Posts

Professional wrestling has long attracted a wide swath of people: from men lacking proper education and/or teeth who enjoy public homoeroticism, to men too insecure to watch soap operas yet secure (or oblivious) enough to enjoy public homoeroticism. It doesn’t help things that rasslin’ has been going rapidly downhill since its heyday in the 80s when Vince McMahon single-handedly turned it from a revered gentleman’s club to the sort of mainstream soft-core porno palatable to the MTV generation, but I digress....

Because, really, how do you top a podcast which included Raul Julia, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Kyle Minogue? If you’re Podtoid, you post this picture by Shakey1245, follow it up with a regular news episode and sort of hope nobody notices. Tonight, the Podtoid crew will discussBioShock 2, player-created narrative, and maybe some crap aboutSix Days in Fallujahor theShadow of the Colossusmovie. Maybe. Either way, we definitely need a lot of listener questions, so feel free to hit the jump and start asking (thus netting you a chance of winning a Dtoid swag bag, to boot)....

Look at this piece of crap. This poor excuse for art is an insult to the 25th anniversary of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series. The whole long scroll of series characters thing is so overdone, and the renditions of each character range from blah to barely iffy anyway. I can barely tell what they’re supposed to be. I mean, I’ve seen little kids do better art with finger paints. …...

Brinkdeveloper Splash Damage and the game’s publisher Bethesda released a new video showing off the titles in-depth character customization. But instead of simply shooting us the FTP information or pointing us to a URL, they sent us a tube of goodies. Inside the tube were two prints, each showing one of the game’s different character archetypes and classes. Also include was a fancy USB card. On that card is the video you see above, which we also posted earlier....

Twisted Pixel, the brain behind‘Splosion ManandComic Jumper, has pulled the blinds off its latest game, and it’s exclusively for the Kinect.The Gunstringeris a Wild West adventure starring a skeletal marionette and featuring a blend of 2D and 3D gameplay. The announcement trailer gets in a dig at “old” control systems, and shows off some of the gameplay. To be honest, it looks a little … wonky … to me, but I am digging the character design and it looks seems like it could be a lot of fun....

Another Tuesday, another depressing look at the UK Charts. It seems that the top slot is now completely given over to a turf war betweenFIFA 09andCall of Duty: World at War. The two titles now seem to be trading places, and this weekFIFA 09is holding the hallowed ground. Hopefully I made that sound more thrilling than it actually is, because this week’s chart toppers are almost the same as last week’s....

It’s sad that Ubisoft can seemingly have success with anything it publishes, yet won’t put the effort in for games that really need it. For example,Splinter Cell: Convictionis number one for the second week running, despite not being for the so-called “casual” gamers. If Ubisoft put the same amount of hype into aBeyond Good & Evilgame, it might sell more than three copies. Ah well. Convictionis riding high again, with the scourge that isJust Danceclinging onto second place and refusing to die....

Remember “Blast Processing” from the 16-bit days? It wasn’t really a thing. More marketing, really. At the start of this current generation of consoles, I thought Sony’s Cell processor was a similar load of marketing crap. It turned out to be a legitimately powerful CPU that groups sought out for functions other than gaming. The latest group is the United States Air Force, who just purchased 2,200 PS3s. Fanboys? They’re making a supercomputer with the systems, grouping these 2,200 systems with the 336 ones they already have in place to make one massive number crunching research machine....

With charges for downloadable content being something of a hot topic, after the debacle over Epic wanting to give usGears of Warmapsfor free, but beingforced at gunpointto accept wads of cash for them,Counter-StrikeandHalf Lifedeveloper Valve have leapt on the opportunity for good PR by saying they don’t intend to charge for any DLC they may run. “You buy the product, you get the content,” Valve’s Robin Walker informedEurogamer. Reassuring news I suppose, but one would assume Valve’s merely trying to make themselves look really good next to the console market’s love ofanally abusingits customers....

The videogame industry is known as one of the most innovative and creative art mediums in recent memory, so it’s quite ironic that hardcore videogame fans consistently lament the lack of innovation and creativity found in the most popular games. I always say that if a game’s good, it doesn’t matter if there’s no innovation, and that’s something I still believe. That said, there are a number of overused scenarios and settings that are getting incredibly boring....

A group of “videogame journalists”scaled a soapboxthis past week at GDC in order to rant about the industry and bad jurnalizmz, basically calling out everyone and everything in existence. While a lot of it seemed to be self-satisfactory preening, the words of one Heather Chaplin — game critic, author and apparentlythe most mature and intelligent on person on Earth— really twisted the knife. “I’ve been covering the games industry for eight years, mainly for mainstream outlets, and I often find myself acting as a translator,” stated Chaplin at GDC’s rant panel this week....

Despite a ton ofcontroversy and praisethe original got, a major gaming industry analyst saysBully 2just won’t be in the cards. His reasoning? It didn’t make Rockstar enough bank. This is what Michael Pachter, Managing Director of Research for Wedbush Morgan Securities, had to say toGamePolitics: Bully sales trailed off pretty dramatically in November. In October, the regular edition of the game sold 125,000 units (I think that the collector’s edition sold another 30,000 units…) in the U....

As we’ve learned from the hit magical drama of the early 2000sCharmed, nothing can defeat thepower of three; unity trumps individual power. That fact remains inLord of the Rings: War in the North. Dwarves, Elves, and Men may have their own strengths, but neither can stand alone. You may also recognize that concept from another area of Tolkien’s fiction, but this is a fellowship. Everything about this game looks too good to be true....