Culture
4 CommentsBioShock Infinite fan-made alternate ending isn't exactly happily-ever-after
By Alexa Ray Corriea on May 21, 2013 05.21.13
What if BioShock Infinite ended differently — and its characters ended up on a reality show?
Proceed with caution: this video contains some pretty heavy spoilers.
In yet another parallel universe, Booker and Elizabeth are living a not-so-peaceful life in the suburbs, attempting to heal from their ordeal in Columbia. Booker struggles to have normal interactions with his neighbors, deal with rebellious Elizabeth — whose relationship with Songbird has become somewhat different — and struggle to cope with himself. Literally.
Timtimfed's Michael Shanks' reimagining of BioShock Infinite's conclusion takes some of the most dangerous elements of Irrational Games' tale and warps them into something hilarious. Shanks' YouTube channel also features several other video game-themed videos,...
Culture
3 Comments30 years ago Electronic Arts shipped its first batch of five games
By Alexa Ray Corriea on May 21, 2013 05.21.13
Electronic Arts shipped its first batch of video games 30 years ago yesterday, according to a post on the Origin website.
In the latest "Halls of EA" post highlighting the company's games and accomplishments, Christy Cases wrote that on May 20, 1983, 50 to 60 EA employees along with founder Trip Hawkins packed and shipped the company's first five games. These employees left their usual duties of programming and marketing to assist in personally packing the titles into boxes and loading them onto UPS trucks. These games were then shipped off to mom-and-pop video game stores, as back then dedicated retailers like GameStop did not exist.
EA's first lineup included Commodore 64 titles Archon: The Light and the Dark, Axis Assassin, Hard Hat Mack, Worms? and MULE.
EA's current senior...
Culture
10 CommentsMaster swordsmith creates Cloud's Buster sword from Final Fantasy 7
By Jenna Pitcher on May 21, 2013 05.21.13
Man at Arms' Master swordsmith, Tony Swatton, recreated Cloud's Buster sword from Final Final Fantasy 7.
The video above demonstrates Swatton in action as he discusses the hefty blade's creation process. According to the video's description, he uses high-speed belt grinders, scorching furnaces and pounding power hammers. At the end of the video, the weapon is used to obliterate full soda bottles, pinatas, watermelons and vases.
The Swordsmith recently conducted a Reddit AMA where he talked about his favorite weapon to reproduce (Gimli's Axe and Raphael's Sais), how he got into his line of work and how he cut off his nose while polishing a piece of gothic armor.
Swatton has created Finn's Golden Sword from Adventure Time, Sora's Keyblade from Kingdom Hearts, a Klingon Bat'leth, Plasma...
Culture
16 CommentsArtist re-skins Super Mario Land with new graphics
By Tracey Lien on May 20, 2013 05.20.13
Artist Arne Niklas Jansson, who has worked on games like Cortex Command and reconceptualizes video game art on his website, Android Arts, has re-skinned [Game Boy launch title] Super Mario Land by redoing the graphics for the entire game.
Posting to his website, Jansson wrote that he played Super Mario Land for research purposes while working on another project, after which he felt an urge to do something with the sprites in Photoshop.
"I realized I could actually put the sprites in the game since the bitplane tiles are pretty easy to read and write," he said. "Then I decided to redo the graphics for the entire game, so I spent a few days doing that."
Jansson details on his website how he changed the game's color scheme, redesigned the characters and sprites, the tools he used and...
Culture
5 CommentsSmooth McGroove performs a cappella version of DuckTales' The Moon theme
By Jenna Pitcher on May 20, 2013 05.20.13
Singer and YouTube star, Smooth McGroove, performed and posted an a cappella version of the The Moon theme from DuckTales.
Gleason has recorded numerous classic video game a capella covers, including Guile theme from Street Fighter 2, The Legend of Zelda Overworld theme and the Dr. Wily Stage from Mega Man 2. He has even recorded a Pokémon theme parody a cappella called "Try To Catch a Few."
The Smooth McGroove YouTube channel has 193,474 subscribers and roughly 9 million views. The singer has a 22-track album out on iTunes for $9.99 featuring a capella covers of video game classics.
Smooth McGroove, whose real name is Max Gleason, recently told GamesBeat that he quit his full-time music teaching job to focus full-time on recording.
In March, Capcom announced DuckTales...
