Did Peter Molyneux start working on Halo games when I wasn’t paying attention? Are jokes about Peter Molyneux’s love of over exaggeration still funny? Either way, the thing in the quotation marks up there is a direct quote from Stephen McGill, Microsoft’s Director of Entertainment. That position sounds a lot like something Leonard F. Chikarason would be doing if he worked for Microsoft. Exactly one of you got that reference, and I salute you for it. Read more…

It is a shame that it wasn’t October, I love alliteration. Anyway, the mystical gaming on demand service OnLive has officially announced a launch date for those of us who dwell in the US of A. Mark your calendars folks, because this thing hits in mid June and should have systematically destroyed all of the gaming world’s paradigms by July. It should be noted that this is only an announcement about the cloud gaming service being available to computer users, a date for the OnLive “microconsole” TV adapter has yet to be uttered. More importantly even than release dates, the monetary details of the service were also announced today.

The price of destroying everything we know about how the game industry works? $14.95 monthly plus the cost of buying or renting games. Read more…

With the release of MLB 2k10, 2K has figured out the perfect way to stop some of the momentum The Show has had over the last few years- hardcore bribery. I love a good bribe, and I love video games, so I know I will be giving 2K Sports newest contest a shot. In order to claim your cold hard cash, you have to be the first person to record yourself pitching a perfect game in MLB 2k10. Obviously you can’t turn everything down to easy and do this you dirty cheater, 2K has a set of rules in effect that you can read on the website.

As contests go, the odds aren’t really that awful for any normal cat reading this right now to win. So if the future million dollar winner is reading this right now, don’t forget to kick a few tens of thousands to your favorite video game journalist.

What? No, not Dan Hsu. God damn it, me! Send me the mone-… oh forget it. I would have just used the money to bribe 2K into making football games again anyway.

[Source: 2k Sports]

Yesterday amidst exploding PS3s and Activision’s military coup against Infinity Ward, something even stranger happened. For those who haven’t yet stared bleary eyed at the coverage of the most recent, and unannounced, Portal update and uncovered the sugary goodness inside it, let’s recap. Quietly and with no explanation, an update was put into effect for the brilliantly engrossing (and now nearly three years old) Portal that said only that it “changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations.” As people dived back into the world of insane robots and thoeretical cake, they discovered that the radio at the very beginning of the game now gave off various bursts of static if you carried it to different areas.

In true internet fashion, somewhere someone began to look deeper into it and found out that it didn’t stop there. Read more…

We have breaking news from the Philadelphia Metropolitan area- sources indicate that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my computer. Read more…

Captain’s log, stardate 2010.33
I have been thrust directly into a world of intrigue and excitement. My life as a space captain began without much warning, as I found myself playing a large part in rescuing a Federation ship from the evil Borg. My reward for these heroics is my very own ship- kind of an odd reward system really, but who am I to judge. After spending a nearly infinite amount of time with the litany of options the Federation has provided me in order to customize everything from my uniform to my haircut to the design of my ship, I am finally ready to begin my journey in the USS Monsieur Rougeur. If these first few hours of action are any indication of what my career will be like, my excitement is palpable. Read more…

Let me set the scene for you- the date was 1999. The Euro was brand new, Napster was getting ready to bring music downloading out of the seedy back alleys of IRC, everybody still had jobs, a certain governor of Texas calling himself a “compassionate conservative” wasn’t a laughable statement, and computers were looked down upon with scorn and fear due to the role they were so obviously about to play in ending human civilization. More importantly, it was also the last time Rebellion sprayed their creative acid all over the faces of gamers in the form of an Aliens vs Predator game. I’m conveniently ignoring 2007’s Aliens vs Predator: Requiem for the PSP because it was awful and acknowledging it would make me have to rewrite this intro.

More than a decade later, Rebellion has returned to the table to spray our faces again.

