- New Weeklong Deals, Monday February 24th - 24 February 2014
New Weeklong Deals roll over every Monday at 10AM Pacific Time.
- Mass Effect, Dragon Age Actor Passes Away At Age 61 - 5 February 2013
Veteran British actor Robin Sachs, perhaps best-known to the masses for his role as Ethan Rayne in the Buffy TV series, has passed away suddenly at the age of 61. Details on the nature of his death are yet to be made public. Sachs may be better known to you guys, though, as the voice of Lord Pyral Harrowmont in the first Dragon Age , or the cranky old mercenary Zaeed in the Mass Effect series. Tragic News Chris Priestly
- A Moving Tribute To The Fallen Heroes Of World Of Warcraft - 20 January 2013
FlameofWesternesse has made this terrific short film, which catalogues some of the memorials placed throughout Azeroth in honour of World of Warcraft players who have passed away during the game's tenure. Maybe you've seen them and wondered what they were for, maybe like me you've barely played the game and had no idea it could do stuff like this, either way it's a surprisingly moving video. A Tribute to World of Warcraft Memorials
- Author of The Warriors, Cult Film Adapted to Hit Video Game, Dies at 88 - 6 January 2013
Sol Yurick, the writer whose 1965 novel "The Warriors" was adapted into a film 14 years later—which then became one of the best adapted works ever in video gaming—died this weekend. He was 88. Yurick's work itself was a loose adaptation of a story told 2,300 years before: Anabasis , which chronicles the journey of Greek mercenaries through hostile territory after the death of their leader. Yurick's book, and The Warriors both open with a grand council of street gangs, convened in the Bronx, and the murder of the leader who called for the gathering (Cyrus, a direct reference to the leader of the Greeks in Anabasis). But the stories then diverge significantly. Walter Hill, the director of The Warriors , strove to give a comic-book depiction of the gang's flight from the Bronx back to their Coney Island turf. (Indeed, in Yurick's book, the gang's mascot, Junior, reads a comic b…
- Remembering the Video Game Work of Michael Clarke Duncan - 4 September 2012
Oscar nominated actor Michael Clarke Duncan passed away earlier today. The 54 year-old died from complications from a heart attack he had earlier this summer. Duncan is best known for his roles in The Green Mile , Armageddon , and Talladega Nights —among many, many other films. The actor did more than movie work. Blessed with powerful pipes, Duncan was also a voice actor, lending his vocal talents to an array of video games as well as cartoons. One of his first roles was actually in a 1995 adventure game. After establishing himself as a Hollywood actor, Duncan continued to work in games. He voiced the character of Atlas in God of War II , Benjamin in the first Saints Row , a crime lord in survival horror game The Suffering: Ties That Bind , the character of Ygori in fantasy game Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone , and SEAL Operative Wardog in tactical shooter SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs…
- Paul Steed, Artist on Wing Commander and Quake Series, Dies - 11 August 2012
Paul Steed, an artist whose video game career spanned design, publishing and even console development, died unexpectedly, according to The Jace Hall Show. Steed was perhaps best known for work on Wing Commander and Quake and also for controversies arising in his time ad id Software. Steed was most recently the executive creative director of Exigent, a 3D art company he founded. Prior to that, he had worked for publishers such as Atari and Electronic Arts, with Microsoft on the Xbox 360, and at id. He got his start at Origin Systems as an illustrator for the Wing Commander series and had credits on other games such as Privateer and Strike Commander . At id, he worked on Quake and Quake II . According to John Carmack, id's co-founder, in 2000 Steed was fired (over Carmack's objection) in retaliation for his insistence on working on what would become Doom 3 , a project then opposed by two…
- Rest in Peace, Rande, the Best Friend a Game Journalist Could Ever Have - 8 June 2012
In May of 2006, months before I started writing for Kotaku , my then girlfriend and I went to the pet store to buy her a kitten. There were cages filled with various mewling beasts, fluffy, bright-eyed animals eager to find a good home. And then there was Rande. I didn't like him at all. A tuxedo cat wearing a black Batman mask with eyes like obsidian, the kitten my girlfriend chose was, in my opinion, a little freak. For the first two weeks after we brought him home he'd sit in the corner of the living room while I played video games, his eyes melding so perfectly with his black fur I couldn't tell if he was staring or not. It was unnerving. Over time we bonded, and soon he was following me around our apartment. If I sat down he was on me, digging his razor-sharp claws into my legs lovingly. If I was at my desk he was under it, curled up around my feet. When my girlfriend and I parted…
- RIP Maurice Sendak, Creator of Where the Wild Things Are - 8 May 2012
This has been a brutal year for many people's fondest childhood affections. First Star Wars visionary Ralph McQuarrie dies , then French comics legend Moebius passes away , and now we have the sad news that Maurice Sendak, the creator of children's stories such as Where the Wild Things Are , has died at age 83. Sendak will of course be primarily remembered for the above-mentioned classic (it never ceases to blow my mind it was first published in 1963 ), but for me, his most lasting contribution was in writing my absolute favourite book as a small child: In the Night Kitchen . About little more than a boy dreaming about a magic kitchen, where dough becomes fantastic contraptions like aeroplanes, it's been strangely controversial in the US (thanks to the star sometimes showing his naked little butt), but was cherished in my home due to the ridiculously charming story and artwork - also pr…
- A Final Fantasy Tattoo, in Memory of a Fallen Soldier - 1 May 2012
Last June, the brother-in-law of reader Taylor was tragically killed in action while serving in Afghanistan. He had been due in September to return home and join Taylor in getting tattoos. While he never made it back, Taylor decided to go ahead and get a tattoo done anyway, only now it would be done as a memorial. Because the pair bonded while playing Final Fantasy XI - "it was the thing that made me see him more as my brother and not just a guy dating my sister" - Taylor got his brother-in-law's character emblazoned across his shoulder, complete with dog tags around the chocobo's neck.
