The FEAR: Chainsaws

[Editor’s note: pendelton21 tells us his fear of the chainsaw for hisMonthly Musing piece. — CTZ] If you fine folks would indulge me for a moment, turn off anything you’re listening to. Any music, any TV shows, everything; mute ’em all. Alright, now, think about a sound that terrifies you. It could be anything; a horrible ghostly wail, a rusty blade scraping across a wooden floor,Jim Sterling singing Rhianna. Think about that one sound effect that, as soon as you hear it, makes you feel uneasy or restless; a sound that shakes you to your soul....

May 19, 2025 · 5 min · 904 words · Charles Parsons

The gimmick or the gameplay?

While ruminating on what my firstDestructoidpost would be, I came acrossPatently Silly, a site dedicated to spotlighting odd ideas and designs that pass through the U.S. patent office — while usually taking humorous stabs at them. Their game section talks up a plug-and-play fishing and arcade photography game from Namco. While they lampoon the machine, never has a video game gotten further away from the excitement. I’m geniunely intrigued by the game....

May 19, 2025 · 3 min · 590 words · Laurie Perez

The Podcastle episode 34: Boyz II Men

I’m not sure if I can describe the kind of subject matter that was raked over in lurid detail on this week’s episode of The Podcastle, but rest assured that, as per usual, the most heavily discussed stuff had very little, if anything, to do with videogames. When we actually steer our rudderless arseholes onto videogames, we talk about how rubbish The Xtival is and mention some upcoming game events hitting the UK....

May 19, 2025 · 1 min · 86 words · Gary Trujillo

The Sniper’s new weapon in Team Fortress 2 is a jar of piss

Today’sTeam Fortress 2updatereveals the Sniper’s new weapon: a jar of piss. Yes, really. Jarate, as it’s called, is ajar of peethat’s used as a projectile. When an enemy gets hit with the jar of piss, they will take 35% more damage for a period of time. Jarate can also short out the Spy’s cloaking devices and extinguish any fire effects on teammates. Jarate’s effects can be washed off to by jumping into water....

May 19, 2025 · 1 min · 146 words · Carrie Miranda

The Sound Card 001: The Game Music Listening Primer

“Hey, I know this song! Isn’t this from…The Legend of Zelda!?” “Wait, why are you listening to music fromThe Legend of Zelda?” Fans of videogame music (well, the non-closet variety) will tell you that they’ve been through situations much like this one countless times. That’s understandable; they all realize that it’s a pretty tall order to ask the layperson to approach the music of videogames as its own valid genre....

May 19, 2025 · 14 min · 2961 words · Crystal Vance

These guys are nuts: The naming of Sin and Punishment

Sin & Punishmentis easily in my top five favorite N64 games. Scary thing is, it almost didn’t make it to the US. Thanks to the magic of the Wii’s Virtual Console, the game finally left Japan back in 2007. Thanks to the game’s success on the Nintendo download service, Treasure and Nintendo put togethera sequel, which should be out in the States in just a few months. Dealing with the game’s bizarre, borderline sacrilegious name was probably a large part of why it took so long to get here....

May 19, 2025 · 2 min · 247 words · Mark Wade

Things looking rocky for GAME’s buyout of Gamestation

If you’ve been followingmineandJim’scoverage of the buy-out of the UK’s Gamestation retail chain by its bigger, uglier evil twin GAME, you’ll perhaps understand why I was briefly tempted to write a post for this story consisting only of the word “Woohoo!” followed by a video of a smiling baby panda doing backflips. In the interests of professionalism however, I feel obligated to actually explain the full story. You know, with words, and facts and things....

May 19, 2025 · 2 min · 396 words · Martha Bentley

This Solid Snake GameBoy Color graffiti is sick

I’m not normally a fan of even “artistic” graffiti, but I have to confess that this random discovery of Solid Snake’s GameBoy Color sprite plastered to a wall is pretty damn fabulous. You might have caught this image on the Internets already (it was uploaded earlier this month), but just in case you haven’t, check it out. We need more vandalism like this. This is cool vandalism. Not like those people that just spray made-up words on the sides of trains....

May 19, 2025 · 1 min · 87 words · Christina Duncan

THQ announces MotoGP ’07 for Xbox 360

There was a point last year, amidst a dearth of Xbox 360 releases, that I would download every single demo that hit the Xbox Live Marketplace. Among those games, was the demo for THQ’sMotoGP ’06. It looked gorgeous in screens and I was anxious to see how it would play, particularly because at that point, I’d had enough ofGeometry WarsandHexicto last me a lifetime. As it turned out,MotoGP ’06was not for me....

May 19, 2025 · 2 min · 378 words · Thomas White

THWAD! New enemy screenshots for Unbound Saga

Vogster is really pushing out the marketing boat for its PSP brawler,Unbound Saga. Launching simultaneously with a DC publication of the same name,Unbound Sagatells the story of Rick Ajax, a comic book character who knows he’s a comic book character and wants to change his fate. These new screens show some of the enemies that Rick will face as he quests to eventually face off with and destroy his own creator....

May 19, 2025 · 1 min · 101 words · Ryan Wood MD

Trailer for console war transforming girl game Neptune

Here’s a trailer for that strange roleplaying game being developed by Compile Heart. It’s calledNeptuneand it features young girls transforming into Goddesses that represent a variety of videogame consoles. It’s very, very, very Japanese, in case you couldn’t already have guessed. Here’s a trailer that might give you a clue as to what the game’s about if you can make any sense of it. I certainly can’t. I’m strangely looking forward to this game, however, if it makes it Stateside....

May 19, 2025 · 1 min · 86 words · Alexander Miller

Tricia Helfer voicing Kerrigan in StarCraft 2

Wow. Tricia Helfer is getting in all of the high profile games! Firstshe’s voicing DareinHalo 3: ODST. Now, she’s voicing Kerrigan inStarCraft 2. Joystiq reports that Tricia’s role inStarCraft 2was revealed during a panel at BlizzCon this weekend. Vice President of creative development, Chris Metzen, told the audience during theStarCraft 2lore panel that the sexy actress would be replacing Glynnis Talken as the Queen of Blades. While I don’t mind that Tricia is the new voice of Kerrigan, I will miss Glynnis’ voice....

May 19, 2025 · 1 min · 93 words · Alec Stanley

Trine now 75% off on Steam; new level DLC available

The PC version ofTrineis on sale this week on Steam. Starting this afternoon and extending until April 26th, you may purchase the title at 75 percent off the regular price. For those of you who didn’t spend 2009 under a rock, apparently avoiding the hippest physics-based platformer this side ofLittleBigPlanet, there is a reason to check out the title again this week: a new level has been released via Steam....

May 19, 2025 · 1 min · 144 words · Kelly Stewart