I just realized how awful that sounded, yikes. Read more…

I guess I could say something witty here, or maybe make one of those analogies you all love where I compare video games to some obscure band or movie. Instead, I will just let us all bask in the glory of this moment. For this… this my friends is the minute Sega finally got it right again. Read more…

In order to accurately review a game like Blood Bowl, you have to look at it from two entirely separate perspectives. On one hand is the type of gamer who is intimately familiar with the warm embrace of the Warhammer tabletop games and their subgenera. You remember the days of wielding your 28 mm metal miniatures as if they held the power of Thor’s hammer. The rules already lay dormant in the back of your mind, ready to be awoken and destroy Tokyo by the depth charge that is a Blood Bowl video game. On the other hand, you have the other 90% of gamers who are going to play this and didn’t even have a clue that Blood Bowl was a tabletop game to begin with. That gives developer Cyanide the double edged sword of having to make a game that appeals to a large amount of gamers while staying true to the source material. If they pitch the balance too far from one side to the other they will either have a game inaccessible to new comers, or have to face the ire of a whole lot of people who are hardcore enough that they might have the Living Rulebook tattooed all over their body like they are in a Clive Barker novel.

So roll a d16 and see which one you are. Read more…

I’ve been excited about Aliens vs Predator for a while now for no real reason other than it being a new Aliens vs Predators game. I know most people are kind of making negative waves about it based on what they’ve seen and the circumstances around it. For one, the Alien vs Predator movies were garbage, but the first game was pretty cool so I can write that one off. Also, this is the same company that made Rogue Warrior, but this is also the same company that made the first Aliens vs Predator which, once again, was pretty awesome. Even if the game is botched and single player isn’t very good, I don’t really see how you can mess up a multiplayer game that includes Aliens, Predators, and the lowly human being all spilling blood together. So the news of a demo hitting all the respective platforms on the 4th is pretty exciting. Hopefully this game meets the arbitrary expectations I have for it.

No word on if their will be any Predaliens. Check out PSN, Steam, and Live on the 4th and get your infared vision on.

[Source: AvPGalaxy, Title image from the hilarious Alien Loves Predator]

Visceral Games has assured the gaming public that Dante’s Inferno will be heavily supported with post release content. While the game isn’t set to be released for another week, Visceral’s Johnathan Knight is already greasing the wheels for many upcoming additions to the classic tale. While, as fans of Left 4 Dead and the first Mass Effect can attest to, just saying you are committed to making loads of extra DLC for a game doesn’t actually translate to tons of extra DLC, Knight has at least given a bit of information on the first planned addition. Read more…

He heard the noise come closer, the rhythmic pounding of excited footfalls. Feet thudding briskly against the floor with enthusiasm that only children could ever wish to harness.

“Grandpa! Grandpa” they yelled.

“Aye, aye. Calm down children. Your grandpa is too old and slow now to be going anywhere, you can be patient.” He chuckled and tousled the youngest’s hair. “What has gotten into you all to greet a common man like me with such a welcome fit for a king?”

The youngest and middle children, both boys and both in the spitting image of himself, (although he would never tell their mother that for fear that she would lock them in the basement rather then have them inherit his sense of adventure along with his looks) deferred to their older sister. Now a world weary 12 years old, she had seen almost all that there had to be seen in the world, at least in her brothers opinions. She would handle the talking.

“Mother says the blizzard is still too dangerous for us to play in,” she was trying to emulate the diplomats she would see during errands to the heart of the city, her posture was stiff and regal. “We were wondering if mayhap you could tell us a story to pass the time.”

Her attempts to seem aloof and uninterested were thwarted by her brothers, who at this point had been quiet for the longest period of time since they were born. “A story! A story!” They nearly climbed over each other in order to be the first to sit closest to their grandfather, “We want a story!” Their sister let out an exasperated breath and crossed her arms.

“Of course, of course!” He said with a laugh, “And what kind of story would you little goblins want from your dear old granddad?”

There was no hesitation, and they spoke in unison- “Dragons!”

“Dragons you say? Hmm.” He sat still, letting the gears in his brain push against each other until his memory was whirring along, “I have just the one.”

“Let me tell you about Ego Draconis.” Read more…

Life is just one long chain of events that came incredibly close to not happening. From evolution to electricity, many of the most historically important events of our lives were just as close to not happening as they were to happening. More importantly than stuff like human beings evolving from the primordial ooze or some old dude getting his kite hit by lightning is The Legend of Zelda. Brace yourselves for this one, but the legendary Second Quest was just a programming mistake. In a recent “Iwata Asks” entry on Nintendo’s website, Toshihiko Nakago made us all realize just how close our childhoods came to being just a little bit crappier by revealing that the Second Quest of The Legend of Zelda was actually supposed to be integrated into the First Quest. That was until Takashi Tezuka made a mistake and only programmed half of the games dungeons, thus changing the course of human history. Read more…

I couldn’t think of an “Under Pressure” pun, so just hum the song in your head while you read this and we can pretend I did.

