Shadow Complex (Xbox 360)

By Jason Killingsworth at 12:56 PM on October 12, 2009

Developers: Chair Entertainment / Epic Games Publisher: Microsoft Game StudiosPlatform: Xbox Live Arcade Mesmerizing side-scroller blends elements of Die Hard and Super Metroid When it was released in mid August, Shadow Complex became the fastest-selling downloadable title in the history of Xbox Live Arcade, moving roughly 200,000 units in the first week. The game is based on Orson Scott Card’s novel Empire and follows an all-too-familiar Hollywood action trope—a mild-mannered, John Cusack-ian everydude stumbles unwittingly across a terrorist plot and must avert a nuclear holocaust before 4pm, at which time he’s supposed to pick up his daughter from soccer practice in order prove to...  read more

Daniel Johnston's Art Comes To Life On the iPhone

By Gage Henry at 2:00 PM on October 7, 2009

"Hi, How Are You." This is the simple catchphrase minted in singer-songwriter and artist Daniel Johnston's mural, which you may have seen while rounding the corner of 21st Street and Guadalupe in Austin, Texas. The words are painted in bold caps over a poppy-eyed cartoon frog named Jeremiah the Innocent, the new protagonist in an iPhone game based on Johnston's zany yet poignant drawings. ...  read more

Iggy Pop, Bon Jovi, Vampire Weekend, More On Board for LEGO Rock Band

By Christina Lee at 11:30 AM on September 22, 2009

Call him the Godfather of Punk or modern-day rock's weird uncle. Either way, Stooges frontman Iggy Pop is set to hit the stage for yet another generation, this time in Lego form....  read more

The Beatles: Rock Band (Xbox 360)

By Paul Semel at 11:12 AM on September 17, 2009

Developer: HarmonixPublisher: MTV Games, Electronic ArtsPlatforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, WiiThis is one music game that passes the audition Given that pop music doesn’t work as well in music games as rock tunes, it’s understandable to think a Beatles version of Rock Band would be less challenging, and thus less fun, than, say, Guitar Hero: Metallica. But by not just mixing Rock Band with The Beatles 1, Harmonix has made a game that’s as engaging as the Mop Top’s best work. For starters, such early pop tunes as “Twist And Shout” now have two more vocal parts to play, with...  read more

Dystopian Epic Mickey Video Game in the Works

By Michael Saba at 2:00 PM on September 16, 2009

[Above: concept art for Epic Mickey via Gary Glover]Last year, the gaming website Gamasutra teased at a possible "steampunk" video game-treatment of classic Disney characters, codenamed Epic Mickey (think Kingdom Hearts, but with mechanized-scorpion Country Bears.) Although the game has yet to be officially announced, it's all but confirmed that production is underway....  read more

ReSTART Internet Addiction Center Opens in Seattle

By Michael Saba at 7:30 AM on September 10, 2009

ReSTART, the world's first internet-addiction residential treatment program, opened recently in Redmond, Wash. (ironically enough, the neighborhood where Microsoft was founded). The center offers a 45-day, $14,000 rehabilitation course that promises to help addicts ease dependencies on social networking, online video games, texting and a host of other technological time-wasters....  read more

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood (Xbox 360)

By Adam Volk at 8:00 AM on September 4, 2009

Developer: Techland Publisher: Ubisoft Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC   The wild west is coming to your living room As a videogame genre the Western has led to more dead ends than happy trails, with only a few entries ever really capturing the attentions of wannabe console cowboys. Enter Ubisoft’s Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a game that offers up a bullet-riddled, next-gen setting replete with gun-toting desperados, high-noon showdowns and scantily clad showgirls. Set during the height of the Civil War, the game follows the exploits of the McCalls, a family of Confederate soldiers turned guns-for-hire in...  read more

Ryan Adams: Video Game Blogger

By Justin Jacobs at 10:58 AM on August 31, 2009

Keeping up with Ryan Adams has always been a bit of an adventure. Be it following his rumor-mill dating life and eventual marriage to former pop-queen Mandy Moore , his on and off-stage dramatics and, of course, his desire to consistently release music, the ride of being a die-hard Ryan Adams fan is more of a wooden rollercoaster than a carousel. Recently, Adams threw a new and arguably exciting turn in his career trajectory: video game blogger. Sort of. ...  read more

Rock Band Network Provides Platform for Lesser-Known Musicians

By Gage Henry at 12:00 PM on August 28, 2009

If there is anyone left in the gaming community who doesn't agree that Rock Band at least looks like an outlet of face-melting fun, the next addition to the game should might help convince them....  read more

28 Weeks Later Director in Talks for Bioshock Film

By Jeffrey Bloomer at 1:30 PM on August 25, 2009

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, the director of the well-liked sequel 28 Weeks Later, is in talks to replace Gore Verbinski as the director of the video-game adaptation Bioshock....  read more

Best of What's Next 2009: Daniel Benmergui [Game Developer]

