All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Starting out as the Alliance's most fearsome race.

#yakuza Now that Sega's Japanese gangster series is kicking its way to the PSP with Yakuza: Black Panther, Sega is obligated to make a custom case.... in faux patent alligator! It's part of the Yakuza: Black Panther limited edition package. [Andriasang] More »

Guybrush and LeChuck are back for the better.

The Mortal Kombat reboot had to have been one of the more interesting surprises around E3. We certainly enjoyed what we saw at the show, which seemed to depict a game very much back to its roots -- you can't get more "MK" than splitting a guy in two with a metal hat, after all. And in speaking with Gamasutra, Ed Boon confirms that he's really gunning for the hardcore players with this latest installment.

"Oddly enough, this [new Mortal Kombat] is the first one in a while that we've really made a conscious effort that we are going to focus hard on the hardcore player," he said. While Boon concedes that there are far more casual players out there than hardcore, he values the "opinionated" fans who go online and make their voices heard.

Despite the existence of those passionate individuals, Boon thinks it's tough to sell a fighting game nowadays. "While I certainly think there is an audience for that, there's not a very huge audience for the really complex [fighting] games. Unfortunately, the sales numbers kind of demonstrate that," he added. While we certainly understand what he's saying, we'd be hard-pressed to agree.

What about games like Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6? How about newcomers like BlazBlue? And that's not even taking into account the success of digitally distributed titles like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 -- so while we'd concede that fighting games can sometimes have a steep learning curve, we'd say now is a wonderful time of resurgence for the genre. Embrace the love, Boon!

Everyone loves remote control toys. But the problem with most of them is, unless you manage to remote control one directly down someone's throat, they're pretty useless as weapons. But what if we were to tell you that we fixed that obvious design flaw?

#clips NHL Slapshot, EA Sports' upcoming hockey title on the Wii, was one of a few sports games I got no hands-on time with at E3. So I missed the boat regarding its core offerings. This video spells it all out. More »

Long a source of rampant trolling and epic flamewars, Blizzard's official World of Warcraft forums will soon be a lot less anonymous. The company announced today that it will be using the Real ID system, which was recently implemented into Battle.net, on its forums. Once Real ID is in place, each catty remark and witty comeback on Blizzard's forums will have the poster's real first and last name attached to it. (Previously, posters could hide behind their in-game character names.)

Real ID will be rolled into WoW's forums by the release of the Cataclysm expansion later this year. Additionally, the system will be added to the StarCraft 2 forums before the game's July 27 launch.

Blizzard's eating its own dog food, too -- its community representatives, previously known only by aliases, will also be posting under their real names. Additionally, forum posts will be subject to a new ranking system, replies to forum threads will be grouped, and Blizzard posters will be able to "broadcast" messages out to everyone on the game's forums. Blizzard says its goal with these changes is to form "a new and different kind of online gaming environment -- one that's highly social, and which provides an ideal place for gamers to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships."

According to Game Informer, I’m in the clear. I don’t have any of these shirts. Which one of you guys/gals are the offenders?!

Sony to turn off online servers this fall.

Some die-hard Harry Potter fans are taking issue with EA’s game version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. According to Potter aficionados, Harry isn’t one to use the ‘Cruciatus Curse’ spell in the series of books, as this is used by more sinister characters. In the game, Harry uses this [...]

Our friends over at Nintendo Life have put together their top picks for E3 2010. If you want to see what they think was the best of the best, hit up the link below!

#ps3 The people who make the PlayStation have received their share of flak for creating systems that were tougher to make games for than their competitors. That's something PlayStation big boss Kaz Hirai wants to change. More »

#whatif Now that they're working on Dungeon Siege 3 for Square Enix, are there any other Square Enix series the company would like a stab at? "Chrono Trigger," says CEO Feargus Urquhart. More »

Looks like NightSky is still alive and well, and it’s brought a brand-new website with it. Quite a nice design, and a lot of new content to check out! You can peek at some screens, more footage and a lot more. Unfortunately, no word on a release date yet!

Sega West president Mike Hayes has stated that the espionage RPG, Alpha Protocol, won't be receiving a sequel. In an interview with CVG, the executive plainly expressed, "Let's speak very commercially; the game hasn't sold what we've expected, therefore we won't be doing a sequel." He continued that the game didn't have enough to get into that "upper echelon" of RPGs, because the amount "you need to invest to get there is so large because RPGs are naturally big projects."

The Obsidian-developed game suffered numerous delays, alleged tweaks and eventually launched this year to middling reviews (across the industry). It seems Alpha Protocol will have a future akin to that other oft-overlooked espionage classic: Leonard Part 6.

New study shows strong interest in game discs due to used sales.

#ubisoft Ubisoft's new direction for Rayman, revealed at its wacky E3 2010 showing, will tell the story of "the birth of an uncontrollable eggplant in a crazy world" on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this holiday. But that's not all... More »

#xbox360 Starting next week there will be a new way — a third way — for Xbox 360 users to browse the 250-some Xbox Live Arcade games offered through Microsoft's console. No, the first two methods weren't good enough. More »

#xbla Microsoft is kicking off its summertime Xbox Live Arcade push with the dark and lovely Limbo, wrapping it up with the Tomb Raider spin-off Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, dating even more downloadable hits through August. More »

#gameface This is what you'd look like if you were young, loved Harry Potter and played the new Lego Harry Potter in Australia at a launch event. You would hopefully enjoy yourself and not be unnerved by Lego-head over there. More »

#gameon Oh it's on. After several months' worth of pre-season play, Riot Games is ready to kick things into high gear with next week's launch of League of Legends' first official competition season, complete with ladders, ranked games, and draft mode. More »

This feels like something we tried to enjoy two generations ago.

New study shows strong interest in game discs due to used sales.

New study shows strong interest in game discs due to used sales.

Having spent a fair amount of time with the first Kane & Lynch game, I was intrigued by the "exclusive" Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days demo that showed up (albeit somewhat hidden) on Xbox Live Marketplace late last week. Weighing in at 1.6GB, the demo is pretty massive and includes a mixture of single-player campaign and multiplayer gameplay.

Surprisingly, the demo shows signs of a game that might be not that bad!

Win a Golden Wrench and brag to your friends.

Just one week after revealing the nominees of the E3 2010 Game Critics Awards, the numbers are in and the big winner is ... Nintendo's look-ma-no-glasses 3D handheld, the 3DS. But wait, the 3DS is just the Best of Show and Best Hardware winner! If you're looking for software, look no further than id Software's look-ma-crab-hands mutant-infested shooter, Rage, which took home the most awards in the show: Best Console Game, Best Action Game and Special Commendation for Graphics.

If you think it must've been frustrating to be either Sony or Microsoft, both of which were busy showing off their newest motion-sensitive gadgetry, you'd be mostly right. Microsoft did have one small consolation prize: Dance Central, Harmonix's look-ma-no-coordination dancing game for Kinect, took the well-deserved Best Original Game and Best Motion Simulation prizes. None of Microsoft's first-party Kinect efforts and no PlayStation Move games, first-party or otherwise, made the list.

Find the entire list of award winners, with links into our game pages for all of our coverage, after the break.

Editorial: How and why games should push the limits with bloody abandon.