All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#clips Seen here is not a single piece of animation or visual trickery. Instead it's five minutes of people doing things that you'd only expect to see happen in a video game... probably with a video game hack. More »

Rock Band 3 is ready to receive the 1.93GB Rock Band 2 song export. RockBandAide details the export process (actually a track pack download) that requires $10 and the code from the back of your Rock Band 2 instruction manual, originally used for some bonus downloadable tracks. To redeem the code, go into the "Get More Songs" menu in Rock Band 3 and head on over to the "Redeem Code" option.

The five songs that will not survive the export process are:

• AC/DC - "Let There Be Rock"
• Journey - "Any Way You Want It"
• Metallica - "Battery"
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Give It Away"
• Soundgarden - "Spoonman"

RockBandAide reports nine songs from Harmonix bands will also not make it through the journey, but don't stop believin' in the company's bands, because they'll reportedly return as free DLC packs. Also, if you'd previously paid for the license transfer for Rock Band 1 tracks, don't worry -- those tracks are all set on your hard drive and ready for rockin'.

[Thanks, Andrew K.]

Standalone pack heading for shelves next month.

Standalone pack heading for shelves next month.

#spidermanshattereddimensions The Cosmic costume is coming to Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, granting the hero one new "signature charge attack." But that new look and power won't be free. More »

Those of you hopping in to Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light on Xbox 360 tomorrow will find not only the newly added ability to play with a buddy online, but also the first of the game's DLC packs, "All the Trappings." (You'll remember it as a way of saying, "Hey, sorry we sold you our game before we implemented all of the features we promised.") The new area and its combination of puzzles and combat challenges will be free for 30 days.

Plans for online support in the PS3 and PC versions are still unannounced, but if Square Enix tries to charge you guys for "All the Trappings," we promise to support all of you in a well-earned freak out.

Atari's superhero MMORPG playable for nowt from Q1 next year.

Yee-haw! Rockstar's standalone disc-based collection of Red Dead Redemption DLC, Undead Nightmare, is being wrangled into retail on November 23. It includes the Free Roam online mode, along with the Undead Nightmare, Liars and Cheats, Legends and Killers, and Outlaws to the End DLC.

If you already have Red Dead Redemption, you can simply download the new Undead Nightmare pack right now on Xbox 360 for 800 Microsoft Points ($10). You can also download the "Undead Nightmare Collection," which bundles the Undead Nightmare, Legends and Killers, and Liars and Cheats DLC, for 1600 MSP ($20). You'll have the same set of choices for PS3 when the PlayStation Store is updated later today.

Devs in attendance and gifts galore as Fable III gets its midnight launch.

#thehorror In Japan, coin-operated Pikachu buggy rides are a common sight in front of arcades or suburban shopping centers. Children love them. In South Korea, they must scare the crap out of kiddos. More »

Coming to Xbox, free for 30 days.

#disturbanceintheworkforce Wardevil was one of the first current-generation games to ever be shown off. That was back in 2005. Back when it could still be called an upcoming game. Now? We can call it a cancelled game. More »

Mutants, DJs, bizzare Japanese shooters and one puzzle-solving gentleman get a warm welcome in this week's charts.

#pcweek In Japan, Nintendo launched the Famicom in 1983. Besides the two controllers, the "Famicom" later had a keyboard, helping the machine live up to its "Family Computer" moniker. The version released in the West, however, was a different story. More »

#kinect While Microsoft's first attempts at a motion-sensing peripheral were relatively primitive affairs, the very first prototype of Kinect was worth an absolute fortune. More »

#booze Taro Aso is hardly your typical Japanese politician. This is hardly your typical Japanese sake. More »

Where we're going, we don't need roads.

#pcweek If Team Fortress 2 had an air supremacy mode, Dogfighter would be it. More »

The next entry is coming to PlayStation 3 with 3D support. First screens and details here.

Sony slashes handheld price over here.

#japan Koei Tecmo's long running hack-and-slash franchise Dynasty Warriors gets a new entry next spring, Dynasty Warriors 7. More »

Zoo Games has announced a DS game based on ... some rubber bands. This December, Zoo will release Silly Bandz, the official game of those rubber bands in the shape of animals and Justin Bieber.

Silly Bandz tasks players with freeing Bandz from capture by launching other Silly Bandz at the structures in which they are trapped. Screenshots found on Amazon show an Angry Birds-esque experience: a side-scrolling game where players knock over colored block-structures and ... is that a giant magnet?

Of course, the actual game content doesn't matter at all, because it ships with a set of twelve video game-themed Silly Bandz -- and the office supplies are the real selling point here. In July, Zoo announced that this game would be released on iPhone as well (without free Bandz, of course), but that version has yet to be dated.

#tv Looks like Microsoft ponied up a bit of cash to have Kinect appear in this week's episode of Chuck. I hope it wasn't much, though, because this isn't advertising. It's dissuading. More »

#onlyinjapan Konami has already released a special PS3 bundle for Metal Gear Solid 4. This new bundle isn't so special. But hey, it's got Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. More »

#screengrab They don't sell PCs like they used to—specifically with sci-fi author Isaac Asimov and his powerful, bushy sideburns. The bewhiskered Asimov proudly pitched Tandy/Radio Shack PCs, like the TRS-80 the first personal computer I ever played a game on. [More PC Gaming Week] More »

#rumor You may not think iPods are true gaming machines, but retail giant GameStop certainly does, as it may soon be accepting Apple's handheld devices for trade-in. More »

#retro What do you call Nintendo 64 game Pokémon Snap with no Pokémon? Snap? More »

#japan 3D televisions are expected to proliferate. More 3D TVs means more and more 3D games. Japanese research firm goo Ranking (via What Japan Thinks) polled folks in Japan regarding which game series they wanted to play on a 3D TV. More »

If you want an improvement over the Xbox 360's current D-pad, you can wait until November 9 and pick up one of the new controllers with the twisty directional pads ... or you could get one of these things. Evil Controllers is offering standard wireless or wired Xbox 360 controllers with the addition of the "Evil D-Pad," which replaces the traditional rocker switch with four buttons. Desperate times (including any time you're trying to play a game with the D-pad) call for desperate measures!

You can order a wired controller with an Evil D-Pad for $54.99, or a wireless version for $74.99. That is, of course, unless you choose to bundle it with other mods. If you're going to do this to your controller, why stop there?