In the war to have games become a more accepted part of our culture, there is perhaps no more important battle than those who write scripts to games be viewed on equal standing with screenwriters, novelists and journalists. A videogame can be an unparalleled platform for in-depth storytelling, and i
Enjoy a fine afternoon of mainstream videogame news! –Get the latest details on Batman: Arkham City’s New Game Plus. –Resistance 3 Survival DLC pack has been announced. –Borderlands 2 promises to be friendly to your PC. -XBLA’s “free” Crimson Alliance download isn’t actually a full game. –Diablo
This is actually pretty cool. There’s this program called S.E.N.S.E. (Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise) from Poland that lets government officials try out various scenarios that might that a good ol’ fashioned market economy might run across, in the hopes that officials might know what
…well, that is, if you’re Australian. Retro Gaming Australia’s Youtube channel offers 64 uploads of videogame (and videogame product) commercials from the early ’90s, so just pour yourself a bowl of well-aged Legend of Zelda cereal and enjoy the nostalgia—heck, even if you’re not Australian. But bef
Enjoy some post-Labor Day mainstream videogame news! –New FAQ reveals Diablo III beta details. -Sony’s SVP of public relations Rob Dyer accuses Microsoft of using an exclusivity stipulation to protect “an inferior product.“ -Check out Yoshinori Ono on the future of fighting games and more. –Dragon
Making Systems Checking More Fun Hacking a system may be analogous to a would-be thief looking for an open window, but its reality looks pretty different. Trying different command codes (and I’m guessing on vocab here) to obtain entry goes through a process of using language to unlock a system buil
Depending on who you ask, Minecraft is either one of the most awesome or most annoying games in recent memory. On one hand, it’s more or less a virtual Lego set that, if you’ve got the time and creativity, gives you a digital palate upon which to get your Picasso on. On the other, it’s just a game w
If, just like me, you’re straddling the line of regular poverty and abject poverty, there’s nothing worse dropping sixty dollars on a game I end up playing three times, and then get frustrated with and repurpose as a drink coaster. It’s, like, the worst thing ever. I could have used that sixty bucks
Deep down, we all share an anxiety about technology taking over the world for the worse, from transhumanism in Deus Ex to the malicious artificial intelligence of Portal. But more and more we’ve been hearing of advanced technologies being utilized for compassionate, positive reasons. Such is the cas
Nothing revs our engine like instant mainstream videogame news! -Activision Blizzard chief is ready for world domination. -Have an Assassin’s Creed fan video? Ubisoft’s new video contest offers you the chance to win a Sony Home Theater Entertainment Package. -DICE has released new details on Battl
We all know the stereotype of that awkward kid: once the image of the nervous, skinny teenager with the pocket protector that got shoved into lockers and did everyone’s homework. Maybe you got shoved. Maybe you did the shoving. Now we know him (or her) as the nervous, awkward kid who knows his/her w
Let’s start the new month right, with mainstream videogame news! –Batman: Arkham City to offer a New Game Plus. -Double Fine releases arcade soundtrack by Razbert. -Nintendo’s 3DS Ambassador Programme goes live. -Bethesda takes bug squishing more seriously. –Check out the newest Mass Effect 3 sc
Need to kill ten minutes? Head over to Boing Boing, where they’ve created a game that assigns you a random story, and then you take your brave pixel out into the world and try to snatch up other pixels and fight against even more pixels. Don’t like the storyline you’ve been given? Just press “refres
In the wake of one economic disaster after the other, it makes sense that some might seek out an alternative way to buy and sell goods, one unaffected by inflation or the whims of Ben Bernanke. In the latest issue of Technology Review, James Surowiecki explores one such option, the Bitcoin, that is
Have another helping of instant mainstream videogame news! –The Haunted: Hell’s Reach has been picked up by THQ. -Gearbox’s next Duke Nukem game to be better, if it happens. -Former THQ employees have leaked footage and art from a cancelled Avengers game. –Tim Schafer and Cookie Monster return fo
New York City has been called many things: The City That Never Sleeps, the Big Apple, Gotham. Jesse Eisemann thought it reminded him of another place altogether: The Mushroom Kingdom. Eisemann, writer and illustrator for CollegeHumor.com, has created an interactive map of the five boroughs in the in
One of the reason tennis is so great is how it functions as a game: it’s like chess, but even more nuanced, and you have to be in really, really good shape to do well at it. However, tennis can be hard to follow because to the untrained eye it can just look like two dudes smacking a ball back and fo
An old standby is getting a 21st century makeover: First comes love, next comes programming a computer to preside over your wedding. Then comes marriage. Having met on Sweet on Geeks, a dating site for the more intellectually enthused, Miguel Hanson and Diana Wesley decided on a virtual minister to
Above is a scan of the “What Do We Mean By Play?” manifesto from 1964’s Creative Playthings, which we think sums up the importance of play pretty well. Here’s a version of that manifesto in a more legible form: WHAT DO WE MEAN BY PLAY? Play is to create, to discover, to process in half-playful, hal
If we told you someone put on a public TRON: Legacy display, you might assume we were referring to some kind of convention. Or maybe something cobbled together in some obsessive fan’s basement. But would you ever guess something like this would take place in a church lobby? LifeChurch.tv’s northwes
This past weekend, the east coast was battered by Hurricane Irene, causing millions to lose power, billions of dollars in property damage and proving fatal in at least two dozen cases. Last week also marked the twentieth anniversary of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System’s launch in North Americ
Let’s kick-start another round of easy mainstream videogame news! –Check out the new Scrolls trailer. -Bought Deus Ex: Human Revolution at GameStop? They’ll compensate you for that little coupon fiasco. –Gabe Newell doesn’t worry too much about monetization, among other things. -Namco Bandai and T
