Review: Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Xbox 360)

Developer: Rockstar San DiegoPublisher: Rockstar GamesPlatforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3Flying on four wheels in the City of AngelsWhy bother visiting the car dealership when technology now lets you shop from the comfort of your own home? Last night I picked up a 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. It cost me $175,000, which is roughly the same amount my wife and I spent on our house. Thirty-year payment plans are a hassle so I opted to pay in cash. Granted, I don’t usually have that kind of money lying around, but I’d just made the painfully tough decision to part with my...  read more

Interview: Todd Howard (Fallout 3 Game Director)

With the October 28th release of Fallout 3 less than a week away, we spoke to Todd Howard of Bethesda Game Studios about the company's latest epic RPG. Our conversation touched on the game's post-apocalyptic setting, Bethesda's approach to tackling game projects of such monumental scope, and the challenge of creating a wasteland environment that's lonely enough to have emotional impact but doesn't grow boring to players....  read more

Review: Fable II (Xbox 360)

Developer: Lionhead StudiosPublisher: Microsoft Game StudiosPlatform: Xbox 360Long-awaited RPG tests your glee thresholdA wise old bard once shut his eyes, entered a trance-like state and advised his audience in a cloud-piercing tenor, “Doooon’t stop…bee-lieeeevin’!” Though his words echo down to the present from tens upon tens of years ago, the message they carry is a timeless one. Early in Fable II, while your character is but a young street urchin in the mythical land of Albion, you and your sister encounter a traveling salesman hawking a magical music box he claims will grant a single wish when played. Though you...  read more

Review: Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360)

Developer: Harmonix Music SystemsPublisher: MTV GamesPlatforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, WiiRock Band 2 is therapy for your inner rock snob—that sneering music cynic that resides in many of us. You know the one. The jerk who shivers every time an overplayed relic pops up in classic-rock radio rotation. Or the naysayer who loves telling people that their favorite band hasn't made a great record since the '90s. See, Rock Band 2, just like its predecessor, has a way of making players come to appreciate songs outside the taste boundaries they've erected over the years. ...  read more

Interview: Will Wright (Spore Creator)

Will Wright’s Spore seemed destined for controversy. The game is, after all, about evolution. And we know that a significant chunk of the American public believes that a loving God created the heavens, earth and everything in between. Yet the game has shipped with nary a peep from detractors. The only cannonball fired in the game’s direction—a fairly whacked-out blog called Anti-Spore—turned out to be a hoax (and a Rickroll, to add insult to injury). Regardless, we were eager to speak with Wright and discuss the intriguing push and pull at work in a "God game" that’s goal is to...  read more

Review: Mega Man 9 (Wii)

No one in my generation who grew up playing video games needs to be reminded that the production qualities and technological muscle of contemporary video games have reached once-unimaginable levels. There was a time back in the halcyon 8-bit days of yore when too many Octarocks crawling around the screen in Legend of Zelda caused your game to lapse into a lurching slow-motion cadence until things cleared out a bit. You could practically hear Scotty’s muffled brogue coming from inside your NES console: “I’m givin’ her all she’s got, Cap’n.” And 'all she had' was enough. We were too busy...  read more

Unglued: The Casual-Gaming Olympics

Major League Gaming, or MLG, is a professional video gaming organization founded in 2002. Its tournaments draw the hardest of the hardcore out of their dank, Doritos-strewn warrens to compete for bushels of prize money, lucrative endorsement deals, and the envy of carbuncular, homophobic, Vitamin-D deficient fragsters across the world. (The hardcore gamers Paste queried for this article declined to comment, standing on the principle that magazines are “gay.”)...  read more