All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#namco GameStop is listing Clash of the Titans for July 27, the first official date the adaptation of the movie now in theaters. I'd like to say the pre-order includes a Harry Hamlin retro skin for Perseus, but it does not. More »

#rumor Game Crazy, which shuttered numerous locations earlier this year under its parent company's bankruptcy reorganization, will now liquidate and then close all remaining stores beginning in two weeks, according to the store director of one in Oregon. More »

Well, we knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, right? First things first: Yes, Halo: Reach is apparently running at a full 720p according to Digital Foundry's review of the beta thus far (so many Ps!). And, like Halo 3 before it, the Reach beta achieves a near constant 30 frames-per-second of highly frenetic gameplay, albeit dropping a few every now and then during, um ... explosive situations (let us once again remind you that the game is still in beta).

In fact, aside from the occasional screen tear and a bit of a "ghosting" issue ("frame bending" -- two or more images being blurred together -- can sometimes result in objects on screen not appearing solid, as seen in this image), DF is quite impressed with the beta's visual presentation, not to mention the gameplay. The three pages on the beta go into far more detail than we've dropped into this post, and, well, we've got a lot more Reach to play, so we'd encourage you to read more right here.

Haven’t you always wanted to play as Mega Man, but in the Super Mario universe? Well now you can! If Mega Man isn’t to your liking, you can check out some other characters, such as Samus, Link and others. Hit up the link below and have a go! Game here (thanks to all [...]

#dealtaku I say the Weekend Coupons are ours - if you can count! More »

First look at Treyarch's new game.

We sift through the new trailer for hints at what to expect from Treyarch's latest.

click to enter the titanic gallery

If you're still excited about Clash of the Titans this July, three months after the release of the movie (and twenty-nine years after the release of the other movie), then you can channel that potential excitement into a video game purchase. Namco Bandai have announced that Game Republic's adaptation of the film will be available on PS3 and Xbox 360 on July 27. When you go in to buy it, be sure to bellow "Release the Kraken!" and then awkwardly explain to the clerk that you've temporarily nicknamed your wallet "the Kraken" entirely for the purpose of that joke.

If you pre-order the game at GameStop, you'll receive two bonuses: a "Bird in Hand" quest pack, containing a quest to defeat the Cockatrice (with a "Wing of Icarus" sub-weapon as a reward) and a "Song of Enchantment" quest pack entailing a fight against a succubus and siren, to earn the Orpheus sub-weapon.

You’re into Final Fantasy music, right? If so, today is your lucky day. The brand-new ‘Distant Worlds II: more music from FINAL FANTASY’ is now available online. You can either stream it for free, or pay $10 to download all the tracks. Hit up the link below and see if you [...]

Yes, there actually are art assets for those horrible Zelda CD-i games. I still don’t know how Nintendo thought these games were a good idea. Didn’t the Big N check in out the progress of these titles, and try to stop them from coming out? They snub Sony on the SNES add-on, [...]

#originals Talk about cramming it all in at the end of the quarter. First the Modern Warfare team decided to sue Activision for the GDP of East Timor (roughly) Then it got interesting. More »

Well, at least we’re ending this data on a positive note. Something caused an uptick in interest for both versions of the game. This game really does deserve the attention. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to get what it deserves. I think Monster Hunter 3 lucked out in the sales [...]

Looks like Nintendo is going to have something special going on for Super Mario Galaxy 2’s launch at the Nintendo World Store. As you can see, there aren’t specific details yet, but that should change soon. Hopefully Mario gets a big event, as he certainly deserves it! Thanks to Wiimo for the [...]

Not that you'd want to remember the atrocities of war, but when you're left to the whims of a scientist in a suspicious lab ... what choice do you have? The new teaser trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops -- coming on November 9th from developer Treyarch -- delivers a fragmented sequence of action scenes, taken from several wildly different environments. If Vietnam is in there (and we're definitely getting a morning whiff of napalm), it's one of several theaters of war.

Judging by the situation in the operating theater, the game may be structured around a series of flashbacks. We're sure the doctor will help us remember more clearly. "I've given you something extra to assist," after the break.

#callofduty The debut trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops had waaaay too many fast cuts. So let's slow it down a little, see what we can find out about where the game's taking us, and what we'll be doing. More »

Look, we get it. You found a primo slab of stone that's just aching to have your name emblazoned all over it in big, funky letters. There's just one problem: it's illegal.

So how about slapping your name or handle onto a virtual wall? That's what Crytek is offering 50 lucky winners in its latest game, Crysis 2. It's a Twitter-based contest, so you'll need to follow @Crysis and fire off the appropriate tweet below, given your region:

• UK: Hey @Crysis, I want you to put my name in the game! http://crys.is #Crysis2contestUK
• US/Canada: Hey @Crysis, I want you to put my name in the game! http://crys.is #Crysis2contestNA
• Germany: Hey @Crysis, Ich mochte meinen Namen im Spiel sehen! http://crys.is #Crysis2contestDE

Act quickly, because the contest concludes on May 3. Oh how we can't wait to see all of the "Pothead McSmokesweeds" and "XxBlazingMad420zxXs" when we're running through a dilapidated New York city!

