If you haven’t been following MMO news, you may have missed a minor story a few weeks ago in which Mythic Entertainment suffered a small hiccup with their billing system – causing many players to be billed several times in rapid succession. I say the hiccup was small simply because that is the nature of code and computers, and whatever it was that caused the problem likely was some tiny detail as opposed to a multi-tiered conspiracy to cash in on unwary subscribers.

That being said, the issues this little hiccup created were far more concerning than its origin. Reports of bank accounts cleaned out, overdraft fees stacking up, and general financial chaos swarmed the boards over at Mythic’s customer service forum, and those seem to be the lucky folks. Other users reported more dire consequences: interest hikes thanks to bounced mortgage checks, insurance being cancelled when auto-withdraw was denied, or being stranded with no available balance and an empty tank of gas.

Continue Reading

Toby McCasker, the Deputy Entertainment Editor for Australia’s Zoo Weekly, has allegedly been let go from the magazine over issues that arose with Rockstar Games.  While the specifics are unclear, what we do know is that McCasker posted contents of an email he claims was sent by Rockstar, one that demanded its new game, Red Dead Redemption, be treated with a little more respect.

Here’s what he posted:
Continue Reading

Oh Sony, you are so near to my heart.  It’s not that I like your products; in fact I find most of them to be terrible (seriously, three generations and you can’t find a way to improve on the worst controller ever designed?).  No, my affection for you comes primarily from your incredible incompetence at predicting what will happen in your industry, followed by your inevitable assertions that your products are doing poorly because they aren’t designed for some crybaby “general” consumer base like the shitty Nintendo Wii, and the final step of catching up with your competitors a few years later by copying their technology and pretending it was your idea all along.

Continue Reading

March was an interesting month for games.  We saw Sony’s new “Wii Too” motion control device, a major shakeup over at Activision regarding some dudes that worked on Modern Warfare, and we even got to watch as “paid downloadable content” simply became “content.”

Oh, and we launched the site, of course.

Relive some stuff you remember and some you may have missed after the jump.

Continue Reading

Nerdy weirdos rejoice – GameCrush is a service launching this week that promises to set male gamers up with sexy female counterparts.  For a fee, of course.  The site essentially allows you to select the girl of your choice, then pay money to talk to them while playing video games, with a current rate of about $9 for ten minutes.

Continue Reading

A video game hero is nothing without an evil counterpoint.  If all the bad guys in the world suddenly retired, our heroes wouldn’t have much to do.  Mario would have to go back to plumbing, Link could probably find some time to bang Zelda, and Sonic would end up in some third-grade classroom, reminiscing about the good old days.

That being said, there were definitely a few baddies that went over and above the call of duty in terms of “badness,” so let’s take a moment to recognize their contributions to the world of evil.

Continue Reading

We talk a lot about the “next big thing” or the newest trend in terms of gaming, but we very rarely step back and take a look at some of the things that happened in the past that brought us to where we are today.  In our current gaming environment, things like 360-degree analog control sticks, cinema scenes, and motion control are just part of the landscape; it’s easy to forget that there was once a time where we had none of these luxuries.

So with that in mind, here are five titles that changed the face of gaming for the better:

Continue Reading

There’s a bit of a fuss going on about the recently revealed fact that BioShock 2’s downloadable content isn’t downloadable at all, and is in fact stored right on the disc.  Fans (and some blogs) are incensed that they are being made to pay additional cash for what is essentially an unlock code with no “new” content being offered for download.

Continue Reading

Before you start writing letters, let me go ahead and acknowledge that there is an undeniable community of female gamers out there who play all different kinds of games, and many of those girl gamers do so exceptionally well.  Cool?  Good.  Now that I’ve effectively stopped everyone’s panties from wadding, let’s proceed.

Let’s face it guys, video games just aren’t a “girlfriend” thing.  Whether she isn’t interested, thinks games are silly, or simply resents the time you spend attached to your television and not to her vagina, your girlfriend probably considers video games a necessary evil in (hopefully) an otherwise awesome relationship.  For many couples, gaming is an untraversable chasm – the girlfriend desperately yelling from one end and the boyfriend doing the same from the other.

However, with the right approach you can bring the girl of your dreams into the world of video games, and have fun in the process.  Here are five games that will help start your girlfriend on the path to gaming domination (just don’t throw a fit when she inevitably outclasses you):

Continue Reading