All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#clips Telltale, the team behind the new Sam & Max and Monkey Island series, have a new game on the way. One that's teasing a crossover of epic proportions. More »

#openthread This past week delivered major Microsoft news: The Kinect Beta began with updated dashboard software and new hardware shipping. Pirated versions of Halo: Reach leaked, with attendant banhammer threats, but Stephen Totilo spent a full day with it, legitimately. More »

You D&D buffs out there were undoubtedly excited to hear that a new Neverwinter game is coming to life, but just like the real D&D, it might end up laying a critical hit down on your wallet.

In an interview at Gamasutra, Cryptic CEO Jack Emmert admitted that the game doesn't have a business model nailed down yet, and that all options are still on the table, from a "free-to-play with microtransactions" model to a "pay-by-the-minute" one. Emmert makes the point that asking for a subscription is still a viable way to run an MMO -- he fully expects BioWare to charge subscriptions for The Old Republic -- but that requires meeting a very high standard in terms of its content and quality.

Of course, Neverwinter is described more as a "co-op experience" than an MMO, and Emmert says it is indicative of a "new direction for Cryptic." Instead of worrying about MMO standards and traditions, he says, Cryptic wants to "just make great games." Specifically, that means "no more 75 Metacritic scores," he jokes at the end of the interview. "My heart just can't take it anymore."

Valve has announced the latest Mutations for Left 4 Dead 2 and it looks like the Survivors will have a leg up on the undead hordes. It's good to know that even in the apocalypse, humans can sometimes catch a break.

In the PC version, players can check out Gib Fest, where all survivors are packing M60s with unlimited ammunition. Xbox 360 players will have to get a bit more up-close-and-personal in Chainsaw Massacre -- all survivors will have access to nothing but Chainsaws. Who wants zombie kebab?

There is a huge untapped market for console manufacturers: China. While Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo struggle to deal with Chinese government regulations, one company is seeking to create a new console specifically for the territory. Lenovo is prepping the "eBox," a new console that has Kinect-esque functionality in mind. With 120 million families as "potential buyers" in China, it's certainly a lucrative opportunity for the company to pursue.

A team of 40 Lenovo engineers are now working at a spin-off firm called Beijing eedoo Technology, and although the company has been in operation for less than a month, it seems confident in what the eBox can do. "We are the world's second company to produce a controller-free game console, behind only Microsoft," eedoo's Jack Luo told China Daily. Although there's no mention of a playable prototype, or finalized design, the eBox is expected to be available as soon as the first quarter of 2011, with a price higher than the Wii, and possibly lower than the Xbox.

Like the Wii, eBox won't be designed to have "exquisite game graphics." Instead, it will serve to "inspire family members to get off the couch and get some exercise" -- a mantra that has served Nintendo well this generation. With eedoo claiming 16 "global video game developers" working on content for the eBox, it won't be long until China will be able to get its share of yoga, pilates and dancing video games.

In a recent interview with Develop, FreeStyleGames creative director Jamie Jackson recounted the emotional rollercoaster ride the studio went through from the announcement to the release of their ambitious mixmastering sim, DJ Hero. Well, using that metaphor, said rollercoaster would be awfully boring -- everything leading up to the game's release only served to bring the studio down. Jackson explained, "when the first news of the game came out, and everyone slagged it off, the whole studio was depressed, because we'd given our life to it." (Yeah, sorry about that.)

Jackson explained that morale was low in the following months -- that is, until the universally positive reviews started pouring in. "Everyone else's opinion on the game had just turned during the release," Jackson said. "When the review scores came in that just changed the mood of the studio dramatically." We're sure the 1.2 million sales over the following eight months didn't hurt either.

#clips The Knights of the Round Tble song is one of the highlights of the film The Holy Grail. It's now also the highlight of your weekend, Team Fortress 2 fans. More »

Wanna dodge the sun's harmful rays and get some gaming in within the air-conditioned comfort of your home? EA's been offering discounts on its PC lineup every weekend; a revolving door of its best and brightest for a pittance. Through Sunday, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge and Spore share the spotlight -- you can get each game for $10, $5 and $20, respectively.

#starcraft Having been out in the wild for almost a month now, Blizzard has decided that changes are in order for Starcraft II, and will soon be making a number of balance tweaks for the game's first major update. More »

#rumor LA Noire, a crime thriller to be published by Rockstar, was first revealed in 2005. It's now 2010, and despite an early glimmer of hope, it's still not out. More »

If you weren't one of the chosen few who managed to weasel their way into the game's closed beta test, your first chance to log a few hours into Final Fantasy XIV will come next week. Square Enix announced through the game's official forums that open beta servers will go live next Tuesday, August 31 at 7 p.m. PDT.

