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National Geographic Getting Into Video Games
penguin_dance writes "The AP is reporting that National Geographic is getting into video games. National Geographic Games, a subset of the parent company, will 'work with game publishers to turn its material into games for PCs, consoles and handheld devices.' The first title is out for the PC and iPhone. It's a hidden-objects game called Herod's Lost Tomb, and is built around their program on King Herod and an article in the magazine. They also plan to publish and distribute games for the
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Gaming Benchmarks For the New MacBook Pros
PC World takes a look at the performance of the new MacBook Pros compared to models from the middle of 2007. In addition to benchmarking software, they run comparisons on the Crysis demo and the World in Conflict demo. The results show improvement by a significant margin. Additional benchmarks are available at MacWorld. "Crysis shows a similar performance bump, though viewed practically, those numbers might look a little depressing. Crysis arrived in November 2007, but I'm fairly certain I won't
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The Importance of Procedural Content Generation In Games
Gamasutra reports on a talk by Far Cry 2 developer Dominic Guay in which he discussed why procedural content generation is becoming more and more important as games get bigger and more complex. He also talks about some of the related difficulties, such as the amount of work required for the tools and the times when it's hard to retain control of the art direction. Quoting: "Initially, the team created a procedural sky rendering approach based on algorithms — which led to a totally
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Persuasive Games: Disjunctive Play
In his latest feature, designer and author Ian Bogost analyzes Jason Rohrer's fascinating new art-game Between to help map out a new, indirect style of multiplayer gaming.
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Best Thing I Saw Today #36: 360° Video
3D games have been doing this in replays for a while now and I’m not sure what ueful applications it would have in entertainment beyond the initial OMG-look-at-that moment, (after all, much of what makes film interesting is the restriction it places on a viewer’s point of view. How many of us ever used [...
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Fable 2
by: Randy KalistaArticle - It?s Lionhead?s game, but Randy was able to pen his very own fable out of this breathlessly open-ended RPG.
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Gaming Gibs for 11/18/2008
by: Charles HusemannNEWS - Here are a few things I missed while being transfixed by the puppy cam:
Age of Conan to get dungeons and DirectX 10 support in next release, finally
More people don't get why Ensemble was closed, this may become one of the next great gaming mysteries
Raph Koster talks about why corpse runs suck in MMOs
Looking for deals on Black Friday? Here's a full list of all of the know deals.
Lips microphone won't work with any other music games,
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National Wii Nightmare Over?
by: Charles HusemannNEWS - While perusing a few game stores and big box retailers like Best buy over the last few days I've noticed something I haven't seen before...piles and piles of Wii's ready to be purchased for the holiday season. Ben was able to pick one up last week without any problem and it looks like that's the case all over the country. No longer will people have to lurk at their neighborhood Best Buy waiting to purchase white boxes of over-hyped gaming goodness.
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Epic addresses Gears of War 2 multiplayer matchmaking issues
by: John YanNEWS - I've run into a few times when trying to find folks to play in Gears of War 2 where it would just cycle or trying to a game would take about five minutes. Epic is aware of this problem and they've posted some work arounds to the issue. One of the main things is try to have more than one person with you when looking for games. Also, if you have multiple folks, make sure that you have less than four or five total. In the meantime, Epic's looking into the issue to try and remedy
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Mirror's Edge goes 2D
by: John YanNEWS - There's been some great Flash games that take a 3D concept and turn it into a fun and addicting 2D experience. Portal comes to mind as one but we have another one here. Head on over to Bourne Games and play a 2D side scrolling version of Mirror's Edge. It's very nice looking and has some awesome animation. Right now it's a beta so expect a few quirks here and there but so far I've had a blast playing it and I can't wait for the final version to be out.
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The last word on Beyond Protocol
by: Nathan MurrayNEWS - This is the last installment of Beyond Protocol stories on the site. What's next? Screen shots, user guides, and a game trailer! WooHoo! This time its Brandon Bachner telling the story from the front lines of the galactic campaign for president. Intrigued dear reader? You should be! Head on over to the next page and read how Democracy finally comes to the galaxy.
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Afro Samurai renders not-yet-seen game characters
by: Randy KalistaNEWS - These character renders of Afro Samurai, Namco Bandai's upcoming cut-'em'up (and which now vaguely totes a Blood is Beautiful subtitle), shows off several characters that haven't made it into previous batches of screenshots. Along with Afro Samurai himself, we've got pics and character biographies of Daimyo, the mustachioed fellow in samurai armor; Jinno, with small black topnot and twin swords at his hip; Justice, packing two six-shooters full of it; Kuma, the
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Ultimate Band releases full track list, forgets artists
by: Randy KalistaNEWS - The official release date for the Wii's Ultimate Band is etched in stone for November 25th. And while developer Disney Interactive Studios put out a full song list, they neglected to mention the artists. One of the track titles is "Song 2." Do they mean "Song 2" from Blur? DJ Krush? Miles Davis? Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky? "Whip It" is on there too. My first guess (and probably yours) would be Devo,
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News Roundup: Pacific Rift Shadow Odyssey
by: Randy KalistaNEWS -
Defunct Games reviews The Legend of Kage 2, and hopes it doesn't take another quarter century before we see The Legend of Kage 3.
