"I have a boss now, I guess," says Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe. "The board." On Monday, the virtual reality headset company announced that it had finished raising $16 million in Series A venture capital led by Spark Capital and Matrix Partners, adding a new level of management in the process....
"We don't need to take any shortcuts to get there." Brendan Iribe, Oculus CEO
E3 is loud. Whether you're in a press conference or on the show floor, the audiovisual spectacle is overwhelming. You can barely hear the games you're playing, let alone enjoy them. Announcements at press conferences are drowned out in noise —...
Sony's $399 price point for the PlayStation 4 was one of several advantages it touted over Microsoft at E3. But Microsoft's Don Mattrick argues the Xbox One's $499 cost is, if anything, on the low side. "It's a lower number than some of the analysts had forecast," Mattrick told Bloomberg TV. "We're over-delivering value against other choices I think consumers can get. Any modern product these...
If you remember one thing from E3 2012, it’s probably the neck stabbing.
Over three days, attendees watched game after game showcase increasingly creative methods of murder. Press events were so bloody that Gameological began publishing an "E3 Murder Report," detailing the body count of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo’s events. "Between Microsoft, Sony, EA and Ubisoft's shows on Monday," wrote Fred Dutton of Eurogamer, "we counted roughly 78 throatstabs, 63 snapped vertebrae, 57 exploded heads, 27 shattered knee caps, a brace of disembowelings and, courtesy of Far Cry 3, a couple of immolated jungle cats." Even fans of shooters or other combat games found themselves unsettled by the relentless catalog of killing. Our own "Neck Stabs of E3 2012" is tough to watch a year later.
In 2013, the body count skyrocketed. Gameological’s...
Violence can be power, but power doesn't have to be violence
Kotaku has obtained an image of what it claims is the first "Made For iPhone" controller. Purportedly made by Logitech, the controller looks similar to the guidance images Apple released when it detailed the new iOS 7 controller API. It features what appears to be a circular D-pad, four action buttons, and a pause key. The guidance images also called for either two or four shoulder buttons to...
The birth of a new accessory ecosystem?
There are plenty of big shooters coming to the PlayStation 4, from Destiny to Killzone: Shadow Fall. These games emphasize massive, open worlds, social connectivity, and incredibly detailed high-definition graphics. Mercenary Kings, an upcoming PS4 and Steam title from Tribute Games, goes a different route. It's a title that feels like the Metal Slug game that time forgot — a 2D shooter for a...
Microsoft has confirmed that the games it releases for the Xbox One will sell for $59.99, just like those for the Xbox 360, and Sony has previously suggested that it will also be sticking to the old price point. A spokesperson told Polygon that Microsoft Studios games will have a standard price of $59.99, meaning that we won't be seeing a premium for the extra work of making next-gen titles, despite what developers have said about the increased complexity of building for the new console.
It's been a long time since the last generation of Microsoft and Sony consoles was released; that jump...
I played a hundred new huge-budget video games this week, but the only one that really made sense to me was a cellphone and Vita game called RYMDKAPSEL.
Like many tower-defense games the primary objective of RYMDKAPSEL is to grow and defend your population. But when designer Martin Jonasson set out to make a viable StarCraft for mobile, he discovered that StarCraft probably isn’t something you’d want to play on your phone, and its most memorable component would probably be how much it crashed your OS. So he boiled it down, reducing and reducing until he came up with the most efficiently brilliant game I’ve ever played on mobile.
T...
"There were two big challenges. One of them was surviving, and one of them was to stay together." Jens Matthies, MachineGames creative director
Nothing says “welcome to the most important trade show in the world” like a horde of zombies screaming and attacking you from behind a chain-link fence only to get bored and go back to gnawing on a blown-apart torso. If you survive this living diorama from Dead Rising 3 at the foyer of the...
While Microsoft's controversial Xbox One policies regarding used games and online authentication are a known quantity at this point, the implications of these restrictions are not yet fully clear. A disclaimer posted on the Xbox.com website for...
Unlike the Ouya, the Gamepop, the GameStick, the Wikipad, the Nvidia Shield, and practically every other Android gaming device that's coming out of the woodwork these days, Mad Catz has an incredibly simple pitch.The company's Project Mojo is a tiny lightweight box that plays...
I'm an unabashed Sparkaholic. I'm sorry if you clicked on this link looking for a critical, nuanced preview of Microsoft's new game that makes games, because I'm the wrong guy for that. I'm in love. Project Spark comes out during the "launch window" of the Xbox One, will also ship on Xbox 360 and Windows 8, is free-to-play (with copious amounts of paid DLC likely incoming), and it's everything I ever wanted.
What...
I pressed A to pass the ball from Messi to Neymar, but I didn’t expect what happened next. Messi tapped the ball lightly with the outside of his foot, shifting it past the defender just-so. And Neymar didn’t wait for the ball to come to his...
For a short time after Deus Ex: Human Revolution came out, I was a weird Deus Ex completionist. I finished the game in eight-hour stints without showering, then went back and started it again. Did you know there was a Human Revolution comic? I read it. So when I heard about Deus Ex: The Fall, a...
Plants vs. Zombies was wildly successful in large part due to its accessibility: The strategy game was easy to understand, and had an irreverent...
In the upcoming video game Watch Dogs, you play Aiden Pierce, a rogue hacker in a seemingly dystopian future Chicago — a city where every piece...
With titles like Quantum Break and the upcoming Halo series, the convergence of gaming and narrative storytelling has become an intense focal point — but the men behind Indiana Jones and Star Wars think gaming will never be able to provide the same type of rich experience traditional storytelling does.
Speaking Wednesday at a panel at the...
One of Nintendo's strongest traditional partners has said that it won't create exclusive titles for the Wii U as long as the system's poor sales continue. Speaking to Kotaku at this week's E3...
Fez, the celebrated indie PC and Xbox (Mac soon, supposedly) puzzle adventure game that features a 2D character exploring a 3D world, is getting a sequel. Fez developer Polytron just announced at E3 that it is working on Fez 2, Polygon reports. No release date has been given yet, let alone any other details about the story or game mechanics. But the lack of details at this stage is probably wise given the original Fez's messy development history (the game was first announced in 2007 and finally launched in 2012, delayed by internal politics and financial trouble, as chronicled in the documentary Indie Game: The Movie.) For now, a Fez 2...
"Do you have any 'PlayStation Eye' games upstairs?"
"PlayStation what?"
"PlayStation Eye."
"The camera?"
"Yeah, the camera."
"I think there's a tech demo."
"Absolutely nothing compares to the sheer scale and scope of Battlefield 4," touts the game's official website. "Your actions physically change the battlefield in real-time, providing interactive game environments that react to your every move."...
Most AAA games try to be like movies to some extent, but Finnish studio Remedy has done it better than most. Max Payne was a masterful John Woo-styled noir title, and Alan Wake drew from the tradition of Stephen King horror, each incorporating...
Nintendo showed off new gameplay footage of its upcoming sequel to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past yesterday, and we managed to get our hands on the 3DS game here at E3. In the brief 10-minute-long demo it was clear that A Link Between Worlds doesn't shake up the formula too much, but it does add new elements that make for some particularly interesting new puzzles. "This is not a remake," said series producer Eiji Aonuma, "but a whole...
Titanfall is the first independently developed title from the duo behind Modern Warfare — but the new game's existence isn't quite a heartwarming story of an indie breakout. According to Vanity Fair, the duo founded Respawn Entertainment after being unceremoniously fired by Activision. From there, they began development on Titanfall, and quickly entered into a series of back-and-forth lawsuits with their previous employer. Respawn's founders...
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