All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Senator Leland Yee 'confident' court will uphold law.

Senator Leland Yee 'confident' court will uphold law.

Wow, I actually kind of like it. Too bad I don’t have much faith in Mad Catz projects. Thanks to Giga Bowser for the heads up!

#bioware BioWare's next big role-playing game, Dragon Age II, will be a very different thing. For starters, the sequel sports a "new visual style," readily apparently from concept art and newly released first screen shots of Dragon Age II. More »

Saying that Dragon Age 2 has better graphics than its predecessor isn't much of a compliment. Though Dragon Age: Origins remains one of our favorite games from 2009 (as a matter of fact, it was our #4 pick!), on consoles, it looked like the game's entire texture library was secretly replaced with macro photographs of roadkill.

The game's announcement promised "updated graphics" and a "new visual style," and the first two screenshots - part of Game Informer's month-long look at the title - are certainly updated, but we're not quite ready to call them "visually super hot" and we're not seeing the "new visual style." The image above shows a highly detailed Hawke (remember, s/he's the new Commander Shepard-esque lead) but look at that ground texture! The image after the break shows a new Ogre, some awkward Hurlocks, and Hawke's not insignificant ups.

Be sure to peep the full-res images at Game Informer, then come back and tell us what you think. We're going with: unconvinced but optimistic.

#ps3 What are we agreeing to now when we play our PlayStation 3s? For one, to take heed of Sony's advice while enjoying 3D games or movies, which the legalese-laden, newly-updated Terms of Service agreement says may cause "discomfort." More »

Playing as the Horde's comic relief race.

A few new modes come with a hefty price increase.

#sports Not many people game completely offline, but you'll want to be connected if you're bringing home NCAA Football 11 tomorrow. It gets a a day-of-release patch that fixes and tunes a ton of features. More »

Greetings everyone! Ramone Russell here with another ModNation Monday update!

ModNation Racers Creations of the Week

Amazing creations in ModNation get shared every day and we are playing a ton of them. If you are interested in submitting your mod, kart or track to be a future “creation” of the week be sure to visit up on the official ModNation Community site and who knows? You might see your handy work on the PlayStation.Blog.

Mods of the Week

Mod Name: ”Billiard Bob”
Creator: Deadsire

Karts of the Week

Kart Name: ”Transilvania Vehicle”
Creator: santagun

Tracks of the Week

Track Name: ”Bay Island Final”
Created by: Yika

Yika says: ”This track was originally intended to be a tribute to my favorite Studio Ghibli Film, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, but the more I worked on it, the more it took on a life of its own! And I am glad it did! I feel I made a track which is simply beautiful. Open it up in the editor to see how unique and detailed it is. The track itself runs fairly well, offering multiple routes with advantages and disadvantages. The road never gets boring, but there is never too much going on either.”

Track Name: ”The Farmer’s Daughter”
Created by: Coty4803

Coty4803 says: “An intricately farm themed track featuring one great shortcut through the farm’s barn. You can choose to take the main path over the barn which features two jumps; one over the barn and another over a dump truck. Drifting skill and precise driving are necessary to achieve fast lap times.”

Hot Lap Roster for This Week

Not only will we feature the tracks above this week, but we are giving tribute to Crash Team Racing on the Hot Lap. Try out some of the best fan tracks we’ve seen so far and see how you do.

• Monday: Crazy Crater
• Tuesday: The Farmer’s Daughter, Creator: Coty4803
• Wednesday: Bay Island Final, Creator: Yika
• Thursday: CTR Dingo Canyon Track, Creator: ComposerRyan
• Friday: CTR Papu’s Pyramid Track, Creator: ComposerRyan
• Saturday: CTR Tiger Temple, Creator: ComposerRyan
• Sunday: Landfill Island, Creator: VintageOctopus

Patch Info

I know everybody wants to know more about the patch that’s in development. We appreciate your patience as UFG places the final touches on it. There’s been a lot of community feedback and I think UFG has done a good job trying to include a lot of the improvements you’ve asked for. One of the improvements is the addition of a “casual” career difficulty that has less “aggressive” computer-controlled racers. I was able to spend some time last week playing the new build. Let me just say that I had a blast playing through the casual career difficulty and I think those that have been asking for this will be very pleased when you can get your hands on it!

Looking forward to sharing more ModNation Racers news next week!

