All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

I know a lot of you have been asking about this. I suggest that you don’t watch, but I know that some won’t be able to help themselves. I’ve placed the video after the jump to avoid spoilers.

#rumor NBA Jam's critical success has led EA Sports to resurrect the beloved NFL Blitz series as well, Jeff Gerstmann reports over on Giant Bomb. Development is rumored to be underway, and the multiplatform game wouldn't release until 2012. More »

This is just silly. If you're a PC Gamer who has brought immeasurable amounts of shame upon yourself and your immediate family by having not played BioShock yet, then you can rectify your terrible mistake for just $1.99 today, thanks to a Games for Windows weekend sale.

#dealtaku What is going to happen? Something wonderful. I'm afraid. Don't be. We'll be together. Where will we be? Where I am now. Would you like to renew your PowerUp Rewards Card? Put $5 down on GT5? More »

#originals The calm before the annual storm. It was the last normal week before the holiday shopping season begins and the mass media enforces your civic duty to agonize over what to buy mom, and whether Walmart sold enough of it. More »

#culturesmash After going on sale earlier this month in North America, Kinect finally launched in Japan. How'd it go? Just like you'd think. More »

"You've been weird lately." Katherine (with a K) notices that much about protagonist Vincent, at least, in this Catherine trailer (after the break). Whether she understands the context -- that he's being pursued by a mysterious woman (Catherine with a C) and also dreaming of turning into a sheep monster every night -- is unclear.

Afterward, it is revealed that men are dying in their beds, and these men all tended to cheat on their partners in life. Which, again, probably contributes to Vincent's mood. We're really looking forward to the inevitable localization announcement so we can pick out more than every fifth word of this bizarre drama.

If there's one thing we've learned from the world of webcomics, it's that Super Mario Bros. antagonists have feelings. You know what one of those feelings is? Vindictiveness. What, you think you can just slap Lakitu around, steal his cloud, murder his spiny red children and then you guys would just be totally cool? That's not how the world works, buster -- at least, not in the world presented in Brawl in the Family's Wrapup-winning strip, "Karma."

Second and third place went to Penny Arcade's "Full Circle" and Nerf Now's "Bust a Move," respectively. If you've got a strip you'd like to see in the next Wrapup, drop a link in the comments or send in a tip!

Two interesting mess-ups for you guys. I’ll let the screenshots do the speaking for me… Thanks to MatttheGameFreak and OnlyMe for the heads up!

Nintendo reference comes in around 2:20. CAUTION - FOUL LANGUAGE

#parades The lone game character from the International Video Games Hall of Fame's inaugural class will appear on a float for the first time in the 122-year-old Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena, Calif. More »

We've had like, one dream our entire lives, and that dream is to drive a real-life light cycle. Is that too much to ask? Tron: Evolution says "No, of course not," as the game's latest dev diary reveals that the PlayStation Move controller pretty much allows you to simulate that experience as well as you can in this, the year of our lord 2010. Unless, of course, some technology manufacturer is holding out on us. We're watching you, Hitachi.

The dev diary also shows off the game's character progression system, which remains persistent between single-player and multiplayer modes, and talks a bit about the PS3 version of the game's 3D display support. We're not sure our eyes can handle all those vivid colors presented in such an in-your-face manner. They're delicate, you know?

#kinect We've seen Kinect do some pretty interesting things these past few weeks, but ironically, the most exciting thing we've seen so far is simply using the camera to control Microsoft's Windows 7. More »

#rockband There once was a time when music games were the biggest - and in some cases best - thing to happen to the video game industry. Oh, how those times have changed. More »

#arcade The infamous "kill screen" sets a limit to the highest possible score in Donkey Kong. Steve Wiebe, who reclaimed the world's No. 1 in September, says the game still has about 100,000 points to go. More »

It's been a sad story for Tony Hawk Shred, which managed to move a miniscule amount of product -- 3,000 units in its first week, to be exact. Despite marketing efforts such as putting Al Roker on a board and letting him go to town, it would seem that Tony Hawk Shred is bound to the same fate as Tony Hawk Ride. But with the holiday gift-buying season in full swing, Activision has hopes it'll see "a bigger ramp-up" in sales as the holiday season progresses.

