"For everything it has to say, for all the questions it asks — many of which have no easy answers — BioShock Infinite's big thoughts and complicated narrative don't obscure the brilliant action game that carries those messages through." Polygon's 10/10 review of Bioshock Infinite detailed how...
"Look, I can't say I'm a man of high taste." Ken Levine, Irrational Games
Microsoft is updating a number of its Windows 8 apps this week and the company is now starting to push some Xbox-related changes. The games app, built into Windows 8, is being updated to include Xbox Live messaging support with toast...
Since we first got a look at the Wii U, one of our biggest complaints has been its unbelievably laggy user interface. Thankfully, a partial fix is on the way next month, and now we’re getting a look at what kind of a difference it’s going to make. In a video (below) posted to Nintendo’s YouTube account you can see how much faster it will be to return to the main Wii U menu from a game in...
Sony is open to the idea of letting indie developers charge for early access to unfinished PlayStation 4 games, reports Joystiq. According to Sony America’s VP of publisher and developer relations Adam Boyes, the company would "absolutely support" buy-in alphas, so long as they don’t "have any bugs that are completely destroying the world," adding that the same model could also be applied to PlayStation 3 and Vita development. Competitor Valve recently announced plans to offer a similar service through its Steam distribution platform under the name Early Access.
"Yeah, if it doesn't have any bugs that are completely destroying the world." Adam Boyes, Sony America VP
Minecraft developer Mojang is about to release its second computer game, Scrolls, a digital trading card game. As with Minecraft, Mojang will release Scrolls in beta, giving eager players an early look at the game. Polygon reports that the game will be available for purchase at a discounted rate for those interested in playing the title before it's completed. The game's early launch follows...
Less mining, more trading
Facebook took to the Game Developers Conference today armed with some new statistics that reinforce the company's standing as a popular hub for casual gaming. Over 250 million users are playing games on Facebook.com each month, with roughly 20 percent of the social network's daily visitors taking part. Developers are also being reminded that designing Facebook games can be a lucrative business;...
PopCap Games announced today that it's launching a Facebook-only "social adaptation" of the popular Plants vs. Zombies series, dubbed Plants vs. Zombies Adventures. The new game will begin testing in a closed beta release tomorrow, opening up for broader access later this spring.
Last year's critically-acclaimed strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown is coming to the iPhone and iPad this summer, according to publisher 2K Games.
An iOS port isn't itself that novel — Rockstar Games, for example, has been re-releasing classics like Grand Theft Auto III and Max Payne since 2011, as have veteran gaming companies like Sega, Capcom, and Square Enix. What sets XCOM apart is that it's a AAA title with high production value that's less than six months old (it launched October 9th for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC) — and 2K Games is promising this will be a "full port" of the game, except for a few maps that were...
Good news for fans of old video games — accessories maker Hyperkin is unveiling a retro console that will play almost any cartridge you can throw at it, reports Slashdot. Named the Retron 5 for its five slots, the machine will handle the same trio of NES, SNES, and Genesis cartridges as its predecessor, the Retron 3, as well as Famicom and Game Boy Advance games — not to mention Mega Drive, Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, and original Game...
What do you mean, no 32X support?
Indie developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment (UWE) is making Natural Selection 2 free-to-play this weekend through Steam. Natural Selection 2 is a unique, fast-paced, exhilarating game that blends real-time-strategy with traditional first-person-shooter mechanics. Originally a popular...
DuckTales was one of the more surprising success stories on the original Nintendo Entertainment System, and one of the best licensed videogames of the era. Now, almost 25 years after its original release, DuckTales will be coming to the Wii U,...
As Nobel-prize chasers search for a cure to HIV, and Bill Gates squanders his fortune on new and innovative vaccination methods, one topic has remained unexplored: why do gamers insist on drawing dicks in videogames? Kotaku's Stephen Totilo tackles this question head-on in a...
Last year gaming company Zynga launched a beta version of its own standalone gaming portal that allowed users to play both in-house and third-party games without being on Facebook. The portal still required Facebook credentials to log in, however — but today the company has announced a new version of Zynga.com that ditches that requirement entirely. As described in a blog post, the updated portal, which launches...
Google is having some fun showing off what Chrome can do — the company today released a new Chrome Experiment that transforms websites into a playable marble maze. World Wide Maze breaks down the elements of a webpage, and uses them to create...
Writing the book The Art of Design of Gears of War in 2011, games writer Tom Bissell has a close connection with the Gears franchise. As Gears of War: Judgement — the fourth instalment in the franchise — hits stores in the US, Bissell has spoken about his work on the title, detailing his...
Richard Garriott, the space-faring developer who created the Ultima series and recently announced his return to games with the successful Shroud of...
It's been seven months since OnLive's famous turmoil, and though the company never stopped streaming in the meanwhile, OnLive's new owner Gary...
As prominent a character as Princess Zelda is in Nintendo’s 27-year-long The Legend of Zelda series, you’d think she’d at least have her own game by now. Motivated by the story of father Mike Mika hacking Donkey Kong so that his daughter could play as Pauline, animator Kenna W. decided to try her hand at modding the original 1986 NES...
A century in the future, Japan's teenage president must protect the country from harm by fighting enemies in her giant flying robot suit. Or something like that. The premise of Liberation Maiden, a...
Playing a video game that's finished and released to the public is one thing, but what if you could give titles a play-through while they were still in active development? Starting today, Valve is giving users of its Steam platform just that opportunity. Steam Early Access is a new initiative that lets gamers purchase, play, and offer feedback on games before their underlying code has been finalized. The program is kicking off with 12 titles (including one called Drunken Robot Pornography) from a variety of developers.
Last month we heard rumors of an anti-used game system for Microsoft's next-generation 'Durango' Xbox console, but an additional leak this week appears to reinforce those claims. Vgleaks, previously responsible for revealing accurate specifications for Durango, has provided screenshots of an Xbox Development Kit (XDK) for Microsoft's next-generation console. We've seen screenshots leak before, but these appear to confirm a number of previous rumors.
As part of a Durango hardware overview,...
It seems the bad news just keeps coming for EA. Researchers at ReVuln claim that Origin, the digital game store operated by the publisher, is susceptible to a major exploit that could allow hackers to secretly install malicious code on a player's...
EA CEO John Riccitiello is stepping down from the video game giant as of March 30th, the company announced today. His departure comes at a time when EA is struggling with public perception over the troubled launch of SimCity, but the company also...
Supergiant Games found early success with Bastion, an epic and melancholy action RPG released in 2011. Now, the studio has given us a first look at its next project: Transistor, which trades the fantasy-western setting of Bastion for a more overtly sci-fi design. While the gameplay and style looks like it follows in Bastion's footsteps, Transistor concerns a young woman who gains ownership of a mysterious weapon — the Transistor — and must...
The question of whether or not video games are "art" is a long-standing one, and it often centers around whether the medium can accurately convey dramatic emotion in the same way that film and literature can. Writing for Splitsider, writer (and Verge contributor) Noah Davis takes a different approach, wondering whether or not video games can ever be a medium for true comedy. Looking through the lens of the darkly humorous Portal franchise,...