By Chris Dahlen at 4:00 PM on August 14, 2009

Hometown: Buenos Aires, Argentina Games: Today I Die, Storytelling, I Wish I Were the Moon For Fans Of: Atari 2600, Magnetic Poetry, Jason Rohrer ...  read more

Best of What's Next 2009: Jani Kahrama (Secret Exit) [Game Developer]

By Sean Edgar at 3:00 PM on August 14, 2009

Hometown: Helsinki, Finland Game: Zen Bound For Fans Of: Yoga, Finnish electronica, Origami ...  read more

Best of What's Next 2009: Tim Schafer (Double Fine) [Game Developer]

By Adam Volk at 11:00 AM on August 14, 2009

Hometown: San FranciscoGames: Brütal Legend, Grim Fandango, PsychonautsFor Fans of: Mötorhead, Erik Wolpaw, Evil Dead 2...  read more

Elliott Smith, TV On The Radio, Band of Horses Added to Guitar Hero 5

By Caroline Klibanoff at 8:40 AM on August 4, 2009

In May, we told you of the extensive and eclectic Guitar Hero 5 tracklist, which was to feature 83 bands from The White Stripes and Vampire Weekend to Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. Now that the list of artists has been confirmed, it's gotten even weirder: GH5 boasts Elliott Smith's "LA," TV On the Radio's "Wolf Like Me," My Morning Jacket's "One Big Holiday," and Band of Horses' "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands," among other alternately rocking and puzzling jewels. ...  read more

Dethklok to Appear in Metalocalypse Video Game, Release Dethalbum II

By Gray Chapman at 7:20 AM on July 27, 2009

Just because their mostly-fictional television home is on hold until the fall doesn't mean that Dethklok is taking a break. With an upcoming new album and a soon-to-be-announced video game, the bone-crushing cartoon metal band seem to be moving on from simple world domination to total universe tyranny....  read more

Universal Snags Movie Rights to Atari's Asteroids

By Michael Saba at 11:53 AM on July 6, 2009

The video game movie didn't exactly have a glorious beginning, but they're permanent fixtures in Hollywood these days as studios race to to snap up the film rights to video game properties, enticed by the allure of big box-office returns. It was inevitable that this exuberance would eventually go overboard, and we may have arrived at the genre's shark-jumping moment: Universal Pictures has emerged from a bidding war as the buyer of the rights to the Asteroids movie....  read more

Prototype (Xbox 360)

By Jason Killingsworth at 10:00 AM on July 2, 2009

Developer: Radical EntertainmentPublisher: ActivisionPlatforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC Genetically alien spike appendages and the misanthropic antiheroes who use them for their only logical purposeIn the mind-numbingly passé world we inhabit, genetics companies spend all their time researching cures for Alzheimer’s and developing drought-resistant crops. One of these days they’ll take a cue from their far more interesting videogame counterparts—Prototype’s GENTEK, for instance—and finally get around to creating a human weapon capable of hurling taxis at passing assault helicopters, agilely sprinting up the sides of skyscrapers and morphing limbs instantly into any number of razor-sharp, certifiably lethal monstrosities. ...  read more

Terminator Salvation (Xbox 360)

By Jason Killingsworth at 12:55 PM on June 25, 2009

Developer: GRINPublishers: Equity Games, Evolved GamesPlatforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PCOf bad machines and even worse videogamesHow is it possible to make a game that offers players the tantalizing fantasy of a 100% traffic-free downtown Los Angeles and have the experience fall this miserably flat? Granted, it’s year 2013 and the apocalyptic war between sentient machines and a human resistance movement has demolished the City of Angels—cars, roads, signal lights, not to mention the poor human populace now glaringly absent. ...  read more

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Nintendo DS)

By Brian Howe at 7:26 AM on June 19, 2009

Publisher: Rockstar GamesDeveloper: Rockstar LeedsPlatform: Nintendo DSSeminal carjacking series makes its Nintendo DS debut You know how it goes: You’re out stealing cars and wantonly running down hapless pedestrians, and you think, “Man, this is fun! I should go home and play some Grand Theft Auto.” The devilishly addictive crime franchise has been wowing players with its sardonic humor, cartoonish violence, and huge environments for over a decade. Chinatown Wars is GTA’s debut on the Nintendo DS, and Rockstar Games has managed to stuff a fully-featured installment into the tiny hardware. The top-down view from the series’ early days replaces...  read more

Column: Fallout 3's Broken Steel DLC and the Power of Prayer

By Jason Killingsworth at 9:30 AM on June 18, 2009

While the vast majority of critics and fans heaped kudos upon Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic epic Fallout 3 when it was released, many players took to blogs and online message boards decrying its abrupt ending. When you completed the game’s central quest narrative, the onscreen action lapsed into a brief sepia-toned slideshow of images from the Capital Wasteland with some epilogue-ish voiceover remarks. Then bam, credits, game over, menu screen. It felt like going out on a romantic date that seemed to be going incredibly well, only to have it culminate in a brief peck on the forehead and a door being...  read more