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A Sexy, Soapy iPhone Game That Also Teaches You To Make Drinks

Bartenders get all the good stories. People often go to bars simply to talk—we need a drink sometimes, to get away from it all, and we hope to find a bartender who will listen long enough to let us get it off our chest. The Bar Oasis series has long understood that while it’s fun…

Playing Violent Video Games Actually Makes You Feel Less Pain, Researchers Find

It seems that violent games may indeed desensitize players—but in a way that can actually be helpful. Researchers at Keele University in the UK have found that playing a violent video game can give players a higher real-world tolerance for pain. The study had 40 participants playing both a violent first-person shooter and also a…

Vector is the Beginning of One Intense Facebook Game

Free-running across rooftops while being chased relentlessly by a shadowy unknown enemy is not an experience I expected to find in a Facebook game. I also never expected to shout motherf****** at the top of my lungs at a Facebook game, so there’s that. Created by Nekki, the developer behind Shadow Fight, Vector is a…

This Wacky PS3 Game Is All About Paper Dolphins

This is Derrick the Deathfin, a new action-platformer that is hitting PS3 in a couple of weeks. It looks really interesting, sort of like Ecco the Dolphin meets Paper Mario. And as you can see in the trailer above, it was developed using some unusual techniques. The game will be on PSN October 9 for…

Talk Amongst Yourselves is where you should go to talk about games. And life. And how raspberries are the best berries.

Valve is shrugging off a Korean report that Nexon or NC Soft want to buy them, telling us it’s “just another rumor.”

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, one of the PSP’s best RPGs, is getting an HD re-release on PS3 in Japan

The Total War series is getting Steam Workshop support, starting with Shogun 2

The Wikipad’s Controller Will Change Your Mind About Tablet Gaming

Look, folks, tablet makers are going to keep trying to seduce you. Armed with numbers that you don’t necessarily care about—like these stats about the rise in mobile gaming--they’re going to dangle assorted games, controllers and accessories that try to convince you that playing on a phone or tablet can be as fulfilling as doing…

There’s a PlayStation 3 Surprise in the New iOS and Android Netflix Apps

Have you updated the Netflix app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device lately? Try firing it up when your PlayStation 3 is on the Netflix menu, and you’ll discover a nifty new way to control the console version of the streaming video service. As long as the Netflix app on my PlayStation 3 is…

In Paranormal Activity 4, Kinect Shows Just How Scary Product Placement Can Be

The way Kinect works is that it sends out all these little beams of light. That’s how it can read movements and know when you flail about your living room. Those tracking dots are also perfect for creepy horror movies—and Microsoft product placement. The latest trailer for Paranormal Activity 4 shows off the Kinect. One…

Two Korean Companies Might be Trying to Buy Valve [Update 2: Valve Dismisses]

According to a report from Korean news outlet JoongAng (translated by VentureBeat), one of the country’s biggest media outlets, Asian gaming giants Nexon and NCsoft are pooling resources in an attempt to purchase Valve. Apparently executives from both Korean companies, meeting in Hawaii this week as part of an annual summit, discussed the proposal both…

Looks like PAX Australia will be held in Melbourne from 19-21 July, 2013.

A Closer Look at the “Woodstock” of Video Games

One of the highlights of QuakeCon each year is the baked-in LAN party, in which 3000 people get together in a giant hall, plug their desktop PCs into a desk and just go at it. While it’s far from the scale of, say, Sweden’s Dreamhack, it’s still a massive party, and one we get a…

Tom Nook Has a Sweet Ass? I Never Noticed.

Of course, there’s already been an official Animal Crossing anime, released all the way back in 2006. But there’s always room for unofficial animated adaptations, especially when they’re this funny. Warning: this is a little NSFW, so keep the volume button handy. Game Grumps Animated – Silly Voices – by Flannelson [Game Grumps, via Go…

Make a “Shooter” Set in the 15th Century And Research Gets a Little Tough

Most developers creating games set in the present day do some amount of research. They go shoot the guns the game will feature, or go drive the cars, take some pictures of the city streets they’ll be recreating, that sort of thing. But what do you do when your game is set in the 15th…

Nintendo, Please Make a Tiny Nintendo 64

You know, once was a time Nintendo were serious about releasing miniature versions of their consoles. The NES got one (the NES-101), the SNES got one (the SNES 2), but ever since, Nintendo’s been all “eh, the original model will do”. Which is a pity, because smackedsam’s shrunken N64 looks terrific! It’s not trying to…

The New Neo Geo Handheld Seems Long and Clicky

Here’s our first look at the new Neo Geo X Gold handheld in action, courtesy of Japanese game mag Famitsu. Out in December, it looks…well, is that my eyes, or is the machine stretching the original 4:3 visuals to fit a 16:9 screen? It damn well better not be. Aside from that, the buttons sound…

If You’re Mexican, You Can’t Speak Spanish to FIFA 13. But You Can Speak French.

Mexicans cannot speak commands in their native tongue to their team in FIFA 13—but French-speaking Canadians can—in the version of the game now being sold to the three nations of North America. EA Sports’ FIFA, the highest selling and most popular sports video game in the entire world, this year enabled voice support through the…

Even Hawken’s Drab Future Can Have Sunny Days

Like almost every other game set in the future, multiplayer mech shooter Hawken looks bleak. Pollution, dark skies, it just seems a generally unpleasant place to spend any amount of time. Some days, though, the clouds part. The shooting stops. And hardened futuristic science warriors can kick back, have a beer and read the funny…