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Rich Guy Builds Personal (And Expensive) Hobbit House

An unnamed but clearly wealthy and eccentric man who lives in the “Pennsylvania countryside” has allowed photographers inside his house. Which looks like it should be sitting under Bag End. Designed by architect Peter Archer, who worked with a “team of craftsmen” to complete the home, it was completed in 2004, and was modelled after…

Next Year, You’ll Be Able To Buy Your Own Half-Life 2 Gravity Gun

Sadly, it won’t make the holiday shopping season, but toy company NECA’s replica Half-Life 2 gravity gun will be available for purchase next Spring. It’s 1:1 scale, and as you can see from the prototype below, lights up as well. Since this is the same company behind the replica Portal guns, you could probably expect…

Are These Video Games Or Drugs? It’s Very Confusing.

In a great piece over on Gameranx, Jenn Frank has come up with a very long list of names. Your job? Decide which ones are video games and which ones belong to pharmaceutical drugs. Sounds ridiculous, but then you start reading, and…oh god. It’s so hard. Some are obvious, but of the 42, most will…

Halo 4 Problem Banned “Less Than 200” Players, Microsoft Says

When users began pouring into Halo’s official online forums complaining that a new map pack had been inadvertently banning them from matchmaking multiplayer, it seemed to be a widespread problem. Well, according to Microsoft, it was about as widespread as those people who had gone to post on the forum. A statement provided to Kotaku…

Bad Santa: The One Christmas Movie I Watch Every Year

Some people watch A Christmas Story every year. Others watch Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Not me! I watch Bad Santa The profane and offensive film also happens to be a genuine celebration of the Christmas spirit, equally hilarious and weirdly heartfelt. It’s become my favorite holiday movie, even. This great article at The Onion A.V.…

The Most Stylish, Arresting & Maybe Even Beautiful Video Game Trailers Of 2012

In what’s becoming a Christmas tradition, I’m sitting down today to round up what I think were the year’s best video game trailers. And by best trailers, I mean quite literally, the best trailers. I don’t give a damn how representative they were of the finished product, or how good that finished product was, I…

There Is Barely Any Link Between Video Games And Gun Murders. Even In France.

The mad dash to blame games or to disprove that they are responsible for violent behavior continues. This time, we’ve got a study via the Washington Post that analyzes the world’s largest video game markets. Ultimately no correlation between consuming video games and gun murders was found, despite the common misconception being that the more…

SimCity’s developers had a Reddit AMA. Considering the game’s DRM, that might not have been the best idea

Cards Against Humanity Makers Donate $70,000 To Wikipedia

‘Tis the season for giving, sure, but this is still a bit extreme. The makers of the obscene (and funny) card game Cards Against Humanity have recently shared the financial results of their pay-what-you-want holiday expansion They sold $295,828,90 worth of expansions, and after shipping and manufacturing expenses, were sitting on $70,066.27 in profit. They…

This Animal Hunting Game Plays Like Call of Duty, And That’s Disturbing

Dear god. This isn’t hunting. It’s extinction. You can gun down the entire freakin animal kingdom in Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2013, it seems. I… think I’m going to go hug my dogs now. Via Ben Abraham

Sharks, Shipwrecks, and Tight Spaces: Far Cry 3 Triggers Our Worst Phobias

I noticed something curious while playing Far Cry 3, something I hadn’t really thought about before. Sometimes, my map would denote a treasure located inside a small, dark cave. I’d go into the cave, and I’d immediately start breathing harder and feeling panicky—enough that I didn’t even care what the treasure was anymore. I just…

Here’s The Launch Trailer For The Minecraft Documentary

This is the trailer for Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, which comes out this weekend. On December 22, you can catch a one-time-only screening on Xbox Live (assuming you pay for Gold). On December 23, you can start buying the DVD online. What do you think? Looks interesting, no?

Report: Borderlands 2‘s Next DLC Has Danger! Excitement! Mustaches!

The folks at Gearbox are rarely slackers when it comes to downloadable content, and so far Borderlands 2 has mostly borne that out. We’ve known for a little bit that the next batch of DLC will be called “Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt” but beyond that, details have been scarce. Reddit user MikeTheInfidel has dug…

Sandy Hook TV Pundits Torn About Whether Violent Video Games Are A Problem

We’ve yet to see signs that Sandy Hook murderer Adam Lanza was a hardcore gamer, let alone a fan of shooter video games, but TV pundits continue to discuss the role violent video games play in the coarsening of our society. On Friday, we presented one pundit’s rapid dot-connecting of mass shootings and violent video…

Anonymity Doesn’t Always Make You A Jerk. It Might Make You Kinder.

By now, Penny Arcade’s comic has become mantra on the internet: a normal person, given anonymity and an audience, will become a total fuckwad. It’s actually a lot more complicated than that formula, though I suspect the simplicity of the idea is what made it catch on in the first place. An article on Motherboard…

Evil Brains Invade the LEGO Hero Factory Next Month

While I love LEGO in general, the Hero Factory lines and Bionicle before it never appealed to me. I’m a brick man. Still, a new LEGO game coming in January to mobile devices and web platform is a wonderful thing, even if it isn’t as square as I’d like. Hero Factory: Brain Attack has players…

Obama Pal Slams Video Game Commercial: ‘Shouldn’t We Also Quit Marketing Murder As A Game?’

In the aftermath of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school, the advertising freight train chugs along mostly unaffected. Video game and movie studios continue to hype violent entertainment, filling coveted advertising slots with gunfire and explosions. It creates a juxtaposition with grim reality and an unspoken commentary on the violence Americans see and…

The Smartest & Dumbest Things EA Did in 2012

The calendar year is coming to a close for the recently crowned Worst Company In America (doesn’t that polished turd look so nice on the mantle), and I don’t think anyone would claim 2012 was the finest outing for Electronic Arts. Sure, their Madden and NHL franchises might have broken personal sales bests (after all,…

The Dorkly Weekly: Pokemon Rusty’s First Big Gym Battle

The saga of Pokemon Rusty continues this week, as our hapless hero fights his first gym battle—about 30 levels too early. I’m not sure which line I am going to steal from this one. “Logic is the rarest candy of them all!” is pretty good, but I’m leaning towards “God Digglett!” For more sick and…

Pokémon Designs Aren’t Getting Worse, They May Be Getting Better

Without fail, a new Pokémon generation will bring with it a wave of criticism—the idea that Game Freak has progressively gotten worse at designing new Pokémon. I’ve noticed that folks who are critical of new Pokémon will typically point toward the original 151 Pokémon as examples of amazing, if not the best, Pokémon design. I…