#clips As promised, we got our first look at Treyarch's latest Call of Duty game tonight, and as expected, the game will take us on a tour of some of the Cold War's hottest locations. More »

Ever since we were burned by the seemed-cool-until-you-heard-him-coughing General Grievous, we've been leery of new Star Wars characters -- old George doesn't really make them like he used to. But Star Wars:The Old Republic is a BioWare project, and that's a company that knows its characters, so we'll give these three new website reveals a chance. General Garza is a tough-as-nails Galactic Republic officer who's been accused of overseeing secret assaults throughout the galaxy, the Mandalore is a warrior-king who supports the Empire (and leads the Mandalorians -- Boba Fett's peeps) and Darth Malgus is -- well, with a name like that, you can probably guess.

Yup, he's a Dark Lord of the Sith, and we actually saw him in the trailer released last year. Guess which character is popular enough to get a book written about them? Decieved is a novel by Paul Kemp due out in December that will tell the story of "his rise to fame and glory as the Sith Lord who destroyed the Jedi Temple." Now that sounds like a character with some depth! It's not like you could write a whole book about General Grievous, right?

#clips In this clip, Marines storm a cargo ship that had been hijacked by pirates. If you think that sounds like something out of a Modern Warfare game, thanks to a helmet camera and first-person perspective, it looks like it, too. More »

Shooter fans in the mood for something with a bit more of a classical sensibility than the insane "bullet hell" shmups being made these days should look forward to May 5.

Square Enix just announced the North American release date for the XBLA RayStorm HD, the updated remake of a classic Taito vertical shooter (but not the one with the robot fish), and it's the same May 5 date at which Japanese Xbox owners (both of them) and PlayStation 3 owners will be able to get the game. Sadly, no PSN release date was included in the announcement -- something about which we're checking with the publisher.

#activision Guitar Hero publisher Activision may be scaling back its plans for the music game in 2010, but it may have at least one more band-centric effort in the works—Guitar Hero: Red Hot Chili Peppers. More »

Where Fallout 3 is involved, the idea of "more of the same" is never a bad thing, especially when we're still playing the game a year and a half after its 2008 debut. Fortunately, Fallout: New Vegas, due this fall, is more than more of the same. Here's how.

Picking up three years after the events that played out in Fallout 3's Capitol Wasteland, this full sequel casts players a courier left for dead in Nevada's Mojave Wasteland. As such, players will have the option to select their character's age during the initial creation (or, in this case, re-creation) process, in addition to choosing their starting S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats. While they might not be a vault dweller, the game finds a way of outfitting them with the familiar Pip-Boy 3000 wearable computer.

The plot unfolds across a variety of high desert locales, from the New Vegas strip to the Hoover Dam and settlements beyond. The Mojave Wasteland is filled with things that want to kill you -- new and returning alike -- so you'll luckily have a refined combat system and expanded arsenal at your disposal. The V.A.T.S. targeting system from Fallout 3 returns more or less unaltered, save for new special move commands that should make melee fighting fans happy.

#clips The Test Drive series may not have as rabid a fan base as does Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport, but do either of those games have bikinis? No, I didn't think so! Fortunately, Test Drive Unlimited 2 does. More »

We can't be gaming all the time, despite our best efforts, and from time to time we'll actually take advantage of the movie-playing abilities on our gaming systems. JBO features our top picks for XBL, PSN, Netflix's Watch Instantly and Blu-ray each week.

Recommendation of the Week:

Doctor Zhivago (Blu-ray: $35.99 MSRP, much lower at most retailers)
How do you follow up Lawrence of Arabia? If you're director David Lean, you do it by directing a film based on a contemporary popular novel of the same name, that's set in tumultuous Russia in the days of World War I and through the Russian Civil War. Lean also cast Lawrence's right-hand man Omar Sharif as Doctor Zhivago, and this is easily of one Sharif's best performances. My generation has mostly known him as the guy who gets crushed in the car in Top Secret!, and it's high time that this movie put him back where he belongs as a terrific actor ... and not a guy who hosts video games about bridge. Zhivago is a true epic, and Warner Bros. has done one of its meticulous restorations to this film and put it in Digibook format. The film looks truly gorgeous in high definition, and there are a ton of extras, including an eight song soundtrack sampler. The treatment of this movie, combined with the fact the Warner's just announced it'll be bringing Citizen Kane and Ben-Hur to Blu-ray in 2011, set the bar high for future classic movie releases.
Read on after the break for the rest of our recommendations, then chime in below!