Final Grand Theft Auto IV trailer revealed
As the suspense builds for the sure-to-be-epic Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar Games has made the wait a little more difficult with the release of the fourth and final trailer for the game. If you think that game trailers are now more cinematic than their actual screened-in-movie-theater-because-they-advertise-movies counterparts, you’re right. This one even has a name two names: “Good Lord, What Are You Doing?” AKA “Everyone’s a Rat.” Somehow, this trailer manages to impress despite (because of?) the blistering car chases, decontextualized gunplay, a moody soundtrack, omnipresent rain, flashy camera angles, misplaced humor, gangster-looking gangsters and strippers that seem mandatory... read more
Rock Band coming to Nintendo Wii in June
Hypothetical musicians, it may be time to get out your (fake) drum set and (real) drumsticks! It’s official: Rock Band, the video game that has already won awards for its PlayStation and XBox versions, will be released on June 22 for the Wii. Although at first it seemed that Nintendo was not quite interested in pairing up with Harmonix Music Systems, the geniuses also responsible for Guitar Hero, they gradually warmed up to the idea. Lots of speculation was involved, including a cross-platform mic coming out mistakenly labeled as Wii-compatible. The game will be released as a special edition package,... read more
Showtime's Dexter to be made into murderous videogame
The recent news that a video game version of the TV series Dexter is in the works for both Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox is sure to excite fans of the serial killer dramedy. (Including this writer, who, incidentally, recently started watching the first season and just found out the identity of the Ice Truck Killer. If you haven't seen it, it will blow your mind.) One can only assume that the main point of the game will be to murder people without getting caught, since Ecko Entertainment says that they'll "work closely with Showtime to ensure it is faithful... read more
Spore coming in Sept., complete with music by Brian Eno
In 2005, Will Wright's Spore stole the show at E3. Then the next year this happened again, as the game's "SimEverything" approach seemed nearly ready for release and looked increasingly polished. Well, it's been more than a year since then and finally the game has a release date: Sept. 7. At the very least, this should take the game off the Vaporeware awards list, and quite possibly push gaming itself a good deal forward. "We're in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore, and the team at Maxis can't wait to see the cosmos of content created by... read more
Aerosmith to star in its own Guitar Hero game
It used to be that when you loved a band, you learned about them by flipping through books and rock magazines. Video-game maker Activision felt it might simplify matters if you just became the band. Guitar Hero junkies can look forward to Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, which is slated for release this June and also happens to be the first Guitar Hero title to focus on the music and career of a single band. As players progress through the game, they will play along to Aerosmith’s greatest hits, as well as songs by notable artists with whom the band has collaborated.... read more
Rockstar Games issues Bully on Wii and Xbox 360
If you already have a PlayStation 2, then perhaps you’ve already experienced the thrill of being a pixilated high school student. But on March 4, the opportunity will be granted to those individuals who prefer Wii or Xbox 360. That’s right, Rockstar Games’ Bully is coming to a console near you in an expanded version known as Bully: Scholarship Edition. The game offers the same great ability to live the life of an oppressed high school student that you’ve come to know and love, but it also offers some new features. There are fresh missions, classes, characters and outfits, as... read more
Steven Spielberg-helmed video game details emerge
Back in 2005, Steven Spielberg first signed a deal with video-game behemoth Electronic Arts to help create, in some sort of capacity, three new video game IPs. Then, for the next couple of years, not much was heard about this development until last July. Newswek's game guru N'Gai Croal divulged some info about two of the titles. One of them was code named "LMNO," where players control a former special agent and interact with a robot girl of some sort. A description from game blog Kotaku described the game as "North By Northwest meets E.T.... if E.T. were female, grown... read more
Guitar Hero III and Rock Band face off in marketplace
