All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#science What small furry rodent do scientists turn to when they need to study the effects of alcohol abuse on humans? That would be the prairie vole: nature's frat boy. More »

#salesget Nintendo's newest mini-game good time, Wii Party, makes it debut in Japan, handily defeating its competitors with a strong first week. Does the Wii have a new multi-million-seller on its hands? More »

Activision has declared war on the calm, blue and oh-so-smug skies with the announcement of Apache: Air Assault, a game where you don't fly a cool airplane because you're too busy piloting a freakin' sweet helichopter. Russian developer Gaijin Entertainment (IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey) promises several variations of Apache birds, each outfitted with sick military weaponry, "highly-detailed damage modeling" and the ability to destroy tanks who are too stupid to fly into the air and fight back.

Due this fall on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Apache: Air Assault will offer an "Arcade" mode for those who want to blow things up right away, as well as a "Realistic" mode for players who to blow things up the right way. You can also expect competitive online multiplayer and a local co-op mode that has two people sitting in the same helichopter, going let's go left no let's go right oh it doesn't matter because we can fire like sixteen missiles into that guy's face this is awesome hahaha.

The men won't be so merry after this.

Despite "generally favorable reviews," there were quite a few people out there who had some serious problems with Fable 2. And to hear Lionhead's Peter Molyneux talk at the Develop Conference in Brighton today, he's one of them.

Molyneux's hour long on-stage presentation of Fable 3 included a veritable smorgasbord of self-deprecating remarks about the problems in the first two Fable games that would be fixed or mitigated in the threequel. For instance, Molyneux lambasted his studio for throwing way too many unnecessary features into Fable 2, even citing a study showing that most people didn't use more than 60% of the available features. Even when a feature was used, Molyneux said, it was often only used once and didn't factor into the larger game enough. For example, "most people did get married, but it didn't mean anything, it was just an excuse to have sex," he said. At one point Molyneux likened Fable 2 to "designing a car with 300 buttons on dashboard when you only need a steering wheel."

#review The Herman Miller Embody chair is the best we've sat on, but its creators wanted a companion desk so your entire working experience comfortable. The desk wraps around your body like a blanket. A hard, wooden blanket. More »

#gameon The prevalence of helicopters in Call of Duty: Black Ops could lead to uncontrollable cravings for a game that features only helicopters. Enter Apache: Air Assault from Gaijin Games, due out this fall for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. More »

Mortal Kombat and I go way back — I can’t imagine the 90s without it. I still play Mortal Kombat II regularly on the PS3, and know the button commands for every single Fatality by heart, even Shang Tsung’s secret third Fatality that requires holding down the Low Punch button for 30 seconds. Ahem.

Anyway, Jeff Rubenstein and I decided to stop by the Warner Brother Interactive booth at the 2010 E3 Expo to check out the new Mortal Kombat. I met with Steve Beran, a longtime MK series veteran and director of art for the newly named Netherrealm Studios. We talked about the new vision for the gory brawler, got a sneak peek at the new Fatalities and stereoscopic 3D support, and went hands-on for a few matches.

First, though, check out the E3 announce trailer below for a quick look at Mortal Kombat’s visual style, fighting mechanics, and the new “X-ray” attacks.

Mortal Kombat is a re-imagining of the events of the first three games (“the fan favorites” according to Beran) meaning you’ll see lots of familiar faces: ninja specter Scorpion, his rival Sub-Zero, cybernetic assassin Sektor, misshapen clone Mileena, and Hollywood action star Johnny Cage have all made the cut. All told, Mortal Kombat will feature at least 24 fighters — a mix of old favorites as well as newcomers — with more on the way post-launch via PSN downloadable content.

Mortal Kombat will return to the 2D, juggle-centric fighting style popularized by the earlier titles, but the core fighting mechanics are seeing modern, HD enhancements. Most obvious are the devastating new “X-ray” attacks. The camera sweeps in to show the victim’s innards as the aggressor snaps, cracks, and gouges away. “Ribs shatter, jaws break, teeth pop out,” Beran elaborated. “It’s one of the things we’re most excited about.” What’s more, each character possesses a unique-looking innards, meaning that Reptile’s skeleton looks different than Mileena’s, Sektor’s guts look appropriately cybernetic, and so on.

The gruesome “X-ray” attacks are the most dramatic example of Mortal Kombat’s new Super meter, which builds in power as you inflict and absorb damage during each match. A well-timed “X-ray” attack can wipe out nearly half an opponent’s life bar, particularly when chained into another juggle combo. “X-ray” attacks require a full Super meter but, at lower levels, the Super meter will also enable you to power-up a character’s special move for extra damage and beneficial effects, or swap in a tag-team partner mid-combo for a brutal two-man juggle. How you best leverage the Super meter is up to you.

Then there are the Fatalities, the most recognizable and controversial element in any Mortal Kombat title. “In this game,” Beran told me, “we starting thinking about the Fatalities much earlier.” It shows. The new Fatalities are ghoulishly inventive: Kung Lao dragging his victim through his buzzsaw-like bladed hat, Reptile giving a venom-spewing french kiss, and Scorpion slicing and dicing with his katana will make longtime series fans quiver with delight.

Oh, I also donned a pair of 3D glasses in order to experience a video of a Mortal Kombat match running in stereoscopic 3D on the PS3. The fighting genre seems to be a good fit for 3D: the detailed characters, sparkling projectiles, and gushing bodily fluids popped off the screen at a smooth 60 frames per second.

