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Games, play, and culture with Jamin Warren
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Historical commentary is a balancing act in Black Ops II
Did we learn anything about America in BlOps 2? Scott Juster: …Manual Noriega is an NPC, Oliver North gives you missions, and the game predicts that David Petraeus is (or, in this post-scandal world, was) in line to be secretary of defense. Clips of a jolly looking Reagan are juxtaposed with secret
The best argument I’ve seen for the Wii U is this navigable Google Maps
Wii U has a nice elevator pitch – console plus tablet – but it doesn’t have a piece of software that effortlessly demonstrates the potential of that pitch. This morning in Japan, Nintendo unveiled the best and most intuitive example of the power of their dual screens that I’ve seen: a Google Maps ap
Please, cruel god, resuscitate this Streets of Rage remake
The Streets of Rage games were good for a lot of reasons, from the insanely great music to the weird red-light-district ambience, to the fact that there was a playable boxing Kanagaroo named Roo. Anyroo, this Joey got his tail in a twist when he saw the following righteous footage from a SoR downloa
Commander Shepard can be anyone, even your Mom
Mass Effect is an amazing achievement because it provides so many distinct narrative experiences. I played the trilogy as a Paragon (good) and a solitary playthrough of Mass Effect 2 as a Renegade (bad). The major components of the game are unchanged by your decisions, but the nuance of each playsty
Have eSports found their Dennis Rodman?
We’ve written recently about the rise of spectator eSports, and they’re more popular than ever, but most people would be hard pressed to name an eSports star. The lack of powerful personalities in compeitive online games may be about to change. Riot Games yesterday decided to ban a professional pla
These guys made an racing game/RC car hybrid
RC-car remotes are counter intuitive. Go-karts are kind of lame. Racing games aren’t have never done it for me, (I haven’t played the new Need For Speed) except for kart games oddly enough. But what if you could make a racing game where you controlled an actual RC car with an arcade booth? Well thes
Departing Madden designer calls EA a money-obsessed robot. BREAKING NEWS FROM FORD’S THEATER
AJ Dembroski, a designer who worked on the past two iterations of the colossal Madden franchise, went on the Twitter warpath this week after leaving Electronic Arts. Among his contentions: the game’s extremely talented designers are chronically stifled by a pervasive focus on metrics/statistics/numb
Episode 2 of Kill Screen video series delves into body movement & gender politics of Dance Central 3
Last week, we announced the launch of our Kill Screen show with the Creators Project, a partnership of Vice and Intel. We looked at the cinematic realism of Crysis 3 and why games are now including “crap” like lens flare to make titles look more like film. This week, we travel to offices of Harmonix
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