You Won’t Be Able to Stop Playing This Borderlands 2 De-Make

Gearbox wants you to believe that they’ve dusted off an apocryphal pre-cursor to their hit sci-fi first-person shooter series. Okay, guys. Sure thing. Nevertheless, The Border Lands is terrific fun, letting you play pixellated versions of Borderlands 2‘s four main characters across multiple stages. The retro-styled browser game harbors the same “ooh, new gun!” addictiveness…

Three games in this week’s Nintendo Download: Abyss for the 3DS, VectorRacing for DSiWare and Metal Slug X WiiWare.

It Sounds Like Nintendo Wants to Make A Gamer’s Version of Facebook

Maybe we’ve been wrong about Nintendo. Maybe we’ve been wrong to be thinking in terms of Nintendo vs. Apple or Nintendo vs. Microsoft or Sony. Maybe we’ve even been wrong to think Nintendo’s big thing this fall is a new console. After I interviewed Nintendo president Satoru Iwata last week, I’m thinking that the angle…

Why Do These People Insist On Talking Over This Stunning Assassin’s Creed III Footage?

Game developers, Revolutionary War experts and voice actors band together in a concentrated effort to interrupt ACIII gameplay clips at every turn, in this first installment of Inside Assassin’s Creed III, a four-part series with a great deal of talking. I realize Ubisoft wants to give people insight into the development of Assassin’s Creed III,…

Without Final Fantasy V, This RPG Boss Would Have Been Indiana Jones

Souhei Niikawa is the CEO of Nipponichi Software, the maker of such hits like the Disgaea series, and Phatom Brave. In 1996, Niikawa joined Nipponichi Software to work in marketing, publicity, and game development, and after a successful career, in July 2009, he became CEO. Even after his rise in rank, Niikawa continues to have…

The Unfortunate Irony of Anti-Japanese Protests

In China, there has been a spate of anti-Japanese protests of late (more here). The nationalistic protests are over disputed islands (called “Senkaku” in Japan and “Diaoyu” in China). Sure, people should have the right to assemble and voice their opinion. But they should not start destroying other people’s stuff. At some of the anti-Japanese…

Choose Your Resident Evil 6 Skills Wisely

Resident Evil 6 will be out in less than two months, and apparently, the developers at Capcom want to make sure you have all the information you need to jump right into the game short of actually handing out copies of the manual. This time, new information on in-game Skills and Skill Sets has been…

Dark Souls: Prepare to Studio Ghibli Edition

Artist and fellow Texan Kyle Fewell crossed Dark Souls with Studio Ghibli for this wonderful illustration for Fangamer Versus Attract Mode. The little details are really what make this piece so special, from the little Totoro to the makkuro kurosuke. Larger image below; be sure to also check out Kyle’s site. Its Dark Souls/Studio Ghibli…

Report: Sexual Harassment Allegations at Japan’s Biggest Manga

One Piece. Naruto. Dragon Ball. These are just some of the iconic manga that have graced Shonen Jump. If you’ve made it in Shonen Jump, you’ve made it in Japanese manga. One young female manga artist wanted her work serialized in Jump. Instead, she allegedly ended up with sexual harassment. According to Japanese site Tantei…

I Hope This Upcoming User Generated Content Game Saves The Vita

Project Discovery, the new collaboration project between Sony and Kadokawa Games to create a new game from UGC (User Generated Content) is finally underway. With luck, this could be the sort of push the Vita needs to pick up some steam in Japan. According to details in this week’s Weekly Famitsu, Project Discovery will begin…

Horrible Father Hits Toddler over Video Game Loss, Gets Arrested

Japan’s Sanspo is reporting that a 39 year-old Yukihiko Sakata was arrested after repeatedly striking his 3 year-old daughter in the head and around the eyes with a plastic toy. “I was getting back for losing at a video game,” the father said in a sworn statement. The child needs to be hospitalized for a…

If you needed more convincing that teaser site is for The World Ends with You, check the background music.

Is Nausicaä Using an iPad? Wonders Japanese Site

Years before the Apple iPad tablet ever hit stores, similar style devices popped up in sci-fi movies, manga, and anime. The latest rediscovery of a similar device was recently spotted in the 1982 manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. In a post titled “Is Nausicaä Using an iPad?”, Japanese blog Kojima Piypiyo points…

Ubisoft just registered a whole bunch of domains for “Assassin’s Creed Initiate” and “Assassin’s Creed Initiates”.

This Isn’t Kawaii. It’s Disturbing.

There’s this notion that “kawaii” (可愛い) or “cute” rules Japan. That’s not entirely true. Everything isn’t simply cute—and kawaii isn’t the only game in town. There’s also gurokawaii (グロカワイイ). This is the world of the grotesque and sadistic filtered through kawaii. This is the world of Momoka Kinoshita. The concept of gurokawaii has been increasingly…

Super Mario Bros., on The…Atari? Huh?

While the Mario Brothers did make an official appearance on an Atari console, that was the original Mario Bros. arcade game, not a Super Mario Bros. platformer. So this footage you see up top, as good as it looks, isn’t from a real game. It’s a demo made by Atari Age forum member Sprybug, showing…

Build Robots, Race Robots, Fight Robots, Mourn Robots

Indie developer Alex Rozgo is working on Rawbots, a game that’s all about designing and building robots then having them…do stuff. Drawing on inspiration from stuff like LEGO and Spore, the idea is that you design, program and build your own robot then mess around with it in a virtual sandbox. So you can shoot…

These Guys Went to the Real DayZ Island, Dressed Up And Took Pictures

Zombie survival mod DayZ takes place in the nation of Chernarus, which sounds entirely made-up, but it’s only mostly made up. The geography of the map is actually lifted from a real-world location, around Povrly, in the north of the Czech Republic. Sure, there’s no ocean in the Czech Republic (only ArmA/DayZ devs Bohemia Interactive),…

Sagat Won’t Just Tiger Uppercut Your Face, He’ll Get Your Wallet, Too

Pop Culture will next year be releasing this Sagat statue, which stands an enormous 21″ tall and will set you back $365. For a statue that damn big, believe it or not $365 is a decent price! Painted by hand, and with real fabric not just for his shorts but his arm guard…wrap…things, you can…

Why 1990s SNES Games Were so Damn Expensive

It’s easy to forget now, but back in the 1990s, many video games had the same price on the sticker they do today, which when you account for inflation reminds you that they were super expensive But just why did games cost so much? This infographic from a 1995 issue of British magazine Super Play…