Though the forum post explains that servers will be live 24 hours a day, only a set number of players will be able to log on at one time. This number will gradually increase as Square Enix tests out its server loads, but in the mean time, players who get turned away will be placed on a waiting list. Just think of it like you're waiting in line to gain access to a hip, happening night club, only ... um, it's the exact polar opposite.

#screengrab In the interest of spoilers, you'll have to click through for the punchline. Welcome back, Waffle House Ninja. As seen on 1UP, via 4CR. More »

#crime A 22-year-old Florida man faces 16 counts of possession of child pornography, after allegedly soliciting a 10-year-old boy for pictures via Xbox Live. More »

Now that we've determined that the PSJailbreak dongle is real ... the question of its authenticity has abruptly been made moot. The Australian Federal Court has temporarily enjoined retailers from selling or distributing the devices. The court also ordered that a number of PSJailbreaks are to be "released to [Sony] for such analysis, including destructive analysis, as the Applicants think fit, upon the payment to the applicable respondent of its retail price for each such PSJailbreak Device."

If we're reading this correctly, that means that OzModchips and the other named retailers are legally forbidden from selling PSJailbreaks outside of Sony, and legally forced to sell PSJailbreaks to Sony. In any case, once Sony's had a chance to figure out exactly how this thing works, it basically won't matter if the injunction is lifted later, as the PSJailbreak will be rendered useless by a firmware update.

#halo Reader Sean was strolling down the street in his native Toronto when he spotted this monolithic hulk, which is one of the more unique game advertisements we've ever seen. More »

This is hysterical…I’m laughing as I’m typing. I’ll let reader Daniel explain the shirt’s design. To celebrate the release of Other M, I created a Metroid t-shirt. It was inspired by a now legendary NeoGAF thread where some poor guy didn’t know that: Samus is a woman Metroid is not the name of the main character Grab the [...]

- Depth for experienced gamers - Team wants to make the game accessible to a widge range of players - Simplified controls - Controls rundown: “L” to fire, slide pad for moving, stylus for aiming and camera movement with the touch screen - Pit can fire while diving to the side - Some moves from Super Smash Bros. Brawl will [...]

Just one month after releasing its blockbuster RTS, Blizzard has announced a major upcoming patch for StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. The update will open up left-hander-friendly hotkey options for all regions, will add some new mod and map editor functionality, will incorporate support for NVIDIA 3D Vision, and will make a whole slew of balance changes so mind-shatteringly esoteric that we wouldn't know how to begin describing them.

Check out a partial list of changes over on Battle.net, and think about the impact which the Ultralisk's five-point damage reduction against armored targets is going to make in the grand scope your life.

#clips GameSpot today posted the first two videos featuring gameplay from NBA 2K11's upcoming "Jordan Challenge," featuring Michael Jordan versus the Portland Trail Blazers in the first game of the 1992 NBA Finals. More »

#tattoo Earlier this week I posted a video of a mind-blowing gaming sleeve that a tipster sent us, saying it was the best gaming tattoo I had ever seen. More »

Earlier this week we shared some of our favorite weapons from Dead Rising 2. It got us thinking of more weapons that we'll use when the real zombie apocalypse occurs -- because, don't kid yourself, it's coming. We're still big fans of the Super Soaker Flamethrower (don't attempt at home!). What's everyone playing this weekend?

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#esrb Ho'in ain't new to Fallout: New Vegas. Hell, boffing Nova in Moriarity's upstairs was one of the first things I did in Fallout 3. The ESRB certificate for the sequel shows Bethesda's upping the ante with hot-n-heavy man-on-machine action. More »

What adventurer doesn’t love to collect treasure? Sometimes treasure is the only reason we go out on adventures! Of course, it always help to have a treasure map, or some other sort of guide to point you in the direction of that delicious loot. The the link below, you can find a [...]

Sega wants you to believe these three guys are tough. That's sort of a requirement for accepting them as protagonists of a new Yakuza TV series, based on the PSP's Black Panther: New Yakuza Chapter and bearing the same title. Japan's TBS and MBS stations will begin showing the live action adaptation, featuring an original story, every Tuesday night starting October 5. Later, the episodes will be available for rental on Japan's PlayStation Store.

In addition to the TV series, a Yakuza manga will be released, also starring the PSP game's protagonist, Tatsuya Ukyo. It'll be serialized in Weekly Young magazine. That's ... a lot of Yakuza. And that's not even taking the other upcoming Yakuza game into consideration.