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Kinect for Netflix is a Catastrophe. Microsoft Has No Idea What to Do with Kinect
“Let’s find out how long it takes to select and watch our favorite Netflix movie using Kinect instead of the Xbox 360 controller!” That was the simple metric we wanted to try to test the new Kinect support in the Xbox version of Netflix. I suspected that it’d take a little bit longer to use…
By Joel Johnson Published April 14, 2011 -
The Making of Gears of War 3 Multiplayer
I’ll stay out of the way of this one, since I know you really just want to watch it. I will indulge myself to say, however, that I like the slight cooling of the color palette while still allowing more varied hues than previous titles. It’s still “gritty” but looks much cleaner.
By Joel Johnson Published April 12, 2011 -
Damn, Agent 47, You Are Good
This may be the best whack job from IO Interactive’s Hitman: Blood Money, as played by TheAuZZieGamer. For those unfamiliar with this particular Hitman mission, it involves the assassination of Vinnie “Slugger” Sinistra, an FBI informant in the Witness Protection Program. There’s some salty, Australian accented language in here, so perhaps watch with headphones. Seen…
By Michael McWhertor Published March 29, 2011 -
Xbox Predator Drives Girls To Strip Club, Sends Them Condoms
A man from Washtenaw County, Michigan, has been charged with attempting to accost children for immoral purposes after meeting a number of young girls over Xbox Live and, among other things, sending them condoms. Robert Lynch, who is 20, is accused of forging online relationships with “several” girls from Saline Middle School in January of…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 29, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Joys Of A Console’s First Moments
Know what I tend to remember consoles by? Not their games, or controllers, or even hardware casings. I usually remember them for their boot-up jingles. As silly as that sounds, those first few seconds of animation and music really set the tone for what the platform holder hopes is to come, and more than any…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 29, 2011 -
Buy Your Very Own Knight Of The Old Republic
Darth Revan, the “star” of classic role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic, has been immortalised in polystone. It’d be cooler if it was carbonite, but that stuff doesn’t do fine details as well. Standing 6 1/2-inches tall, this half-bust has the guy masked and holding two lightsabers, the colours of which you can swap…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 24, 2011 -
Overheat This Xbox And It WILL Catch Fire
When working with wood for this particular piece, artist Ben Winfield decided against making something clichéd, like a breadboard or a chair. Instead, he made a replica Xbox console. Before you ask, nope, it doesn’t work. Come on, you can’t make consoles out of wood! It does look great though, and when it comes to…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 23, 2011 -
ReviewsThe Waiver-Wire Prospects of MLB 2K11
I’m thinking of a famous, very touching monologue by Earl Weaver, the Hall of Fame manager of the Baltimore Orioles, talking about cutting players during spring training. “You call ’em in and say, ‘It’s the consensus among us that we’re going to let you go back home.’ Some of them cry, some get mad, but…
By Owen Good Published March 16, 2011 -
Star Trek Fan Dances His Ass Off To Kinect
This man is playing Dance Central, a dancing video game for the Xbox 360’s Kinect sensor. He’s at Boston’s PAX East gaming convention. He is dancing to Bell Biv Devoe’s Poison, a song that taught children of the 90s never to trust a big butt and a smile. The song teaches us a new lesson:…
By Stephen Totilo Published March 12, 2011 -
A Brief Moment with Firefall, The Free Game That Wants To Be World of Warcraft with Guns
Orange County, California might be bland, confesses one developer of Red 5’s team-based shooter Firefall, but the game certainly is not. Armor-bound medics squirt now de rigueur healing ribbons that glow a pale green to extrude life back into teammates wearing primary yellow or red that’s too busy for G or B. I stood for…
By Joel Johnson Published March 11, 2011 -
CultureTotal Recall
Microsoft Has Now Spent Over Ten Years In The Console Business
Time flies, doesn’t it? One day, you’re thinking only Sega and Nintendo are capable of building quality, successful gaming hardware. The next, you wake up to find that Microsoft is building a video games console. Yet it’s been eleven years to the day that the world awoke to such a scenario, as it was at…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 11, 2011 -
The End Of The Shenmue Saga Would Have Been ‘Tight,’ Mega 64 Reveals
Will there ever be a Shenmue III? Maybe. But the long hoped for conclusion to the Shenmue saga is moot now, thanks to Sega legend Yu Suzuki revealing to Mega 64 how the story arc would have ended. Spoiler alert! Suzuki spilled the beans on the remaining chapters of the Shenmue saga at GDC last…
By Michael McWhertor Published March 7, 2011 -
Felicia Day Teaches Us Proper Dragon Age Dagger Techniques
Felicia Day, star of the Internet series The Guild, will also be the star of Dragon Age: Redemption a web spin-off to the dark fantasy Dragon Age series that will debut this summer. She also has a huge crush on Thane, the dying green alien from Mass Effect 2 (“He is not a lizard man!”…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 17, 2011 -
HD Halo Remake Coming In November?
The rumored HD Xbox 360 remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved will be released on November 15, 10 years after the Xbox classic debuted, Joystiq reports. Series creator Bungie wouldn’t be involved. Microsoft hasn’t confirmed, though we’ve asked.
By Stephen Totilo Published February 4, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallMicrosoft’s First Console Adventure Was A Lesson In Failure
Like most other things associated with Sega’s ill-fated Dreamcast console, it’s been largely forgotten that the ahead-of-its-time machine featured the first ever console appearance (at least in terms of the console itself) for a company by the name of Microsoft. While Microsoft would of course enter the console business properly with the Xbox in 2001,…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 4, 2011 -
Games That Make You Want To Go Places
Video games are meant to be an escape from the real world. Yet sometimes, escape be damned, they do such a good job of depicting real locations that the player can’t help but want to pack their bags and go travelling. Whether that be because a game is set in a painstakingly realistic simulation of…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 1, 2011