All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Oh, you've made your own assault rifle from Halo? That's cute. Wait, you've made your own Spartan suit? Meh, it's okay, we guess. See, the dudes at Peter Mander FX have ruined us forever, because they've produced about the best homage to Halo one could ever hope for: the ultra-realistic Elite suit you see above.

Largely comprised of plastic, TLC and dark magicks, the suit not only looks impressive, but it's animatronic. We can't imagine the blood, sweat and/or tears it took to produce such a lifelike recreation of this Covenant class, but we can get some idea from the video documenting the creation of this behemoth, which you can find past the break.
[Image source: Device Magazine]

A British retailer has posted a set of technical specifications for Microsoft's upcoming motion-control peripheral, Kinect. Interestingly, it says only two players can be tracked at any one time. More »

#pc The PC version of Darksiders isn't going to make June. It's been pushed back to September. More »

In North America, XSEED is releasing a bunch of Nihon Falcom PSP games, including Ys Seven and several The Legend of Heroes games, on UMD, with Ys Seven getting the full limited-edition treatment. XSEED is also planning to provide Europe with a bumper crop of Falcom games -- in a convenient format. A comment left by XSEED on its Facebook page reveals plans to release the games in Europe as PSN downloads. The XSEED rep said that the releases would occur "shortly after the North American release, but a UMD release is unlikely in Europe."

Unfulfilled desires for cloth maps aside, the PSN distribution method means a lot of new RPGs for Europe, and it means that XSEED is less likely to go bankrupt getting them there. The first game in the XSEED/Falcom partnership, Ys Seven, arrives in North America late this summer.

Japanese gaming magazine GAMESIDE just ran a feature on the concept art of Mega Man 10. I am always fascinated by the way concept art gets turned into actual game graphics, especially when dealing with old-school 8-bit games. An artist’s vision to an 8-bit design makes for some pretty big changes!

#shigerumiyamoto Do not fret, Shigeru Miyamoto is rich. How rich? More »

I don’t know why Skate or Die was so popular. It wasn’t that great of a game, but everyone I know owned it. Even I had a copy, and I never had a skateboard! I guess I liked it because it let me do things I wasn’t talented enough to do in [...]

#foxconn In the wake of suicides and international scrutiny, Foxconn Technology is preparing to build...another enormous factory. More »

OnLive has posted a "state of the service" on its official blog after ten days of accepting beta users, and from the report, everything seems to be going well. While there were a few bugs, the service has been up 24/7 since launch, and OnLive says it's "accommodated far more members at this stage than ever anticipated." We've contacted the company to see if we can find out just how many members OnLive is serving so far.

And the company is also adding games -- Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 is being added this week, hours before stores open to sell the physical copy of the title. There's a contest as well -- if you happen to be an OnLive member and are the first to complete the game entirely, you can take a video of your winnings, upload it to the service and drop an email about it, and you could win an iPad or iPod touch. We don't know how many people are floating out in the cloud quite yet, but it is drifting right along.

Thanks, Dennis!

These commercials feature the Japanese pop group Arashi, which have been in many other Nintendo related commercials.

#sony Thanks to new versions of the hardware and increased sales in the past twelve months, Sony's PlayStation 3 has finally become a profitable machine for the company. More »

#screengrab As seen on Boing Boing via Wonderland via Craftster. More »

Even though The Sims 3 is gearing up to give console gamers the chance to live vicariously through its virtual, incoherent inhabitants in October, it doesn't mean EA has ceased support for the PC version of the game. In fact, there's a new expansion coming this fall, titled "The Sims 3 Fast Lane Stuff" pack.

This new content pack gives players the choice between four different lifestyle options: racing; intrigue; rockabilly; and classic luxury. Each option provides your Sim with custom furniture, outfits, and vehicles suited to the respective lifestyle choice -- there's even a garage for storing and/or pimping your rides. Suddenly, Xzibit's services don't seem so valuable.