If the executives at Hasbro had thought to put Simon's colored buttons on the neck of a guitar, they would surely have enough money by now to build a toy store on the outer rings of Saturn. In the mere two years since its debut, the Guitar Hero franchise has sold a mind-pretzling 14 million units in North America, which amounts to over a billion dollars in revenue (and that's not counting the money they've made from selling five million downloadable tracks for Guitar Hero III). Question: How many more times will I use the suffix "-illion" in this news... read more
MTV launches Rhythm Game Track Finder
What did you receive this holiday season? Was it Guitar Hero 3, or perhaps you received a whole Rock Band set? Or both, and you've got the old Guitar Hero games as well. Which game has the Weezer track your looking for, and which Guitar Hero edition was it that had "Free Bird" so you can earnestly bust it out when that one irritating friend yells out his hackneyed request? (The answer, by the way, is Guitar Hero 2). To help out all of you guitar heroes and rock band, erm, members, MTV has released the Rhythm Game Track Finder.... read more
Blu-ray to PSP movie transfers soon a reality
Not that it's impossible to do this now by hacking the firmware on an old PSP and using some serious compression tools, but Sony announced this week at CES that they'd be making an official, and easy-to-use, way of bringing Blu-ray films to your PlayStation Portable. Now that a few days have gone by, they've laid out the details as to what's involved. Gizmodo reports that the films will be about one gigabyte, standard-definition files optimized for the PSP. They should take only 3-5 minutes to download via USB to the Memory Stick Duo from a PS3. Best of all,... read more
History Channeled
In the late 1990s, when Steven Spielberg began working on World War II shooter Medal Of Honor, he and the game’s developer, Dreamworks Interactive, contracted veteran Marine captain Dale Dye—who’d also consulted on Saving Private Ryan—to make sure the game was historically accurate. But while finding someone so knowledgeable about World War II is relatively easy (Tom Brokaw probably has a couple of Greatest Generation vets chilling in his living room this very second), locating someone well versed in the Third Crusade—which occurred from 1189 to 1192 A.D.—is somewhat trickier. read more
Zack & Wiki: Quest For Barbaros' Treasure
A gigantic-hat-wearing chocoholic pirate boy and a golden monkey that levitates with a helicopter propeller are on a quest to recover the gilded body parts of Barbaros, a famous pirate... read more
The Orange Box
Every moment you’re playing, a video game asks the question: What do you see? Half-Life 2: Episode Two, one of three new games in The Orange Box, is masterful both for what it shows you, and for what it hides... read more
Silent Hill: Origins
While most games crib from genre hits like Star Wars and Aliens, Silent Hill’s creators haven’t been shy about their devotion to David Lynch... read more
Signs of Life 2007 : Best Games
Wherein Paste's joystick junkies pick their favorite gaming experiences of 2007. From dystopian undersea epics to golden limb-hunting puzzle adventures, it was a fine year in the constant evolution of video games. One thing's for sure: they're not just for kids anymore... read more
Guitar Hero III shreds through consumers' wallets
Okay, so maybe we're featured in it. That minor conflict of interest won't prevent Paste from keeping its readers abreast with all things Guitar Hero III. The latest good news for GHIII: according to Variety, the game raked in $100 million in its first week of sales. How much of that will Paste see? None. But one thing's for sure - this is one best-seller that everyone in the Paste offices can get behind (unlike certain others). The Variety article also mentions that these mighty sales could impact the fortunes of the rival Rock Band video game, which was created... read more
Complicated Games
As we learned all the way back to Pong, it’s easier to hook a player with points and tactics than with an emotionally compelling story. Games are inherently a sandbox, and your actions are desensitized by their lack of real-life consequences... read more
BioShock
I played BioShock for the first time late at night. Sitting in my living room with the lights turned off. Somehow I’d managed to block out the game’s interminable pre-release hype... read more
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Thinking back to the original two-dimensional Metroid on the Famicom and NES, it’s breathtaking to see how this alien-zapping, pirate-thwarting, space-crawling series has evolved... read more
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
To sell out, or not to sell out? Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock asks the eternal question with pierced tongue wedged firmly in cheek... read more
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