TheTechLounge has marketing advice for the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GT 512MB AMP Video Card.
Massive Gamer questioned the senior producer for EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey and the executive producer for The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria.
For "one sexy looking card," Legit Reviews proffers up the XFX GeForce
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James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace Review (X360)
The James Bond film franchise has been effectively rebooted with a more realistic tone and a great leading man in Daniel Craig and now the Bond videogame license is looking...
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World War One: The Great War 1914-1918 Review
World War One: The Great War 1914-1918, developed and published by AGEOD.The Good: Detailed unit and leader properties, tactical battle planning, limited number of stacks decreases micromanagement, robust economy with research and unit production, accurate movement with weather and supply influences, logical diplomatic relations flow, novices can disable some advanced rules, very easy to modifyThe Not So Good: Interface shortcomings, poor tutorial, long AI turn resolution, can?t adjust music
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The First Thirty: Socom Confrontation
Sometimes I forget the games that I put in my Gamefly queue. This is a problem because sometimes I end up buying a game and then 2 days later I end up getting it in the mail as well. I never planned on buying Socom Confrontation, so luckily I was not upset when it arrived [...
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Aeropodcast #58: It?s All About Netflix
Dialing it back a bit from last week’s mega show, it is just Joe and Fourhman talking up the new Xbox Live Experience, and a little bit of Fallout 3. Also, we take some time for community questions, and have an emotional moment with some of our favorite games. And somehow, Reservoir Dogs comes up.
Music [...
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The New Xbox Experience Review
When I first saw the NXE the thought crossed my mind that Microsoft was trying to make the 360?s new dashboard pretty just for the sake of being pretty. The dashboard we had was already very functional and miles ahead of the competition. So why would Microsoft completely change the dashboard? After spending the last [...
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Sony throwing wrench in Netflix Xbox launch? (Updated)
Those of us in the New Xbox Experience preview have been enjoying playing Netflix movies on our Xbox 360’s for a little while, and I was all nice and ready to write up a laundry list of praises. However, I (and others) noticed some movies disappear from my Instant Queue on the Xbox. I didn’t [...
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Stone Age Gamer keeping the good old days? good
Old school gaming may be experiencing a bit of a renaissance here on Aeropause thanks to neat brick-and-mortal retailers like PlayNTrade, but it’s common knowledge that the Internet is an excellent place to find old gaming goodness. If you haven’t heard of Stone Age Gamer, this is my chance to crow about them a little [...
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Meet (and purchase) the SackRocos
Remember what I said before Sony seeking to create a unified, character-driven brand, a la Nintendo? The trend is continuing and LittleBigPlanet appears to be petri dish number one. Today SCEA announced FIVE LocoRoco-themed costumes for LittleBigPlanet. They are positively killer. The pack of five is available starting this Thursday for $2.99. If this keeps [...
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Back!
Had a brilliant time! What a lot to catch up on. And OFFWORLD! I think so. Posts to resume momentarily.
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Crafty sackboys aplenty
Well this was inevitable, wasn't it? :-D Good ole Crafty Crafty for calling for them.
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Chewbacca slippers
Having said that, I do actually need a new pair of slippers, it's bloody freezing round these parts and flipflops aren't cutting it.
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It's going to be a busy holiday season
Prince of Persia gameplay. Mmm juicy, and all the wall-scraping you could ask for. And the new Lara Croft gameplay. Kind of ditto. These better be in my xmas sock
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Left 4 Dead
A 4 minute promo movie for L4D from Valve here. There's a Licker, a Hulk/Thing type beast, a Jayne-esque character, and a whole ton of 28-days-later fast-moving infected. Odd not seeing any gameplay, especially as all the content there isn't...
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Pretendo Lameboy
Denise G. sent in a link to NBsCloset on (where else) Etsy. Maker of laser cut jewelry, including the Pretendo Lameboy charm, the Wiimote necklace, the Link ring... ... and the NES controller ring... Great, eh? I love this idea...