Culture
1 CommentKotobukiya to release Deathstroke ARTFX statue
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 19, 2013 05.19.13
Model and figurine manufacturer Kotobuikya will release a 12-inch statue of DC Comics supervillain Deathstroke, the company announced via its Facebook page.
Deathstroke is currently featured in comic book-based fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us and will play a villainous role in the Warner Bros.' upcoming game Batman: Arkham Origins. The statue features Deathstroke in his New 52-style armor, posed in a partial lunge with his sword in hand. His faceplate is attached by magnet and easily removable, according to Kotobukiya.
The statue will be available in November of this year, though you can pre-order it now for $119.99. You can view more pictures and additional details over at Kotobukiya's Facebook page.
Deathstroke was revealed to be a playable character through DLC in Batman:...
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Pokemon fan creates Ultraball gear shifter with a modified cue ball
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 18, 2013 05.18.13
Reddit user browner87 created his very own Pokéball gear shifter, which he's since shared in a detailed photo album, using a $5 cue ball.
Browner87 drilled a 12 millimeter hole into the ball, cut a ring around its middle and flattened its bottom. He then added an aluminum button to act as the Pokéball's clasp, sanded and painted everything before attaching it in his car. You can see a couple images of the in-progress and finished product above.
The ball apparently took about 30 minutes to make and another two weeks to paint. Check out the Imgur album for a look at more photos and his step-by-step process.
Culture
12 CommentsPointe shoes and Pokeballs: how one choreographer brought Pokemon to life through dance
By Alexa Ray Corriea on May 18, 2013 05.18.13
Plotner, who will graduate this weekend with a BA in Chemistry and Dance from Creighton University in Omaha, began choreographing his own routines when he entered the college. His projects ranged from a Michael Jackson-inspired number, to pieces set to the music of boy band NSync and based on heavy metal musician Nikki Sixx's years in drug addiction.
But perhaps the most challenging, demanding and fun of Plotner's pieces is a 30 minute ballet retelling the story of Pokemon Red.
"I got into Pokemon right when it first came out," Plotner tells Polyon "My friends and I would get the cards and go out onto the public park right by school and spend recess trading, until our school banned the cards. So we brought our games to school and played that way."
Plotner moved away from the games...
Culture
7 CommentsCapcom adds the catlike grace of Arrested Development's Tobias Fünke to its games
By John Funk on May 17, 2013 05.17.13
A video out from Capcom-Unity shows what some of Capcom's classic games would look like if they starred Arrested Development's awkward psych doctor and aspiring actor Tobias Fünke.
Earlier this week, the Arrested Development team released a sizzle reel ostensibly created by Fünke himself as part of the lead-up to the May 26 revival of the cult classic sitcom. In the reel, Fünke (played by actor David Cross) challenges people to "Insert [him] anywhere" in movies and videos. "Because we're all massive fans of Arrested Development here," writes Capcom-Unity, "when Tobias Fünke demanded folks to 'Insert Me Anywhere,' Capcom-Unity accepted the challenge!"
The resulting video pits Fünke against Street Fighter's Ryu, sets him as the creator of Resident Evil villain Nemesis and uses him...
Culture
0 CommentsRemember Me, Broken Age and Twitch talks announced for GDC Europe
By Jenna Pitcher on May 17, 2013 05.17.13
The first set of featured talks announced for Game Developers Conference in Europe is a lecture on art and rendering for Dontnod's cyberpunk game Remember Me, Double Fine talking about scalability in upcoming Broken Age and insights from streaming service Twitch.TV.
Dontnod's senior 3D engine programmer Sebastien Lagarde will show how the studio created the sci-fi version of Paris in his "The Art and Rendering of Remember Me" lecture. He will delve into the dynamic reflection techniques, rendering workflow and image enhancement techniques the studio used to create Remember Me's environment.
In a lecture titled "Approach to Scalability," Oliver Franzke from Double Fine Productions will talk about Broken Age's debugging and rendering techniques used for environments and characters...
Culture
7 CommentsBroken NES revived with Raspberry Pi and emulators
By Alexa Ray Corriea on May 16, 2013 05.16.13
Reddit user JBaker1225 made the most of his broken Nintendo Entertainment System, using a Raspberry Pi mini computer board to transform it into a game emulator ready for the living room.
