-language version of the game were released earlier today, and if you think the words in the text bubble up top look familiar, that’s…

Call of Duty Players Log More Than 600 Million Hours In 45 Days

Lending weight to CEO Bobby Kotick’s claim that Call of Duty is as much a social networking phenomenon as it is a video gaming one, Activision released numbers boasting of online time that, per user, surpasses the Facebook average. More than 20 million users on Call of Duty: Black Ops logged more than 600 million…

The Year In Disappointments

There were so many things to get excited about in 2010! So many things to cherish! Sadly, life isn’t all kittens and rainbows, and for every up, there must be a down. These are 2010’s biggest video gaming disappointments. Now, before we go any further, know that few of the things we’re listing below were…

Cataclysm Mouse Gallery

The PS3 May Have Just Had Its Front Door Kicked In

Forget jailbreak devices; the same team who broke the Wii wide open now claims to have done the same for the PlayStation 3, leaving Sony’s console at the mercy of homebrewers and pirates alike. During proceedings at the 27th Chaos Communication Conference, a group of hackers gave a presentation called “PS3 Epic fail”. You can…

Pioneering Games Developer Killed in Hit-and-Run

Brigitte Burdine, a casting director with credits spanning World of Warcraft, Killzone 2 and Mortal Kombat, was killed early this morning in a hit-and-run accident as she was walking home from a late-night date with her boyfriend. She was 48. Well known and admired for her work in an industry dominated by male co-workers and…

Introducing Fight Night Champion’s Introductions

Manny Pacquiao and Sugar Shane Mosley duel May 7 in one of 2011’s first big fights. By then, Fight Night Champion will have been out two months, and they will have fought repeatedly. Here’s what their introductions will look like. What say you? I know the video’s meant to showcase the intros, through which the…

ESRB Lists Xenogears, Three Other PS1 Classics

Four classic titles from Squaresoft (now Square Enix) have been rated by the ESRB for release on the PSP and PS3, indicating an imminent release to the North American PlayStation Store. Xenogears, plus Legend of Mana and Vagrant Story all have gotten Teen ratings, while Threads of Fate has been rated Everyone. Sony Computer Entertainment…

Monday Night Combat Is Half Off Today

Less than a month before it releases on Steam, Monday Night Combat has dropped to half off over Xbox Live Arcade for the time being. You can grab the cooperative/competitive shooter for just 600 Microsoft Points ($7.50) while supplies last. Clarification: The sale is for today only, says Uber Entertainment. For those who are buying…

LittleBigPlanet 2 Demo Available Now

Slated for release last week, LittleBigPlanet 2 arrived on the PlayStation Store today. The file weighs in a shade under 2 gigs. The 2,025 MB demo includes three playable levels – Rocket Funland, Avalon’s Advanced Armaments Academy and Tower of Whoop, plus three trailers detailing features of the new game. While you’re waiting for it…

Taking Down the Lights

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: A Seven Year-Old’s Shopping Spree Looks Like This My favorite childhood toys were probably those hard little plastic action figures you could buy in Thailand in the 70s. You’d set them up and then take turns trying to knock them down, like marbles. It was great. What you missed Man…

Games Pirate Loses House, Car and $350K in Piracy Sentencing

A software pirate whose employer discovered his $700,000 counterfeit-games operation will spend the next 2 1/2 years in federal prison. Qiang “Michael” Bi, 36, of Powell, Ohio, was sentenced today on charges of copyright infringement, mail fraud and identity theft for more than four years worth of selling pirated games at $10 a pop, reports…

Korean College Student Dies After 12-Hour Gaming Session

There seem to be few gaming stories out of Korea lately that don’t involve some sort of fatality. In this case, a 19-year-old college student died after a 12-hour-session with an FPS at an Internet parlor. The victim, identified only as “Moon,” started gaming at 2 a.m., took a break at 10:30 a.m. to get…

The Tester 2’s Grand Prize Winner Embraces Obscurity

Most reality show contestants are vying for a chance at fame and fortune. As the winner of the second season of Sony’s The Tester, Matthew “Gaymer” Brown sees his new game testing job as a chance to escape the spotlight. The Tester is a reality show produced by Sony for the PlayStation Network in which…

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Was My Most Played iPhone Game of the Holidays

On sale right now for just four bucks, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the iPhone game I’m spending the most time playing these days. It’s not because of the campaign, I’ve barely scratched the surface of the 15 or so levels, it that the controls seem fairly responsive and local multiplayer is a blast. I’ve…

Two Million Xbox 360 Gamers Have Played Castle Crashers

Independent developer The Behemoth got a rather lovely present on Christmas Day, when the Xbox Live Arcade version of Castle Crashers surpassed two million players. How will they celebrate? With an Xbox made of gold. Castle Crashers was a big hit when it was released in August of 2008, and sales haven’t slowed down much…