Posts

[For his Monthly Musing, idle eros shares how a specific scene inMajora’s Maskaffected him. Want to see your own blog on the front page? Go ahead andwrite a blogonthis month’s topicand it might get promoted! — JRo] I have been playing games for over 20 years. Since I was about 12, I believed that video games had the greatest potential of any art form, with the notable exception of music. I reasoned that there are several dimensions to media beginning with raw information, and then adding structure to it with visual form....

Gore in a horror videogame? Or, better yet, gore in aResident Evilgame? That’s positively absurd! Wait, no it isn’t. Captain Obvious gives us a quick fly by to tell us thatResident Evil 5will ship with plenty of gore packed in. Did anyone doubt that? “We’re never going to create a gore-freeResident Eviltitle to try and get a lower rating as it’s a game about the horror experience and gore is part of that,” said Rhys Cash, Capcom UK’s research and planning manager....

“I’m ready whenever you are — I’ll see you in your living room,” says Daisy Fuentes. Uh, okay. That’s pretty forward of you, though. You should probably know that this is my first time. Wait, this is about exercise? I don’t exercise! Well, I guess this would also be my first time exercising. It’s obviously not Daisy’s first time, though, as she looks really good. Maybe that’s why Sega had her do their Wii Pilates game,Daisy Fuentes Pilates....

My Life as a Darklordmay be a brand new fun experience or just a dark reversal of the adventures presented inMy Life as a King, but either way it seems like the game gives hardcore Square Enix fans a new adventure to enjoy. In a neat DLC twist, Square has also made available two new costume packs based on Rydia and Palom fromFinal Fantasy IV. Cool! Andriasang.comreports that these costumes allow you to cast fire or cyclone magic (depending on which costume you choose) once per stage....

Mother is too afraid to user her credit card over the Internet. CNN, FOX News or whomever has led her to believe that this fascinating online web of awesome is a dark and evil place where thugs and scoundrels gather. The media is probably right, but the majority of us — hopefully — are aware that typing our sensitive credit digits ain’t no thing if they’re given to actual retailers. Apparently, enough of the Xbox LIVE community isn’t with it....

For a long time now, EA Sports’NBA Liveseries has fallen short of its counterpart from 2K Sports,NBA 2K, in offering a realistic, fun, bug-free game of basketball. In fact, with almost all of EA Sports’ other major franchises —Madden,NHL,NCAA Football,FIFA— blowing the competition (where there is some) out of the water, it’s strange that Live has lagged in the quality department. NBA Live 10developer EA Canada has acknowledged the faults of its series, and though we’ve heard this refrain many times before, they’re promising that this year,Livewill be worth playing....

The accessible nature of demos makes them excellent candidates for Friday Night Fights. In that regard, this was a quality week for free multiplayer gaming. We’ve gotBattlefield: Bad Company 2(now on PlayStation 3)andAliens vs. Predator, but you already knew that. So here’s my protip to double — perhaps eventriple— the fun you could be having inBad Company 2. First, unlock the tracer dart gun. Assuming your in-game stats don’t randomly disappear, this won’t be an issue....

Frommirosurabu— the man who brought us themuch lovedTower of Heavenport — comes another intriguing flash game port of afree, downloadable PC game. It’s pretty impressive thatKyle Pulvermade this entire game in just48 hours! To call it aMariomeetsPortalgame wouldn’t do it justice, but it wouldn’t be too far from the truth. However, the truth isn’t something this game prides itself on. From the very start of the game,Depict1informs you that it’s lying....

Hot on the heels ofyesterday’s brand new trailer, Electronic Arts has put out a batch of new screenshots for Funcom’s upcoming MMOThe Secret World. Along with the announcement of arelease date in April 2012and some upcoming betas, I’d say we’re now going to be hearing a lot more about this release. The core concept — various factions defending the Earth from supernatural forces in actual cities across the globe — is still really interesting....

Holy smokes, a DSiWare game that actually sounds like a little bit of effort went into it! Nintendo has announcedPhoto Dojo, a new fighting game for the DSi that makes use of that little useless camera. InPhoto Dojo, players take photos of themselves to create a fighter in their images. Take pictures of your friends too, and you can beat them up. you may use the microphone to record different sounds for your fighter’s attacks....

F*ck turkey. Ham is where it’s at. I mean, we had turkey, but the ham was thebusiness. I baked a lovely Black Forest ham in a pineapple/mustard glaze on “Turkey Day.” It still eats good. And the leftover possibilities are far greater with ham than they are with turkey. Today? Ham and cheddar panini for lunch. Tonight? Fried rice w/ ham. Good luck with that dried-out bird, losers. Oh, right, Nintendo downloads....

Nintendo isgiving free stuff awayright and left these days. Is it a clever ruse to keep store shelves wiped clean of Wiis? Or simply a not-so-subtle way of screaming at the top of their collective lungs of the best-selling DS, “IT PRINTS MONEY!!” At any rate, if you head over to the official website and join My Nintendo and register your copy ofPhantom Hourglass, Ninty will send you a cool little feather stylus for free....

We heard yesterday that there might be some new additions to Nintendo’s million-seller list of games. I guessed thatNintendogs + catswas among the list and it turns out I was right. Corgis forever! The list for this last fiscal year only has this one 3Ds game. It sold 1.71 million units worldwide, with 1.25 million of those being outside Japan. That’s a lot of derpy puppies. There are a few new million-sellers on the list for the Wii and DS....