UK researchers Peratech have apparently won the race to create a cheap and effective pressure sensitive touch screen using an electrically conductive material called a quantum tunneling composite. Quantum tunneling is what occurs when electrons are brought together on opposite sides of an insulating barrier. By doing it this way, the sensors Peratech will be using only have to be 75 micrometers thick and would be placed around the perimeter or a screen. When the touch screen bends, which can be at as little as two micrometers for these sensors to pick it up, they will detect it and react accordingly.

More importantly to us gamers, Peratech has recently signed a $1.4 million deal with Japanese manufacturer Nissha. Nissha just happens to be the company that provides screens to LG and Nintendo. Read more…

We as Americans certainly aren’t used to seeing the words “executives” and “huge pay cuts” in the same sentence without the phrase “gun put to their head” somewhere in the article too. Marvelous Entertainment, which sounds especially familiar if you found yourself addicted to the Harvest Moon series, has made us all wonder if we just entered a time warp to Bizarro World by announcing their top ranking executives will be taking cuts to their pay after news broke that their earnings forecast was a bit gloomy. Executive staff will be taking a 15% to 17% hit, while directors will see 25% to 43% less money to purchase gigantic robot mechs with. Now this is where you are probably expecting to see something like “the CEO made this announcement after taking a gold rocket car that runs on diamonds to the press conference” but that is because you are as jaded and cynical as I am. The CEO of the company, Haruki Nakayma, will be taking a 77% cut. Read more…

If it weren’t for BlazBlue, Street Fighter IV would have been the best fighting game in ages. So when you add SUPER before the STREET FIGHTER part you know you are going to have some high expectations. The new trailer shows off some of the new components that, when combined in a sterile scientific environment, create the rare element Superinium which Capcom then distills using an extremely complicated and dangerous method. After they have the pure Superinium, technicians carefully place a very small amount into each and every copy of Street Fighter IV. After a few months of incubation the game is now Superiniumly Saturated. It is then ready for them to affix the word “Super” to the front of the games title for classification and release it into the wild.

Either that or the stork brings them. Trailer after the jump. Read more…

Uber Entertainment has announced they will be releasing an interesting looking title for the Xbox Live Arcade later on this year. And by “interesting” I mean “I guess these guys have played Team Fortress 2 a couple times.” It seriously looks just like it, except placed in the world of Smash TV. Which begs the question- how with all the reboots and remakes and reimaginings have we not gotten a new Smash TV? I used to make that statement about Splatterhouse but the great lord of video games finally answered my prayers on that one.

Not to take away from Monday Night Combat of course, I’m a huge fan of easily digestible and fun XBLA multiplayer titles and don’t think we can ever have enough of them. It is a shame the trailer shows absolutely no discernible game play outside of showing us what a cyberpunk Team Fortress 2 cgi show would look like, although I don’t think there has been a video game trailer or commercial that has actually showed gameplay since Sonic 3 so I can’t hold that against them. I’m interested in seeing where Uber takes this title to make it stand out.

Trailer that tells you absolutely nothing after the jump. Read more…

The best anime fighting game of the whatever-amount-of-time-you-can-remember-back-furthest-you-stoners is getting a lovingly crafted PSP edition, so you can let the Wheel of Fate Turn while you are on the go. The best news is that there will reportedly be nothing lost in translation between the full sized version and its handheld counterpart, which is fantastic for those of us who still have our timing down perfect to show competitors the Art of Manliness through getting their asses kicked by Bang Shishigami Read more…

When Ubisoft made their State of the Union fiscal report, Beyond Good and Evil 2 wasn’t mentioned. Surely, gamers with taste were crippled with shock and horror. Had we waited all this time for a follow up only to have it dangled in front of us and then snatched away in the night? Has NBC Ubisoft toyed with our emotions by promising us Conan Beyond Good and Evil 2 and giving us Leno instead pulling it away when our excitement was mounting?

Not so, says Ubisoft. Read more…

Mitch Lasky, who up until recently was a senior VP in EA’s Mobile division, has decided to dust off his axe and grind it for all to see on his personal blog.  He is of the opinion that EA has a business model that won’t support it as it continues to have problems, and that it will simply bleed money until it is absorbed by a larger company like Disney or the Chinese company that runs Evony or something. This is probably all in response to the fact EA came out earlier in the week and said they were reducing their economic forecast for 2010. Or something. Read more…