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Untenable anachronism: The USB 2600 joystick
I don't know, as a fellow who rewired an Atari joystick to make it work left-handed, there just seems to be something wrong about a USB version of the venerable (overused, pseudo-intellectual word alert!) controller.While I'm at it, why isn't that design
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Dead Space: A conversation
One of EA's big titles this quarter is Dead Space, a survival horror game set in a shipwrecked mining vessel sometime in the future. It draws from a lot of familiar games and movies: Alien, Aliens, Resident Evil 4, Half-life 2, BioShock, and others. I was only mildly interested at first, but I got drawn in as I learned more after its launch.I noticed that Josh Birk (of Cathode Tan) was playing it, and after LittleBigPlanet got pushed back a week, I opted to pick it up. What follows is a
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Review: Mirror's Edge
Mirror's Edge is a new high-concept game from EA that combines parkour with a first-person perspective. From a technical standpoint it succeeds in several areas, and I heartily recommend the demo. I do not recommend the full game.The key mechanics problem here is that developers and designers can't quite tell what is a well-designed level and what isn't when they're creating such a new kind of game. There are times when the design is inspired, but there are also many, many sections that remind
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Wait Your Turn For Sonic Unleashed
If you were hoping to get your North American hands on Sonic Unleashed this week you may have to practice the time-honored art of patience. Sega is launching the game in waves for some reason. Sonic fans aiming for the...
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Beaky Turtles Mark Dawn Of The Koopa Troop
Before the era of affordable widespread computer graphics technology, Nintendo's Mario was at the mercy of whichever artist was drawing him that particular day when it came to promotional artwork. The character's style and appearance changed numerous times in the...
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What About The Oasis?
(To warn you, again, the whole ending's gonna get spoiled)
Originally this was going to be about the small settlement of Arefu. The Arefu quest stands out as a pretty abject failure, the perfect example of when Fallout 3 falls flat on its face. A boy murders his family, runs away with a gang of "vampires" and, with enough speech skill on your part, will eventually go back to live with his village without any visible regret. I love a happy ending, especially when it involves killing family
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PSN Boasts 14 Million Active Users [Playstation 3]
We recently passed the PlayStation 3's 2nd birthday, and of course the official PlayStation Blog couldn't let that sort of milestone pass without taking a moment to praise themselves for their efforts. In his celebratory post yesterday, PlayStation director of hardware marketing John Koller reveals that things are going very well indeed for the console, with truly huge numbers PlayStation Network has truly hit its stride with unique downloadable games and a video delivery service featuring
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Ultimate Band's Band-Free Setlist [Ultimate Band]
Peripheral-free, douche-simulator Ultimate Band hits store shelves next week. While I found the theory interesting, I wasn't totally sold on the concept when I got a chance to check out Disney Interactive Studio's take on Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band. On the plus side, you don't need yet another set of plastic instruments to pack away in your slowly filling closet. On the negative side, the game when I played it was far too easy to feel satisfying. The song list for the DS and Wii
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EQ II Embarks On Shadow Odyssey [Expansionism]
Do they really have to bring back Guk? I suppose there's no stopping them now, as Sony Online Entertainment launches the fifth expansion for EverQuest II, The Shadow Odyssey. The expansion pack introduces more than 20 new zones to the game, with some of the original game's most frustrating dungeons brought back to new, terrifying life. Befallen and the Ruins of Guk are just a few of the more that 18 goal-based dungeons, and I would have paid full price simply to keep Guk away from me. I still
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MLB Dugout Heroes Brings Baseball Online [MLB Dugout Heroes]
The 2009 baseball season is headed online as GamesCampus and MLB Advanced Media sign an online licensing agreement allowing the former to create a free-to-play, transaction-based online baseball game using official Major League Baseball materials. MLB Dugout Heroes is expected to be available in time for the launch of next year's baseball season. "We are excited to partner with GamesCampus in offering fans this interactive baseball gaming experience," said Alex Pigeon, VP of international at
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Naruto Broken Bond - Know Your Ninja [Naruto: Broken Bond]
After the excellence that was Ubisoft's last venture into the Naruto universe, I am really looking forward to getting my hands on Naruto: Broken Bond for the Xbox 360 this week, their follow-up to last year's Rise of a Ninja. The only real problem I had with the previous title was the lack of fighters in the game's Fight Mode, and it seems like they've gone out of their way to address that issue in Broken Bond, offering up 25 combatants for our battling pleasure. In order to help us keep tabs on
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The Xbox 360 Gift Guide [2008 Kotaku Holiday Gift Guide]
Admit it, the guilty pleasure of a gift guide is looking for things that you want to get, rather than get advice on what to give. Still, there are some kind considerate souls out there with Xbox 360 gamers on their holiday shopping list, and to them we say: Welcome to Kotaku's Xbox 360 Gift Guide for 2008. We've broken down the choices into four categories: The value picks that save you some dough, but are still very much appreciated by gamers; the essentials, the It games of 2008 that