We've got more talk about Read Dead Redemption this week, along with some discussion about Crackdown 2. We also take some time to discuss whether or not you can play Kinect sitting down, and then we put the whole rumor to bed. Or should that be on the couch?

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Hosts: Alexander Sliwinski (Sli Xander, @xandersliwinski) and Dave Hinkle (KnifefightYaDad, @davehinkle)

Music: Intro/Outro: "Electromooq" by Uma Floresta. Break: "Black River Killer" by Bitzen Trapper.

For fans: Xbox 360 Fancast Facebook group

#choaniki Muscle-bound side-scrolling shooter Cho Aniki is coming to the PlayStation 3, according to a new rating from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. That's good news for fans of Speedo-wearing studs who fight similarly ripped, nearly naked dudes. More »

All the latest updates to the most popular Facebook games.

Did you know "Nintendo Fan Art" is an anagram for "A Fondant Intern" which is what we call Anthony!

Del Rey Books announced today it will publish Deus Ex: The Icarus Effect, a novel set in the universe of the upcoming video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The Icarus Effect currently has a launch date of "2011" for North America and Europe, which is roughly the same window the video game is launching under.

The book will be written by James Swallow, who has penned several sci-fi books, including those set in the Warhammer 40K and Stargate 'verses. More information on the novel will be provided on the official Deus Ex: Human Revolution site as it self-upgrades to become an A.I. that'll kill us all ... but not before sharing details on the book first.

This is a new one to me. I’m sure a bunch of you guys already knew about it. Feel free to ridicule me in the comments!

Castlevania III is one of my favorite NES games of all-time. If it’s not one of the best entries in the Castlevania series as a collective, it’s certainly the best on the NES. This game continues to be a blast to play, and it’s no pushover either. Perhaps after reading the feature [...]

You can expect another firmware update for your PS3 this September. No, it won't add PlayStation Move support to the system (you already have that, folks!). Instead, it will add support for 3D Blu-ray movies -- of which there's currently only one.

As with Blu-ray movies, Sony is using the PS3 as a Trojan horse for pushing new technology. 3D is a major focus for Sony, as is evidenced by plans to not only support 3D movies and games, but 3D photos as well, "later in the year." SCEE senior director Mick Hocking has also promised support for 3D broadcasts through the Europe-exclusive PlayTV service, as well. Additionally, "YouTube will be supporting 3D content over the next 12 months as well - and you'll be able to watch that on the PlayStation 3."

Hocking also believes that many of us will adopt 3D cameras of our own in the future. "And as you start taking 3D pictures of your family or 3D camcorder movies, you can play those back on PS3, too," Hocking explains. Hopefully, that means we'll be able to use our PS3s to share 3D photos taken by our Nintendo 3DSes.

#cheevos The full achievement list for Madden NFL 11 is now out in the open. It includes "Laces Out," which gives you 40 Gamerscore for kicking a 60-yard-field goal. That sounds makeable - provided Dan Marino's not holding. More »

#nintendo Nintendo is finally creating a new Kid Icarus game, Kid Icarus Uprising, after nearly 20 years of downtime for the character. The Nintendo 3DS game may be modernized with a now-expected feature, online multiplayer, according to its creator. More »

#screengrab As seen on Eduardo San Gil's "Let the Game Continue" t-shirt, now available at Threadless. Thanks INTVGene! More »

Bouncing here and there and everywhere?

Finally, the first details on Sony's exclusive Mafia 2 content (announced at E3) have surfaced. An early look at the game's Trophy list reveals that the PS3 version will have free add-on DLC titled "Jimmy's Vendetta." From the Trophy descriptions, it appears the add-on includes several missions and an arcade-style points system, multiplier included. With one Trophy requiring 1,000 kills, it would appear that the add-on is lengthy enough to allow players to rack up such an impressive body count.

Natsume's 8-bit assassins return, thanks to the Virtual Console.

A classic fighter brought down by the issue of value.

Cavia, developer of games like Nier, Drakengard, and the Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles series, used to be a subsidiary of parent company AQ Interactive. Now, according to Siliconera's translation of a 4Gamer interview with director Trao Yokoo, the company has been dissolved, with its staff absorbed into AQ Interactive.

Current plans for the team are as yet unannounced, so we don't know if the former Cavia will continue making games for third parties. Officially, however, its last game was Nier, which is kind of an unfortunate note on which to leave.