If you want to pre-order the $20 add-on, head on over to the EA Store and have at it. In the meanwhile, feel free to swerve into our gallery below for some new screens.

#animals Do Red Dead Redemption players hate crows? I shoot virtual deer and wolves a lot in that fantastic video game Western, but look at these stats, pulled from the Rockstar Social Club: More »

#ps3 Sony has been coy on whether Hulu Plus would be available only to PlayStation Plus subscribers. There may be a reason for that. A $170 reason. More »

Blizzard is tweaking the business model for its upcoming StarCraft 2 release in Korea. IGN reports that the RTS will be free for Korean subscribers to World of Warcraft there, as Blizzard reportedly wants to bolster the MMO's player base overseas. Other players will be able to buy the game outright for the US equivalent of about $54, or pick up $8 monthly or even $1.60 daily passes for the game, so Blizzard will still make a googoojillion dollars on the long-awaited sequel in Korea. No word on if these plans will make their way to North America, but we'd bet against it. WoW itself has had different pay models overseas for a while, but just the usual monthly price here in the US.

That money can also come from children as young as age 12 -- after the game was originally rated for adults only, an edited version of the game has brought the rating back down to a 12+ age rating. The edit changes Zerg and Terran blood to black from red, and removes all profanity and smoking from the game. Blizzard is reportedly still thinking about releasing the "mature" version in Korea separately, although it'll be after next month's worldwide release.

#screengrab Scott Johnson chronicles the long strange trip from Pong paddle to motion-sensed human, leaving the commentary up to you. As seen on ExtraLife. Thanks, Jon! More »

That fleshy slapping sound you just heard was the massive, simultaneous facepalm of cantankerous old gamers the world over. In an interview with Big Download, BioWare co-founder Trent Oster -- now head of IdeaSpark Labs, which is developing MDK 2 HD -- revealed that his company plans to do some "some tuning" to the notoriously difficult game.

Oster noted that he actually "snapped the Dreamcast controller, popping the VMU across the room" while playing the original game, concluding that "some tuning will be in our to-do list." On behalf of the curmudgeonly gamers with fond memories of MDK 2, we can only hope that the newly adjusted difficulty will be optional.

Read the full interview for more on MDK 2 HD and Beamdog, Oster's new digital distribution service.

You won't need to swallow a little computer to sound robotically awesome in Rock Band 3. Audio signal processing company iZotope, Inc. has announced that it's providing pitch correction technology to the music game, as initially revealed to Joystiq in an interview with Harmonix. The game will use iZotope's real-time pitch detection and correction to make you sound less like yourself and more like someone who can hit a damn note occasionally. And for those of you who are already vocally gifted, the use of vocal processing is optional.

This is the beginning of a new initiative for iZotope, who hopes to offer audio effect and processing middleware to more game developers, targeting the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms.

#earlyadopters Microsoft's Kinect messaging is definitely core-obsessed. First they said they didn't want core shooters like Halo on it. Then they said it's got casual approachability, but core depth. Now, they're saying hardcore gamers will be first in line for it. More »

It's been a roller coaster ride this year for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 fans. First, all DLC for the game vanished from PSN -- it was explained that the DLC was merely a "limited time offer." Then, it vanished from Xbox Live, too. Now, gamers are forced to simply play the game itself, deprived of access to all DLC. Can you imagine the horror?

But fear not, for the DLC is returning when it's needed most -- just like a good superhero. Word comes via Hero HQ that the DLC is coming back, and we've managed to confirm it first-hand with an Activision rep. Sadly, the rep couldn't provide us with a timeframe for re-release, but as soon as The Journalistor defeats Red Tape Man, we'll be sure to let you know the details.

[Thanks, Catherine]

Are Australian gamers going to miss out again?

#thq The violent open-world action of Saints Row is something of a surprising addition to the Nintendo 3DS line-up. But there's a good reason—two of them actually—for Saints Row's appearance on Nintendo's new 3D game machine. More »