In talking to Gamasutra, Activision's CEO of publishing, Eric Hirshberg, admits that the company needs to "build awareness" for the title -- Hirschberg says Shred was selected as one of the top 12 holiday gifts on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (worked for Kinect!) and is banking on that exposure -- but attributed some of the sequel's lack of commercial success to the fact that, for the first time in franchise history, it's solely being marketed to kids. It's also "a gift-oriented game," he said, which plays into Activision's hopes that more units will fly off the shelves as consumers get to shopping.

For the full interview, a majority of which talks about Call of Duty: Black Ops, hit up the source link below.

If this sounds like a familiar tune, it is: Music game sales have plummeted for a second-straight year. But this year, the tune is way more off key.

According to analysis by Gamasutra, which looked at the period from January through October in each of the past three years, music game revenues in the U.S. have taken a phenomenal nose dive from an epic height of $1.6 billion in 2008 to where they've landed today: under $250 million for the year. "Short of a Christmas miracle," concludes analyst Matt Matthews, "music games won't break $400 million for all of 2010."

Ohhh ... so that's why Viacom's hawking Harmonix.

#irrationalgames PlayStation 3 owners may still feel the sting of the original BioShock being an Xbox 360 "exclusive," then eventually getting a port of the game from another developer a year later. Don't expect similar treatment for BioShock Infinite. More »

Oh my, an addictive bite from the stabby bug is the last thing we needed in this jam-packed Q4. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a soufflé of a follow-up to one of our 2009 GOTY winners, with a rich multiplayer component that is quite savory -- a potential game changer for anyone who had started associating the term "online multiplayer" mainly with shooters. It is a fast-paced, yet methodical, tour de murder.

What's everyone playing?

#vivendi The studio that started the Call of Duty phenomenon fell to pieces earlier this year with the firing of its co-founders and the following mass exodus of pissed off Infinity Ward employees. With enough money, you can recover from that. More »

#showem Telltale's crossover card game, Poker Night At the Inventory, has an official release date: Monday. For a $5 ante you can splash the pot with Strong Bad, Team Fortress' Heavy, Penny Arcade's Tycho and Max. More »

Perhaps Nintendo picked the wrong message for its Golden Sun: Dark Dawn ad: "Coming soon: the game that will maim your parents." Focusing on the cute, collectible djinn is a good idea for trying to trick Pokemaniacs into picking it up, but maybe we could lay off the family injury next time?

This Kinect-based prototype should be relevant to your interests, particularly in how it allows the user to manipulate and find expression in a virtual puppet. Projected against a wall, a wide-eyed bird copies the movements of Emily Gobeille's arm, much like a shadow would. As Kinect tracks the silhouette formed by her shoulder, elbow and wrist, the bird can be made to look around and even squawk.

The video, submitted by Design I/O, shows impressive tracking accuracy from Kinect (right down to the shape and position of the hand), and yet another interesting application that you won't find in the camera's batch of launch games. Designer Theo Watson noted in the video's comments: "it allows for really easy person detection and a cleaner silhouette. with a regular IR camera we would have to worry about the color of the clothes people are wearing, or do backlighting with IR lamps. The Kinect also gives us the z distance of each joint - which means we could in theory have the puppet turn to face the viewer :)"

And you'd be staring into the future of gaming, folks. Imagine playing UFO Catcher as the claw and winning every time!

Editorial: In an industry obsessed with annual sequels, EA did the unthinkable.

#screens Another five screens for NASCAR The Game 2011, due next year from Eutechnyx and Activision, show off the wear and tear on the cars, walls, and pavement - such as the patch job at Phoenix International Raceway. More »

Amazon has been offering downloads of casual games since last year, but has announced a new initiative today that will see its digital distribution offerings expanded. Now Amazon shoppers can purchase "more than 300 blockbuster titles" from EA, Ubisoft, Atari and Sega and to celebrate this new partnership, Amazon is offering deals on select titles from now through Thanksgiving -- including 33 percent savings on certain EA games now through Sunday, as well as 50 percent off more than 50 different core titles.

If you're hungry for more gaming deals, be sure to check out our Black Friday deal coverage here.

[Thanks, brokeotaku]