The Verge - Gaming Posts

Our live coverage of Microsoft's new Xbox event starts May 21st at 12:30PM ET / 9:30AM PT!

2013-05-20T20:30:03Z

The next Xbox is nigh, and you've just discovered the very best place on the internet to watch the next generation of video games come to life. Tomorrow, May 21st, starting at 9:30AM PT, The Verge and Polygon will team up to bring you Microsoft's Xbox reveal live. Join our editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky and Polygon's Justin McElroy as we host live shows before and after the event, bringing you informative, insightful, and probably some rather irreverent discussion of whether the next Xbox lives up to the world's expectations.

If you hate video for some reason, we'll also be hosting the best live blog in the business with pictures and text updates direct from the Microsoft stage, but otherwise keep it locked to this post, starting at...

EA Sports to reveal next-gen 'FIFA 14' at Xbox event

2013-05-20T17:50:28Z

Microsoft is preparing to unveil its latest gaming console to the world, and we now know at least one of the titles it will be showcasing on stage in Redmond tomorrow: FIFA 14. EA Sports has announced (via Facebook) that a next-generation version of the enormously popular soccer franchise — which continues to regularly top Xbox Live's activity charts — will be revealed during the Xbox event. On its last quarterly earnings call, Electronic Arts confirmed development of next-gen takes on Madden, FIFA, and its other sports properties, but stopped short of specifying when we'd see them firsthand. A teaser on Facebook leaves little doubt, however; we're 24 hours away from seeing what a next-gen soccer game looks like on Microsoft's latest...

‘Plants vs. Zombies Adventures’ is a Facebook game you’ll actually want to play

2013-05-20T17:30:06Z

Plants vs. Zombies Adventures combines a thing you like with a thing you don't: it's a spin-off of Popcap's terrific strategy franchise, but it's also a game that's exclusively available on Facebook. Despite the social network's best efforts, Facebook is still viewed as a home for spammy, sub-par games, not a platform for truly great titles. But games like Adventures could help change that. While it contains many of the same features and a similar structure to other games on Facebook (there's even farming), Adventures still maintains that same addictive gameplay that made the original Plants vs. Zombies such a hit.

If, for some reason, you haven't played PvZ, the basic structure is simple: Zombies come shambling in from one direction,...

Sony teases PlayStation 4 hardware ahead of Xbox event, says you'll 'see it first at E3'

2013-05-20T15:10:39Z

Sony has teased the hardware design for its upcoming PlayStation 4 for the first time, after a February reveal that kept the device completely under wraps and left fans guessing about how Sony's next-generation console would look. In a new video, shown below, the company teases the PS4's hardware with a blurry black rectangle and flashes of design details.

The timing of the tease is no surprise, with Microsoft set to reveal its own next-generation Xbox tomorrow at its campus in Redmond, Washington.

Based on the video's title, we should expect to see the PlayStation 4 unveiled on June 10th at the company's E3 presentation. The PS4 is expected to be available during the holiday season of 2013, but the company still hasn't revealed any...

'Rebound' is a maddeningly simple physics game

2013-05-19T20:20:01Z

Sometimes the simplest games are the most difficult. That's certainly the case in Rebound, a game in which the only goal is to get a pole as far to the right as possible, but where actually getting very far is incredibly challenging. The trick is that the pole's only means of propulsion is bouncing off of the ground, and your only way to control it is by rotating it left or right. Grappling with the physics is hard enough, but then the game throws barriers in your way and slowly the ground will literally disappear beneath you. It only takes a few seconds to play, but actually making progress in Rebound will take a whole lot longer — check out the Windows, Mac, and web versions at the source link below.

Amazon-exclusive 'Madden 25 Anniversary Edition' includes free NFL Sunday Ticket offer

2013-05-19T18:47:06Z

If you're both a gamer and a self-professed football fan, odds are you'll be buying Madden this year — just like any other. For those who've already committed to purchasing the $99.99 Anniversary Edition of Madden 25, Amazon is undoubtedly the best spot to place a pre-order. Because in addition to providing bonus in-game content, the online retailer has also partnered up with DirecTV for some exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket offers.

Amazon's edition of Madden will grant new DirecTV customers $10 off their monthly bill for a year, tossing in the NFL Sunday Ticket Max package at no additional cost. Alongside the RedZone channel, Max also gives you full access to live season games on your computer, tablet, or smartphone.

But what if...

Good Deal: 'BioShock Infinite' on sale at Amazon for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC

2013-05-19T16:06:49Z

Sometimes it pays to wait before spending your hard-earned cash on the year's best games. If you haven't yet played through BioShock Infinite, for example, Amazon just eliminated "price" as a valid reason for your willful ignorance. The heralded first-person shooter from Irrational Games is Amazon's Deal of the Day across all platforms — though the cost isn't uniform. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners can grab the title for $39.99. The asking price for either a physical or digital Windows version is $34.99. Of course, with today being Sunday in the US, your new purchase won't ship until tomorrow if you're opting for a physical copy. In that case, there's always the option of price-matching at your local Best Buy or Target.

Valve announces 'Robotic Boogaloo,' the first 'Team Fortress 2' update built by the community

2013-05-19T03:15:03Z

Valve is pushing out another update to Team Fortress 2, its 356th since it first shipped the game as part of The Orange Box in 2007. But there’s something special this time around — the new content, titled Robotic Boogaloo, is the first to be created entirely by fans. Polygon reports that the update will have 57 virtual items, mostly hats (naturally), and include a comic that connects it with the game’s expansive backstory.

In a blog post announcing the release, Valve said that just because it’s pushing out community-developed updates doesn’t mean that it will stop producing its own content for the game. “As far as we’re concerned, there’s plenty of room for both to happily co-exist,” says the company. According to...

PS4's 'play while downloading' feature arrives on PS3 first with 'The Last of Us'

2013-05-19T01:01:06Z

With the PlayStation 4, Sony is trying to lower the friction in buying games from PSN by letting you start playing games while they're still downloading. Now it looks like the new feature will actually make it to the PlayStation 3 in time for the PSN release of Naughty Dog’s anticipated The Last of Us on June 14th. Speaking with Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann and game director Bruce Straley, Game Informer reports that the game will be playable once 50 percent of the content has been downloaded, cutting wait time in half.

Onstage at its big PlayStation 4 announcement in February, PS4 lead system architect Mark Cerny said that players would only have to download "just a fraction" of a game’s content before starting to...

How two Valve engineers walked away with the company's augmented reality glasses

2013-05-18T18:01:26Z

Three months ago, celebrated video game publisher Valve did something completely out of character: it fired up to 25 workers, in what one employee dubbed the "great cleansing." At the time, co-founder Gabe Newell quickly reassured gamers that the company wouldn't be canceling any projects, but it just so happens that one project managed to get away.

Valve was secretly working on a pair of augmented reality glasses... and those glasses are still being built by two Valve employees who lost their jobs that day.

"This is what I'm going to build come hell or high water."

Former Valve hardware engineer Jeri Ellsworth and programmer Rick Johnson spent over a year working on the project at Valve, and have been putting in six days a week, 16+...