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Azure Palace Restored on LBP [LittleBigPlanet]
Azure Palace, which was moderated out of LittleBigPlanet's online play for reasons unnamed, is back up. Thanks to reader Michael B. for that tip. The takedown sparked much outrage among the LBP level-building community, as Azure Palace is one of the better-known levels and a favorite of many, and it was not at all obvious what the offending content was. Not sure if the negative publicity is what got the board back, but it's there. Perhaps moderators were reacting to grief flags without further
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LotRO Enters The Mines Of Moria [Lord Of The Rings Online]
Turbine proudly announces the launch of the first expansion for Lord of the Rings Online, Mines of Moria is now available across the U.S. and Europe, including my living room, where the collector's edition sits next to the coal-dusted mining hat they sent me to commemorate the auspicious occasion, which left a lovely black line across my forehead. The new expansion of course opens up the infamous Mines of Moria, and from my time in the beta for the expansion I can tell you that they've done an
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Good Old Games Gets Unreal [Unreal]
Purveyors of classic, DRM-free games at low, low prices Good Old Games have just announced a rather epic addition to their library. They've entered into an agreement with Epic Games to bring a selection of titles from the Unreal series to their service, including Unreal Gold, Unreal II The Awakening Special Edition, Unreal Tournament GOTY and Unreal Tournament 2004 Editor's Choice Edition. Both Gold and Tournament GOTY are both available now for only $9.99, with the other two arriving in the
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The Chase In Motion [The Chase: Felix Meets Felicity]
The Chase: Felix Meets Felicity is aimed at chicks? Then why do I get all wide-eyed and fluttery while watching the trailer for Atari and developer Razorback's adorable little stylus-assisted platformer? Surely I am not a chick, nor a dame, a broad, or any other nickname for the female of the species that AJ can get away with because she's part of that exclusive club, but I'll still happily have this game in my DS once it hits next February. Sure it borrows a few moves from Kirby's Canvas Curse,
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Hearing Voices - The Top Faceless Game Announcers [For Your Consideration]
While I generally don't pay too much attention to Maxim's video game coverage, mainly because I don't feel like I fit into their core demographic (Maxim readers), every once in a while the magazine that gave Sudeki for the Xbox 5 stars has something interesting to offer. Like a list of the 7 Greatest Faceless Announcers in Video Games, a celebration of those announcers we never see but will never forget. You may know them as "The Finish Him Guy", or "the guy from Soul Calibur who sounds like
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Frankenreview: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe [Round Up]
They said it couldn't be done. Actually what they really said was it shouldn't be done, followed by several what the hell were they thinkings, but Midway went and did it anyway. Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe is a concept that frightened and confused quite a few people in the gaming community, but as new footage and details trickled out the concept slowly began to grow on us. Soon we found ourselves looking forward to beating up Sonya Blade with Wonder Woman, or Batman with Scorpion. It might not
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GameFly Prematurely Closes The Agency [Game On]
Several of you emailed us this morning, frightened after receiving email notifications from the game rental service GameFly that Sony Online Entertainment's MMO The Agency for the PlayStation 3 had been canceled by the manufacturer. Instead of panicking, we decided to contact the manufacturer to see what they had to say. "Sony Online Entertainment?s game, The Agency?, is still in development for release on both the PLAYSTATION®3 and PC platforms. The game sku has been reinstated to
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PopCap Planning Bloodless Zombie Apocalypse [Zombies]
Zombies are THE pop-cultural touchstones of our times. There is probably a deep-seated psychological reason for this based upon post-millennial angst, Generation Z nihilism and half a dozen other things, but I for one can't be bothered looking into it. Let's just say that if an actual Zombie Apocalypse were to happen tomorrow, I doubt if there would be any more zombies around than are currently stinking up our screens. Evil puzzle scientists PopCap - makers of Bejewelled, Bejewelled-Twist and
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The Official Raving Rabbid's Ass Pad [Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party]
Just in time for the game's release comes this official Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party cushion for the butt-controlling Wii title. I suspect that this is just a piece of schwag rather than official merchandising on the part of Ubisoft, though maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to release a cushion for the game. It could make sitting on that bit of Nintendo-branded hard plastic more comfortable. I haven't had a chance yet to check out the accompanying game, but when Tristan played it at PAX he
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iPhone's Trism Creator Rich, Working on Trismology And Others [Iphone Games]
CNN has an interesting take on the recent iPhone boom for game developers. They tracked down Steve Demeter, the guy behind mega-hit Trism, to find out that in the first two months alone his game netted him $250,000. Keep in mind that's only 70 percent of the total haul and that he raked that in at $5 a pop. Sheesh, that's a downloaded game. With the success of Trism to ride, Demeter recently quit his job at a bank and is devoting all of his time to developing games for the iPhone. Next up,
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