In a thread on Reddit's gaming forum, JBaker noted that he followed this "Super Nintendo Pi" tutorial when constructing his system. After gutting the console, he created a framework to hold the Pi board in place using Gorilla Glue and several Lego blocks. To make turning the Pi on and off easier, he wired a circuit that would activate the Pi through the NES's buttons.
Using a dremel, he expanded the ports on the back of the NES and added adapters for Ethernet, HDMI and USB cords, then modified the NES controller ports to accomodate USB plugs.
Upon completion, JBaker was able to load up his "new"...
Culture
2 CommentsCall of Duty: Black Ops 2 Nuketown 2025 map recreated as a paintball arena
By Jenna Pitcher on May 15, 2013 05.15.13
A paintball arena based on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's multiplayer map Nuketown 2025 has been created at a paintball park called Paintball Explosion in East Dundee, Illinois.
The paintball arena includes the map's iconic placements such as the yellow school bus, mannequins, bright weatherboard house and the kitsch "Welcome To Nuketown" sign, with the "2025" replaced with "2013."
Paintball manufacturer Tipmann Sports sponsored the development of the Nuketown 2013 paintball field, which opened to the public last weekend. More photos of Nuketown 2013 can be viewed at Tipmann Sports' Facebook page.
Paintball Explosion also recreated a World At War map and a missile silo field. There are Zombieland and Shipyard paintball fields in the works.
Nuketown first featured as a multiplayer...
Culture
11 CommentsClayFighter manual fetches $1,377 on eBay
By Dave Tach on May 15, 2013 05.15.13
A manual for a special edition of ClayFighter on the Nintendo 64 sold for $1,377 on eBay today, according to eBay user ch3ncho's auction listing.
The manual was created for ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut, a special edition of Interplay Entertainment's malleable fighting game ClayFighter 63⅓, which was exclusive to Blockbuster Video in the U.S. That version, which a 1998 article from IGN capped at 20,000 manufactured copies, included additional fighters High Five, Lady Liberty, Lockjaw Pooch and the Zappa Yow Yow Boyz, as well as combos, special moves and more. The manual was listed in "Like New" condition, and another auction for a similarly worn manual ended with a bid of $1,125 in late April.
You can check out the intro for ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut above, courtesy of YouTube user...
Culture
12 CommentsVideo game piracy is not as high as reported, study says
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 15, 2013 05.15.13
A study of BitTorrent video game file-sharing revealed that piracy may not be as high as anti-piracy outlets suggest.
The study was held by three academics from Aalborg University, University of Waterloo and Copenhagen Business School. Research was conducted by analyzing 12.6 million users and 173 games across 14 gaming platforms, including Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Windows PC, over the course of three months from 2010 to 2011. According to the team's findings, the ten most commonly pirated games are equal to about 41.8 percent of all game pirating, and that games with high review scores were more likely to be downloaded illegally.
The top 10 games included Darksiders, Call of Duty: Black Ops, StarCraft 2 and The Sims 3: Late Night. Countries more commonly seen pirating were...
Culture
4 CommentsMonster Hunter beasts come alive in dramatic fan art from indie dev Pierre-Etienne Travers
By Jenna Pitcher on May 15, 2013 05.15.13
Video game concept artist and indie developer Pierre-Etienne Travers has created fan-art of the monsters featured in Capcom's action adventure series, Monster Hunter.
Travers artistically captured the monsters Baroth, Rathalos and Rathian. Another piece, titled "Lost In Translation," depicts a hero conversing with some in-game characters and was the last of Travers' Monster Hunter fan-art.
"I hope all MH fans will enjoy it, and maybe push people to play this fantastic game sadly underestimated in Europe," he wrote in the piece's description.
All of Travers' Monster Hunter artwork was created in Photoshop and took him between one to two hours to complete, except for Lost In Translation which took 12 hours.
The Paris-based artist previously worked at Quantic Dream, Sony Liverpool and...
Culture
1 CommentGoogle Chrome experiment Racer spans multiple mobile screens
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 15, 2013 05.15.13
A new experiment through Google Chrome called Racer teams up Android and iOS devices to create a racing game across multiple devices, as demonstrated today during the Google I/O keynote speech.
The game works by linking several devices to create one racing track. Players control tiny cars by touching the screen to accelerate and releasing to brake; going too fast will cause players to fly off the track.
Racer is compatible with any device able to run Chrome, and players can enter current games by entering in individual race codes. The game can be played alone or with several friends.
Check out Racer's website for more info, or download it from Google Play.
