All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#gallery There will be 18 classes available to players when role-playing game Final Fantasy XIV launches this fall on PC and PS3. More »

Have you ever played a Terminator video game -- Terminator Salvation, perhaps -- and thought to yourself, "Man, I could make a better Terminator game than this." Apparently that's what Kevin Bryant and The Original Studios thought. Now, what started as a Gears of War mod titled FPS Terminator has become a full-blown indie project developed using Epic's free Unreal Development Kit.

Though the final campaign is expected to have nine chapters, a demo for the project is now available, which you can download from our compatriots at Big Download. It's only a proof of concept at this point, with Bryant hoping he'll be back ... with another demo this fall. Check out a video after the break.

#packaging There are regular editions of games, sure, but there are also two kinds of fancy editions: the kind people pay extra money for, and the kind publishers send to the press. More »

#sega Sega is working on another new Yakuza game. Know what that means? Time to audition more hostesses. More »

Snippets of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective footage went up on various outlets, mostly focusing on a sequence in which Sissel has to save a young girl named Kamilla from the game's nearly-blind assassin. Sissel is assisted in this task by Missile, Kamilla's dog -- who, like Sissel, has recently been killed by the assassin. Sissel rewinds time, and the two have to work together to get Kamilla in a safe hiding place before the killer arrives.

After the break, see a clip from GameVideos in which Sissel and Missile manipulate Kamilla through the use of donuts. Find more at IGN and GameSpot (who has a clip of Missile's fateful showdown).

#newzealand Hey, New Zealand TV, you can't go ripping off a PlayStation ad and not expect Sony's VP of Antipodean Beard Standards Kevin Butler to bring the thunder. More »

#pc I've been playing a little Alien Swarm this week. It's a pretty good game as is, but that's not why it was provided free of charge. No, it was provided free of charge so you kids could mess with it. More »

#foxconn An employee at a Foxconn affiliate has fallen to his death at a company dormitory building, reports the Xinhua news agency. More »

It was last November when we first heard that DotEmu was at work porting Irem's classic 1987 arcade shmup R-Type to iPhone. Yesterday, EA Mobile made it official: it'll be publishing the game on the App Store "this summer," but couldn't get more specific due to the unpredictable nature of Apple's app approval process.

We had a chance to get our hands on the game at EA yesterday and we've got to say, the port has turned out great, with three control schemes (touch to move and shoot, tilt to move / touch to shoot or an overlaid d-pad and buttons) plus options such as autofire and the ability to switch between full-screen and the original coin-op aspect ratio. Cleverly, DotEmu has created separate on-screen buttons for charged shots and launching the "Force" pod away from the player's R9 fighter.

Check out the screens below and we'll let you know when the game hits Apple's virtual store shelves.

From the desk of Kevin Butler
VP of International Diplomacy
Sony Computer Entertainment America

As the star of PlayStation’s current advertising campaign, I get compliments on my performances just about every other day. But recently it has come to my attention that a certain television network named TV3 has created an amazing homage to my marketing prowess. A commercial that is nearly identical to one we created here in the states aired on TV in New Zealand, found its way to the internet, and ultimately to mydesk. Few film greats have been treated to a shot-for-shot shrine (actually I think it’s just me and Alfred Hitchcock).

If you haven’t seen our PS3 “Montage” ad in question, here it is:

And Here’s TV3’s ad:

It’s been said that imitation’s the sincerest form of flattery. If so, color me flattered. However, I do have some constructive criticism for the work that I would like to share.

1. No title for your guy? VP of Big Bigness? PS3 Commercial Tribute Manager? Details, folks.

2. The TV3 version was completely lacking in PS3 video game footage. Clips from Uncharted 2, MAG, God of War 3, or even clips of our upcoming releases Killzone3 and Twisted Metal would have really added some epicness to the spot.

3. The beard. I think it should have been longer.

4. I did like the slow motion effect at the end on the guitar solo. Way to plus it out.

5. Two-color mylar confetti > rainbow paper confetti. Just sayin.

It’s clear to me that TV3 appreciates great advertising and I’d like to thank them for their efforts. In fact we’d like to help them out and make our ENTIRE LIBRARY OF COMMERCIALS available for them to copy in order to promote their programming. I only ask that TV3 doesn’t use our actual footage, but all future homages of this sort are now Kevin Butler sanctioned.

You might be asking, “What’s in it for you, KB?” Well, I asked that too, and here’s what I’ve come up with: I’d like TV3’s support in making the PS3 the OFFICIAL GAME CONSOLE OF NEW ZEALAND. I see this as the only way to make it right with the world. Our super hero team-up could bring the benefits of Incredible HD games, Blu-ray movies and the wealth of content available on the PlayStation Network to billions of New Zealanders. Only a total victory in that fine country will satisfy this situation. That, and a box set of Flight of The Conchords sent to the fine creative team in our marketing organization.

Let’s do this.