Mortal Kombat will hit the PS3 in 2011, with online play being a major focus. What else would you like to know about Mortal Kombat? Ask away in the comments, and I’ll do my best to track down the answer.

The redesign spurs hardware sales.

I totally dominated Shaun White Skateboarding's downhill slalom multiplayer mode. It's true! And you'd see it too if it weren't for the fact that the person I was dominating was our intrepid video man Chad, shirking his videographer duties to battle me. That's right, folks -- more downhill slalom on skateboards for the Wii. While I stood on a Wii Balance Board with a Wiimote in hand, Chad used a Wiimote/Nunchuk combo; while I jumped and flailed, he flicked and flailed. And though this wasn't exactly the deepest gameplay on offer from Shaun White's forthcoming game (read on for my impressions of the single-player campaign), the battle was, more or less, rather enjoyable.

Sure, the precision control of a skateboarding sim like Skate is nowhere to be found, but the arcadey enjoyment found in early Tony Hawk titles seems to be littered throughout Shaun White Skateboarding. An extended single-player campaign demo, played just before the aforementioned multiplayer battle, showed off the game's Tony Hawk-meets-Flower gameplay, first introduced at Ubisoft's E3 presser (seen here). It was just as refreshing as it looked -- though, in fairness, the less than stellar graphics of the Wii version only served to detract from an otherwise interesting visual presentation.

#nothingpersonnel The maker of massively multiplayer online games Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest is making cuts this week, eliminating "just over 4% of its full-time workforce," Sony Online Entertainment reps tell Kotaku. More »

In the video below, you’ll get to hear the new voices of Sonic and Tails talking to each other. Hit up the 2:44 mark, which will take you to a Naruto scene featuring the two new actors.

- 15” - due to release late September - Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of £129.

During his recent Develop panel, Tim Schafer -- creator of Brütal Legend and head of Double Fine Productions -- revealed that the potential for a sequel to Jack Black's journey through a fantastical world of rockitude is nonexistent. "Apparently when they said it was a done deal, they meant there was no deal, and we're done," he told attendees.

Double Fine fans shouldn't mourn the game's loss, however; the studio is currently at work on four new titles, so it's not like Schafer is riding off into the sunset -- unless that's part of one of the four games Double Fine is working on, in which case you heard it here first.

#interview The novel Ghosts of Ascalon attempts to bridge the 250-year gap between fantasy MMO Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, but is it a bridge too far? We speak to co-author Jeff Grubb about bringing Tyria's fiction up-to-date. More »

GameFly has proven that the speed of a game rental website exceeds the proportionate speed of a radioactive spider. The website posted the final box art for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions well in advance of next week's Shattered Dimensions Comic-Con panel, which is expected to provide the "official" reveal of the game's fourth universe. Activision confirmed to Joystiq that the box art image is authentic.

There's still plenty of info to reveal at that panel, however. The newly revealed, fourth version of Spider-Man (pictured on the far right) looks like he's wearing the famous (infamous?) black "symbiote" costume, which raises questions about which "universe" it represents in the game. In the comics, the Secret Wars storyline that resulted in Spider-Man's acquisition of this costume took place in the normal "Earth-616" Marvel Comics continuity, which is already one of the game's revealed dimensions. (The other two are the Noir [Earth-7207] and Marvel 2099 [Earth-928] universes.) It's possible that this probable symbiote costume is the version from the Ultimate universe, which would qualify as a separate universe and fulfill the game's multidimensional gimmick.

Check out the full box art after the break, while we ponder the biggest question brought on by this reveal: When did we learn so much about Spider-Man comics?

Being comatose is actually a lot of fun in this creepy freebie.

Sony cuts 35 employees.

#blizzard Don't wait until launch date to download your digital copy of StarCraft II. Grab all seven highly anticipated gigabytes worth of Blizzard's sequel right now so you're ready to play on July 27. You don't even have to pay! More »

#xbox360 The newly canceled 1 vs 100 Xbox Live game show isn't the only clever idea for the Xbox 360 that has met its meteor. Let's review some 360 initiatives that seemed cool but now seem dead. More »

For whatever reasons, Capcom is giving the old Devil Kings franchise another try outside of Japan. Both North America and Europe will be getting the game under the Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes name. We’ve known about this for awhile now, but just this week we heard of the NA release date. Today [...]

Sony Online Entertainment, publisher and developer behind the upcoming DC Universe Online and The Agency, has laid off 35 employees, or "just over 4% of its full-time workforce." In a statement to Joystiq, Scott Gulbransen, Sr. Director Global PR & Corp Communications, said that the cuts were necessary to "better align the company's resources ... as well as improve operational efficiency." Unfortunately, the publisher declined to go into further detail, adding "this is all we're going to say today."

The full statement is available after the break.

The European special edition of Dead Rising 2 may include a tiny, plastic zombie, but the North American special edition trumps it by helping you avoid becoming a zombie yourself. The Dead Rising 2 Zombrex Edition, available on both PS3 and Xbox 360, includes a syringe of life-saving Zombrex medicine (which looks suspiciously like a pen), along with a Zombrex safety information card, sales brochure, and 25-page prescription pad.

The steelbook case also includes materials not related to fictional anti-undeadifying pharmaceuticals, including a Dead Rising 2 artbook, and a disc with a "Making of" featurette. The Xbox 360 version will also include the Zombrex Dead Rising Sun film, while the PS3 version will include a voucher for a dynamic theme. The Zombrex Edition will be released on the same September 28 date as the regular version, and will retail for $79.99 -- isn't it worth the extra $20 to have the peace of mind that only anti-zombie medication can provide?