Xbox

This Generation’s Best Final Fantasys Weren’t Named “Final Fantasy”

This console generation saw only a few Final Fantasy games during its time in the sun but luckily two of them were amazing. Of course, I am not talking about Final Fantasy XIV—decent as it is after its relaunch—or any of the Final Fantasy XIIIs. No, I’m talking about Lost Odyssey and The Last Story…

Obama Compares Health Insurance To Buying A PlayStation

Earlier this month, president Barack Obama mentioned Microsoft’s Xbox as a way to frame the government shutdown. Today, it’s PlayStation’s turn: this time, Obama’s comparing health insurance to Black Friday sales. Clearly the president of the United States understands how important it is to stay neutral in this high-stakes next-gen console war. If you’re the…

Halo‘s Half-Assed ‘Mister Chief’ Immortalized as an Xbox Live Avatar

Mister Chief came to us nearly 10 years ago, filling in for a Halo 2 promotional poster on the good ol’ Bungie Weekly Update. “A terrible idea that snowballed out of control,” says his creator. Now Mister Chief’s perpetually constipated, teeth-gritting expression finds its way to an Xbox Live avatar costume. Mister C. is the…

Xbox Live Survey: Three Percent of Users Don’t Approve of Free Games?

When it was announced back at E3, the free-games-for-paid-subscribers deal called Games With Gold was supposed to last only until the Xbox One’s launch. Well, now it is officially continued as an “ongoing benefit.” That’s not what caught my eye about the announcement, however. “According to recent surveys, 97 percent of participating members have given…

Just What You Always Wanted, A Mountain Dew-Themed Xbox One

Do you feel that the Xbox One’s bold, clean design is just a little bit too austere? Ever wish it could be livened up by some shiny green soft-drink branding? Well then! The above photo was tweeted by the media rep for Hendrick Motorsports, who field Nascar driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. She describes it as…

GTA Online, Log #3: In Search of a Big Score

Getting into the game? Finally, no longer a problem. Hooking up with friends for jobs and random open-world hijinks? Happening on a regular basis. But, now that the yearning for GTA Online to fulfill a basic set of expectations has been met, I find myself craving something else. Something bigger, made up of unpredictable randomness…

Need for Speed Rivals Looks Amazing Whether You Play It on PC or PS4

For one moment, the gap between playing a game on PC and on console seemed razor-thin. I played Need for Speed Rivals on both PC and PS4 and the two versions of EA’s upcoming racing game were virtually indistinguishable. What I saw was impressive no matter what machine it was running on. There are caveats,…

New GTA V Patch Claims to Fix Missing Vehicles, Many Other Problems

The latest title update for Grand Theft Auto V goes up today and it’s supposed to do away with one of the game’s most annoying bugs. Hopefully, players won’t have to worry about cars and other vehicles disappearing from garages. Here’s the list of issues that Rockstar says should be resolved with the new update:…

GameStop’s 2013 Black Friday Deals Appear To Have Leaked

It’s October, which means it’s already time to start thinking about how much money you’ll throw around for the annual holiday Buy Things extravaganza. And thanks to an early leak, we already know what GameStop has to offer. GottaDeal.com has the full list, which is 12 pages long and slightly underwhelming. Some of the highlights:…

Xbox One: Everything We Know

The Xbox One is out on November 22, and we know almost everything there is to know about Microsoft’s new console. For your convenience, we’re rounding up all of that information and putting it right here. As we continue to learn more about the Xbox 360’s successor, we’ll keep updating this post, so check back…

There’s a Musical Surprise In Skylanders: Swap Force

I was not expecting this at all. Don’t click if you don’t want to spoil it. As if aintricately lovely score by Lorne Balfe — the man behind the music for the first two Skylanders games, Assassin’s Creed III and Beyond: Two Souls — wasn’t enough, Vicarious Visions audio designer Matt Pirog put together this…

How Japanese Gamers Felt After Touching the PS4 and Xbox One

The PS4 and Xbox One won’t be out in Japan until next year, but many attendees to last month’s Tokyo Game Show got to try out the upcoming consoles and voice their opinions. Here’s what they thought. This week, Weekly Famitsu published the results from its TGS 2013 poll. One of the questions were on…

GTA V‘s Trevor Sure Likes Forklifting Some Weird Things

My new favorite Tumblr find of this week? Why, it’s “Trevor Lifting Stuff.” On it, Trevor lifts all kinds of stuff. Like a stepladder, for instance. The Tumblr is actually titled “Trevor soulève des trucs” in French, but it depicts the international language of lifting. Trevor lifts up a garden table. A cow. A mailbox.…

Xbox One’s Free Dedicated Servers Should Improve Multiplayer Gaming

We knew that Microsoft was aggressively promoting its cloud-gaming services for the Xbox One. We knew that meant that games like Titanfall will benefit from everything from more on-screen computer-controlled characters and stabler connections because of it. Now comes news that those dedicated servers will be free to all developers. “One of the benefits of…

Xbox One Or PS4? Top Comic Artists Chime In.

Sure, they may be able to do render amazing versions of Superman, Batman and Spider-Man but comic-book artists are just like you and me. Some of them even use their talented fingers for video gaming. And, like game enthusiasts everywhere, the visual stylists who contribute DC, Marvel, Image and others are excited for the Xbox…

You won’t need to keep a computer by the Xbox One to help you play games. That’s because the console’s Snap feature will let the Machinima app automagically figure out what game you’re playing and get videos to help you win. (via MajorNelson.com)

GOOOAAAAAL! Looks like Microsoft’s efforts to get into the original series business are ramping up. Deadline Hollywood reports that a soccer reality show called Every Street United is the first unscripted show greenlit by the Xbox Entertainment Division. The series will travel the world looking for the best amateur footballers in various countries. (That’s a…

ESPN Says It’s Been Using Next-Gen Madden Footage. It Looks Terrible.

This is a look at Madden NFL 25 on the Xbox One and I won’t lie, it’s not a good look at all. It takes a trained eye to watch this video—an aborted promotion with ESPN’s YouTube channel—and spot actual differences between next-gen Madden NFL 25 and Madden 25 on the Xbox 360. Can you…

Thanks, Xbox 360, For Remembering That I Invert My Thumbstick

It’s human nature to want to break things down into easy-to-understand binaries: Introvert or extrovert. Gay or straight. Republican or Democrat. Autobot or Decepticon. And in video gaming, one of the greatest binaries of all is defined by how a player likes his or her right thumbstick: Regular or inverted? For those of us who…

The Best And Worst of the Last Generation of Gaming

PlayStation 3. Xbox 360. Wii. Over the past eight years, electronic boxes wearing one of those three brands came to occupy space in the entertainment centers of millions of people around the world. They were the heralds of the most innovative, occasionally uncomfortable, undeniably exciting era in video game history. That era is finally nearing…