Gaming

A Sneak Peek at the Cyberpunk Fantasy World of Shadowrun Online

Shadowrun Online is still in development, but there are big plans to tie the game to tabletop Shadowrun’s big summer campaign, Lockdown. The developers let me try an early build of the game, and talked to me about all things cyberpunk. While Shadowrun Online isn’t due for launch until late in 2014, an early version…

Magic: the Gathering Summer Set Preview: Meet the Chief Engineer

The Chief Engineer makes his debut in M15, this summer’s Magic: the Gathering core set. This potentially powerful blue creature could have a huge impact, and perhaps stir some memories of Affinity decks among longtime players. Chief Engineer is a Vedalkan, one of Magic’s more esoteric fantasy races, a group of wizards and artificers who…

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, a Review

This morning I woke up to a push notification on my phone. Are you ready for your photoshoot with Kim Kardashian? I was. I downloaded Kim Kardashian: Hollywood last night. The game launched yesterday on the App Store and Google Play through Glu Mobile, and I had to know how the hell they made a…

Google’s Getting Its Own Android-Powered Game Consoles

Forget the Ouya, there’s another Android game console in town, and it’s coming from two of the biggest players in computing. Razer, the folks behind the awesome Razer Blade and Junglecat controller, have teamed up with Google to create a “micro-console” that will run the new AndroidTV. It’ll work as a set-top box for TV…

A Map That Shows Which States Are Xbox One and Which Are PS4

The XBOX One is beating the PS4 — at least on Facebook, if not in sales numbers. A map published by the Movoto Blog takes a look at the popularity of current-gen consoles in every state in the United States based on the number of Facebook likes. The results are surprising: The XBOX One was…

Tabletop Gaming Deals: Free RPG Day, Paranoia, 10 Years of DriveThru

This Saturday is Free RPG Day, plus there’s a a Paranoia bundle, charity auctions, and other gaming deals going on right now. Don’t miss these great summer gaming deals. DriveThruRPG is holding their ten-year anniversary sale, with bundles of ten products selling for $10. That’s $1 per product, and there’s some really great stuff in…

Apple TV Could Finally Unlock Its Full Potential This Year

The Apple TV hasn’t evolved much over the last couple of years. Sure, it’s gotten a handful of new apps, but the format—locked down, bland—has stayed the same since its 2010 redesign. But while Apple didn’t talk about its set-top box much at its developer conference this month, it showed that it finally has the…

Clamp-On Controller Bolsters the iPad Mini’s Gaming Prowess

When it comes to mobile gaming the iPhone gets all the glory, but the iPad Mini actually serves as a decent portable console as well, particularly with that larger display. And the Gamevice, from the same folks responsible for the Wikipad, adds a much needed set of physical buttons and joysticks that clamp onto either…

This is how a 3,000-car race would look like if the Earth were the Moon

Professional video maker Rickard Rick produces renderings of games in his spare time and this 3,000 car race-cum-epic-pile-up is one of his best. The physics are a bit crazy, as if the Earth had the Moon’s gravity, but the results have a dream like quality that makes it fun and hypnotic to watch. SPLOID is…

This Wireless Keyboard Contraption Brings Your Desktop to Your Lap

Anyone who tries to play PC games on their TV inevitably runs into the same problem: What do you do with that damn keyboard and mouse? Roccat has a clever if not super elegant solution. Just put an entire desk-top on your lap. You could do that with a normal keyboard, sure, but Roccat’s new…

At East Texas University, Demon Hunting is On the Curriculum

In the Texas town of Pinebox, football is king and something with tentacles is lurking in the local swimming hole. In this variant for the Savage Worlds RPG system, you might battle chupacabras or zombies, but you still have to ace your anthro final tomorrow. East Texas University positions the players as students at the…

The SteelSeries Sentry Watches Your Eyes to Help You Be Better at Games

Motion control might not be great for precise gaming, but that doesn’t mean that everything you do needs to be controlled by your hands. SteelSeries just announced its new eye-tracking Sentry, that watches where you’re looking to help you get better at games. Built in partnership with Tobii, whose eye-tracking stuff has been alternately awesome…

One of the Best Compact iOS Controllers Just Got Supersized

SteelSeries’ original Stratus—a compact game controller designed to complement pocket-friendly iOS devices like the iPhone—was revealed just a few months ago at CES. But the company is already rolling out an updated version that will appeal to anyone who felt cramped using the tiny original. The aptly-named Stratus XL trades portability for comfort, with a…

The Xbox One Gets a Graphics Boost When Devs Ignore Kinect

Say what you will about Microsoft’s decision to give up on packing in the Kinect with its Xbox One (I sure have!) but there’s good news for performance junkies: When Kinect’s out of the picture, the Xbox One gets a 10 percent boost in graphics power. The announcement that Xbox One dev kits were going…

Microsoft has announced 45 apps that will soon be coming to Xbox including Vine, which can be used to share game clips on the Xbox One, and Twitter, which will let you snap hashtag-driven tweet-streams under your TVing.

ASUS Has a New Pair Of Slim, Slick 4K Ultrabooks

Straight out of Computex, ASUS has a pair of pretty little laptops that boast fantastic 4K screens, while still coming in pretty damn slim. The new ultrabooks come in two different flavors. First there’s the Zenbook NX500, a 15.6-incher with a 3840 x 2160 screen, 4K UHD screen. And to push its pixels, it packs…

The New D&D Adventures Will Include All the Dragons

This summer’s Dungeons & Dragons relaunch includes a set of adventures focused on the rise of the dragon goddess Tiamat, designed by Wolfgang Baur and Steve Winter of Kobold Press. In this interview, they told us about adventure design and the joys of writing for a game system while it’s still in development. io9: Could…

A MIDI Joystick Is Definitely the Best Way To Play Music

In the music video for his aptly-named track Arcade, M4SONIC is seen playing a custom-made arcade-style joystick that’s actually a MIDI instrument. Instead of using a piano keyboard, or a rhythm pad filled with countless buttons to trigger MIDI samples, this creation let M4SONIC channel his childhood Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat skills into his…

In a blog post, Steam says it will push back the delivery date of the Steam Box to “2015, not 2014.” That date has always been somewhat vague, but it sounds like the new wireless controller Steam is testing has slowed the schedule a bit. [Steam via Engadget]

Concept Artist Thomas Scholes Has Made GIFs That Show His Whole Process

If you love concept art as much as we do, then you’re going to want to bookmark the new site of artist Thomas Scholes. Along with tons of art he’s created for Halo 4, Guild Wars 2, Ashen and other properties, he’s also posted some “making of” GIFs that are amazing to watch. Over and…