Monthly Archives: September 2013

This GLaDOS Cosplay is the Best You’ll Ever See

glados-cosplay-athena-coleIf you’ve been to a convention, you’ve probably seen a cosplayer or two as GLaDOS. Usually, they turn out roughly the same. A black and/or white bodysuit with a GLaDOS mask.

Cosplayer Athena Cole, also known as the cosplayer Enayla, took her GLaDOS cosplay at PAX to the next level. She spent four hours suspended by wires to cosplay as the villain of the Portal series.

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EA Says They’re Working on Six to Eight New IPs Including Mirror’s Edge

ea-logo-headerI think I gave away the kicker to the article in the headline but it’s too good to pass up. In a recent interview with industry publication MCV, EA Games Executive Vice President Patrick Soderlund addressed the criticism that EA is just recycling the same old intellectual property every year. Soderlund contends that EA is currently working on at least six new IPs and isn’t planning to stop developing new franchises.

However, Soderlund’s idea of what constitutes a new intellectual property is different that what the rest of the world considers to be a new idea.

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Geek Links of the Week

Think that your data is safe because it’s somewhere with a reputation for being secure? Well, the NSA can get at most of the data on the internet. [New York Times]

Sony has big plans for their vision of the future of gaming. While Microsoft is going big on Kinect, Sony is going ahead with their own VR headset. [Games Industry]

Instead of being a Sony exclusive developer, Quanitc Dream could have been making games for Xbox consoles. However, Microsoft wanted to make a massive change to Heavy Rain that drove David Cage away from them. [Digital Spy]

Total War: Rome II has been getting a lot of praise from critics but gamers have found a lot of bugs in the game that conflict with reviews. One anonymous developer explained the process of design and checking for bugs and proceeded to eviscerate Creative Assembly for failing to adequately test their game for bugs. [Total War Forums]

Hotline Miami’s devs are willing to reconsider including the rape scene that was in HM2’s demo. They say there’s context for the scene in the game as a whole but are willing to compromise narrative because of the criticism. I’m dumping the link here because I don’t want to have to do the artistic integrity diatribe again because this pisses me off. Dennaton thinks the scene works in the narrative and we shouldn’t try to censor their artistry. [RPS]

I’m Commander Shepard and This is My Favourite Cosplay at Dragon Con

I saw some pretty good Mass Effect cosplay at Fan Expo (including FemShep, Zaeed, Kaiden and Ashley grabbing dinner at Chipotle) but it was nothing compared to the scores of folks in amazing Mass Effect cosplay at Dragon Con.

This gathering of Mass Effect fans included a volus and Blasto the hanar Spectre on the right side of the picture, Dr. Chakwas on the far left and Mark Meer and Rana McAnear up front as Shepard and Morinth. That doesn’t mention the scads of other Shepards, Talis, Liaras, EDIs, Mirandas and more who dressed up for Dragon Con.

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Building (Critical) Consensus: Diablo III (PS3/Xbox 360)

diablo-iii-box-artI nearly forgot that Diablo III was released this week. Okay, it’s already been out for PC for almost a year-and-a-half but it’s now out for the current generation of consoles with a PS4 version planned for release next year.

What’s interesting about the console port is that many critics prefer it to the PC original. Noted improvements were the addition of offline play and the removal of the auction house (which was blamed for the necessity of always-online DRM in the PC version Diablo III). Critics also liked the addition of local co-op and the new control scheme which I would have thought would be the thing Blizzard would be most likely to struggle with given their PC development background. It’s good to hear this is a well done port and not a blatant cash grab.

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Divekick (PC) Review: Kick It

divekick-logoCan a fighting game only have two buttons? It doesn’t seem to be a necessary question. Any game can use any control scheme the developer chooses so long as it works.

Don’t tell that to some vocal members of the fighting game community who consider Divekick to be a joke. How can a fighting game only have two buttons, no combos and only one-hit kills via jump kicks? It clearly doesn’t belong in the same category as multi-button, combo-laden games like the Street Fighters, Tekkens, Soul Calibers and Mortal Kombats of the world.

So does having only two buttons make Divekick a sick joke or is it so well put together that it actually pulls off the adrenaline rush of a fight game with a simple facade?

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Simon Pegg’s Infamous Star Trek Neutron Cream Prank

If you’re getting the standard retail or Target exclusive DVD/Blu-Ray releases of Star Trek Into Darkness, you’ll miss out on one of the funnier moments on the STID set. Okay, if you buy any of the DVD/Blu-Ray releases, you’re going to be missing out but that’s beside the point here.

In a bonus featurette available only to those who buy the Best Buy exclusive Blu-Ray, Simon Pegg pulls his infamous neutron cream prank on the cast of the movie. So you don’t give those greedy bastards more money than you have to, here’s that featurette on YouTube.

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Why are Let’s Play Videos So Popular?

If you read et geekera with any degree of regularity, you probably heard through the grapevine that the most subscribed channel on YouTube, for better or worse, belongs to Pewdiepie. While Justin Bieber might be the king of Twitter, a twenty-something Swedish gamer is the king of YouTube.

But why are let’s play videos so big that Pewdiepie is the most subscribed to man on YouTube? Is it because people are too cheap to buy games, that many people need help with game or some other reason? PBS’ Game/Show examines the popularity of let’s plays.

Xbox One Sets a November 22nd Launch Date

xbox-one-logo-bannerA couple of weeks after Sony announced the PlayStation 4’s launch date at Gamescom, Microsoft took to YouTube to announce when the Xbox One would be hitting store shelves.

While Sony is having staggered North American and European launches, the Xbox One will be available in all of its worldwide launch countries on the same date. The Xbox One comes out on November 22, 2013.

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Blue, Green or Red with the Shepard Twins

It’s been a while since I’ve posted some fan art so here we go. Jennifer Hale starred in both Mass Effect 3 and BioShock Infinite so you knew it was only a matter of time before we saw some cross-over art between the two games. That’s where DeviantArt user Charles Wilcher comes in with this Shepard and Lutece Twins crossover art.

the-shepard-siblings-by-bigcman321

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