Meet Piston: Valve and Xi3's Steam Box Love-Child

new GReel( ‘http://edge-cache.gizmodo.com/gizmodo/reel/pisten/’, 8, 24 ) The Steam Box (or Steam Boxes, more likely) has been a long time coming, and today, the Xi3’s Piston is leading the charge. While the details about Piston specifically are few and far between, we got a look at her and boy is she pretty. The first of what…

What Half-Life Looked Like In 1997, One Year Before It Came Out [Update]

This footage is taken from something called Half-Life Alpha, a demo of Valve’s classic shooter playable in 1997, a year before the game would eventually be released. As you’ll quickly see, most of this is actually a tech demo. Which might explain why there’s a Macross Pod hiding in a stairwell. Update – Ah, the…

Oh No Big Deal, It’s Just A New David Bowie Single

You know, no big. Just another day. We got a cool new video from Anamanaguchi. And oh hey also, a single from a little-known singer named DAVID BOWIE. This is the first single of Bowie’s in ten years, released to celebrate his 66th birthday. “As long as there’s me, as long as there’s you,” he…

VP Joe Biden Wants To Meet With Video Game Reps Over Gun Control

Later this week, Vice President Joe Biden will be hosting a panel looking at ways to reduce the level of gun violence in the United States. According to a report on Bloomberg, he’s invited the NRA, along with “gun-control advocates, victims of shootings and representatives of the movie and video game industry”. Note this isn’t…

The Mods We’d Like To See For Far Cry 3

PC modders have really begun to dig into Far Cry 3. The mind reels at the possibilities. Granted, Ubisoft hasn’t been as supportive of user-created modifications as, say, Bethesda was with Skyrim. But that doesn’t mean we can’t put together a wishlist of mods we’d love to see. I did an informal poll of the…

Studio Ghibli’s Musical Maestro Talks Ni No Kuni‘s Soundtrack

If you’ve ever seen one of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films, you’ve encountered the work of composer Joe Hisaishi. His haunting, gorgeous compositions have accompanied films from Castle in the Sky to My Neighbor Totoro to Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away Hisaishi will also be creating the music for Studio Ghibli and Level-5’s upcoming PS3 role-playing…

A Rhyme Of Ice And Fire: The Stark Kids Rap Over The Game of Thrones Credits

I wouldn’t have guessed Sansa Stark would be much of a rapper, but this clip from the DVD commentary for the second season of Game of Thrones proves me wrong. This comes as something of a follow-up to last year, when the actors who play the Starks sang along with the intro music on the…

Waaaaaaalt! It’s A 16-Bit Video Game Tribute To LOST

Not only is this new College Humor video-game spoof of LOST funny on its own, it’s also got some good criticism of the show. I particularly liked dodging bad plots in season 3, and anyone who agrees with me that “The Constant” was the series’ best episode is cool in my book. Spoilers! Obvs. CollegeHumor’s…

Miiverse Moments: Adventure Time Fan Art

Most fans show their love and adoration anywhere they feasibly can and few fans are as obsessed as Adventure Time fans. As a result, their artistic presence in the Miiverse is strong, particularly on the no holds barred fanfest that is the Nintendo TVii community. Today’s Miiverse Moment is a small sample of the Adventure…

It’s Official: Gabe Newell Shares Details About Valve’s Steam Box

With the first of many “Steam Box” computers making its debut at CES, Valve boss Gabe Newell has really opened up to The Verge about his company’s hardware plans, revealing that the range of gaming PCs might be even more ambitious than we would have imagined. Some of the main things he touches on: •…

A New Vegas Mod That Makes Your Favorite My Little Pony Character Into A Companion

You know what the Mojave desert was missing? My Little Pony, of course. My Little Pony buddies, to be precise. Here’s a mod by Kuroitsune and Riven1978 on New Vegas Nexus that allows you to have the MLP protagonists as your companions. Not all ponies are included—for now, there’s only Luna, Celestia, Twilight, Fluttershy, Applejack,…

Who Cares What Kind of Game It Is? It’s Called Death Golf.

Coming this Thursday to iOS for $.99, it’s Death Golf. Death. Golf. I have nothing else to say here. Death Golf

The highly enjoyable Far Cry 3 “New Game Plus” overhaul mod has gotten a no-mini-map version.

Watch 15 Years Of Pokémon Graphics Evolve, Slowly But Surely

The Pokémon games gradually become more lovely to look at year by year and system by system, at about the rate that mighty rivers turn into Grand Canyons. But graphical improvements do occur! Here are the six main Pokémon games. See how they’ve evolved… (But, before you do, click and drag the slider on the…

Atlas Raider Rolls the Dice on Social Board Gaming

I miss dice. I miss the days when “social gaming” meant going somewhere and playing a game with people and dice, be it Talisman, Dungeon or just plain old Monopoly. Social game developer CrayonPixel looks to recapture the magic of dice-based board games with Atlas Raider, a new type of board game for the digi-magical…

Razer Edge Tablet Hands On: This Gaming Rig Might Actually Be the Best Windows 8 Tablet

The Razer Edge is a gaming tablet. That much you know. But here’s the thing: It’s so well made—and has such a complete notion of what it is and what it wants to do—that it might not just be “the gaming tablet,” but the single best Windows 8 convertible we’ve seen. The first thing you…

Anamanaguchi’s New Video Is An Insane, Excellent Night Out At The Arcade

I don’t even know what else to say, really, about NYC-based chip-rock quartet Anamanaguchi. Their music more or less speaks for itself. Above, please find the most excellent new video for their most excellent single「MEOW」. If you like video games and good times, you will most likely enjoy this music video. The track is from…

Kickstarter Backers Pledged $83,144,565 To Games In 2012

Ready for some math? 1,378,143 Kickstarter users pledged $83,144,565 to game projects in 2012. There were 2,796 game Kickstarters launched. Of those, 911 were successful. (Note that “games” in this context refers to both video and tabletop games. Kickstarter doesn’t separate them.) That dose of insanity comes via Kickstarter’s cool “The Best of 2012” feature.…

The New Black Ops II DLC Lets You Play As The Zombies

Mark your calendars: on January 29th, the ‘Revolution’ map pack for Black Ops II drops. And it packs a ton of content according to this trailer: not only does it have a number of new maps, but it also features a new game mode that lets you play as the zombies in a mode appropriately…

NVIDIA Project Shield Hands On: A Little Less Weird Than It Looks

Nvidia’s Project Shield is a curious little device, attempting to toss its hat into a bunch of rings at once. It’s taking shots at handheld gaming, console gaming, tablets, and phones. For the most part, it’s holding under the strain, but it’s hard to imagine going out of your way to use it versus any…