I await your reply via my Twitter account: @TheKevinButler

EA has opened a new "state-of-the-art" facility in Salt Lake City, Utah to house its appropriately named EA Salt Lake team. The team has been working on casual titles under the EA Play label for franchises like Monopoly, Littlest Pet Show and NERF. Though EA had maintained a facility in Bountiful, Utah since 2006, "the entire staff" has been moved to the Salt Lake location. The new 20,000 square foot building currently houses 100 employees -- and appear to be hiring.

In attendance for the opening was Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert, who was lieutenant governor during the time Governor Jon Huntsman vetoed a Jack Thompson-authored game bill in the state. It would appear that Utah's hospitable stance toward the industry is paying off for its economy.

#clips Mortal Kombat's fatalities are so...gruesome! Blood, bones, not meant for children. This? Mortal Kombat fatalities, for children! More »

#platinumgames Upcoming third-person shooter Vanquish is not an open world game. At one time, however, it was. More »

The Dark Knight meets his ultimate challenge--pairing up with Plastic Man.

We're currently basking in the warm, soft glow that commonly surrounds us shortly after discovering our newest game-crush. Thanks to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, the latest object of our affection is The Dream Machine, a Flash-based adventure game from Cockroach Inc. (composed of developers Anders Gustafsson and Erik Zaring). The reason for our admiration? All of the characters and environments were handcrafted in a style reminiscent of The Neverhood. Only, well, prettier.

You can check out a trailer for the clay-and-cardboard indie title after the jump, or play through a brief demo on the developer's website. Should that snippet tickle your fancy, Cockroach is currently accepting applications to get in on a beta for the game's first complete chapter. We are so there.

This is one of my favorite NES games of all-time. I love the music, the gameplay, and how can you not love the boxart? How many other games have you played that feature Fabio on the cover?! Having Fabio on the cover is an automatic victory, no matter what.

#nintendo You may think that the concept of a coherent timeline for the Legend of Zelda games is either a sick joke or a...joke, but Nintendo maintains there is one. And that the upcoming Skyward Sword fits neatly into it. More »

#toys It's Comic-Con, so allow me to indulge in some toy coverage. Well, not that this is a toy. It's more like a full-size replica of the alien assault rifle from District 9. More »

Roster grows by two more.

Two new characters revealed for upcoming Wii side-scroller.

While bullish on the subject of our impending digital future, GameStop CEO J. Paul Raines isn't totally blind to the new options available to consumers purchasing games. "The world won't be all digital tomorrow," he told TheStreet.com in a recent interview, "even though that's what people are claiming. In this business, users still want physical content." He does, however, offer up one initiative that GameStop has loosely detailed in the past: a new in-store download option, spawning from a partnership with Microsoft.

"The strategy is to be a multi-channel aggregator for gaming. We want to be the destination for gamers, whether they are getting content via online, mobile, console or any other platform," he added, also championing the still nascent rewards card program as helping to keep customers returning to stores into the future. And just as Raines isn't worried about the disappearance of brick and mortar stores, he's similarly unphased by the competition in the used games space. "There is competition out there that likes to dabble in this segment, but I'd like to remind people that we have seen this many times before. Both Walmart and Best Buy have launched and canceled programs [TheStreet points out that Best Buy is still in the used games business]."

But with the relatively dramatic increase in digital distribution over the past few years and enormous hard drives connected to most of our consoles (and even handhelds), not to mention a recent NPD report indicating a closing disparity gap between retail and digitally distributed PC games, we have to imagine that the company's digital efforts are expected sooner rather than later. If it will be soon enough remains to be seen.

Even pricing details are delayed down here, with Kinect's rrp for the Aussie market only released today. The damage? AUD$199 for Kinect, AUD$449 for the 4GB Arcade/Kinect bundle. More »

#gallery It's not only the recently revealed Chun-Li, Doctor Doom, Super-Skrull, and Devil May Cry's Trish who are joining the Marvel vs. Capcom fighting game fray. According to Marvel.com, two more characters apparently are. More »

#thebeast Daigo Umehara could very well be the greatest Street Fighter player on this spinning blue orb we call "Earth". There must be more to the man than that. There is. More »

As the September launch of game streaming platform Gaikai draws ever-closer, the company has announced its latest business win: investments from Intel and Limelight Networks. This news (for which the full press release can be found after the break) comes just over a month after Gaikai inked a multi-year deal with EA to provide its titles via in-browser streaming.

Gaikai isn't disclosing the nitty-gritty, dollars and cents details of the investments, but we know that the company was already at work building its servers utilizing Intel's "overkill is not a word" six-core CPUs and solid-state drives. Which, essentially, makes Gaikai a showcase for Intel's most cutting-edge tech; tech that will be installed at "key nodes" within Limelight Networks' infrastructure. (We also hear it'll give Gaikai a fresh, citrus-y smell.)

#australia Blacklight: Tango Down, a recently-released online shooter, hasn't been released in Australia. Why? Because it's an online shooter. More »

#microsoft The founder of Voodoo PC, Rahul Sood, says that Microsoft once floated the idea of implementing cross-platform play between the PC and Xbox 360 for a range of titles. Thing is, testing didn't go so well. More »