- RIP, the Man who Helped Get me Into Video Games - 9 April 2012
When I was four years old, my father took me out to a local electronics store and said we were buying a computer. OK, I thought, not really knowing why that was such a big deal. Twenty-seven years later, I now know it was one of the most significant days of my life. That day we brought home a Commodore 64, my first ever video game system, the device which first kindled my lifelong passion for video games and which, ultimately, has led to who I am and where I am today. So it's sad to learn today that Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International, has passed away at the age of 83 . Born in Łódź, Poland in 1928, Tramiel's early life was, like that of fellow video game pioneer Ralph Baer , dominated by the aggression of Nazi Germany. Following Poland's rapid defeat in 1939, he would spend the next six years in German captivity, first working at a garment factory and later as a labour…
- Jack Tramiel, Father of the Great Commodore Computer Company, Dies at 83 - 9 April 2012
Jack Tramiel, a Holocaust survivor and the tech visionary who founded the company that created the legendary Commodore 64 computer, died on Sunday at the age of 83, Forbes reports . We'll have more on Tramiel's great legacy later.
- A Tribute To Bert Sugar, Who Gave Me My Start - 26 March 2012
My father knew a guy who knew Bert Sugar. That's how I wound up working for Bert, as a high school intern and then in my first job as a professional reporter. He was my first editor, my first mentor, my first journalism role model. He passed away yesterday at age 75 . Back when I interned, the people at the post office knew I worked for Bert, because to work for Bert Sugar was to be bathed in cigar smoke. It was to hear the clacking of a typewriter and hear the wheeze of a drinker's laugh as a newsman recounted a great, old story. To work for Bert at Boxing Illustrated was to learn how it used to be done—and done well. Bert was a sports-reporting legend, one of the tenured ink-stained wretches on the boxing beat and an eventual member of the Boxing Hall of Fame . He covered the fights. He talked about the fights. At some point he was on your TV, shot from the waist up so you could…
- Insomniac Programmer Michael Kuehl Passes Away - 16 February 2012
Michael Kuehl, a programmer with Resistance developers Insomniac - and who had also worked at Infinity Ward and Electronic Arts - has tragically passed away at the age of 32. Kuehl was struck by a car while riding his motorcycle, and died from his injuries. Our thoughts go out to his family and colleagues.
- Remember Star Wars Galaxies With This Poignant Memory Book - 22 December 2011
A week ago Star Wars Galaxies closed down for good . Today, the MMO published its official "memory book," a whale of a tome at more than 200 megabytes in PDF form , recalling all of the worlds, races and principal events of the MMO's eight-year run. Remember the Sullustan, the Ithorian, the Wookiee, the Human and, yes, the Bothan ... and the worlds of Corellia, Dantooine, and Kashyyyk. Remember the Jedi, the the smugglers, the traders and the spies. Remember all the members of the eight Galactic Senates. Remember all those who fought in the great Galactic Civil War or lived in the time of its intrigue. It's a memorial not so much to a game but to its community and if you were ever a part of it. Have one last long look through the pages of its history, with that soundtrack above as your final accompaniment. The Force will be with you. Always. A Thank You to the Star Wars Galaxies Communi…
- RIP GamePro - 30 November 2011
One of the longest-running magazines about video games has just run out of credit. It's just been announced that GamePro magazine, which launched in 1988, will cease publication as a standalone entity next week on December 5. As first reported by IndustryGamers , both the magazine and website are being shut down, with the following text running on GamePro.com as of today: Thank you for your loyalty, support, and participation in the GamePro.com community. At noon on December 5, 2011, the U.S. version of GamePro online will shut down as an independent site. GamePro will become part of PCWorld.com (http://www.pcworld.com/gamepro) offering gaming news, reviews, and how-tos from the PCWorld team. Thank you to the entire GamePro staff for their hard work and dedication. GamePro 's probably best known for the colorful pseudonyms its writers used and the cartoon-face icons that accompanied gam…
- Gary Garcia, Wrote and Performed 80s Pop Hit 'Pac-Man Fever,' Dies at 63 - 18 November 2011
Gary Garcia, who teamed with Jerry Buckner to perform the 1982 hit "Pac-Man Fever," a song synonymous with 1980s pop culture and America's early love affair with arcade gaming, died yesterday at his home in Englewood, Fla. He was 63. Composed as a parody of Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever," "Pac-Man Fever" capitalized on the new national obsession with video games, especially the Pac-Man phenomenon. The single soared to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1982 and anchored a gold album (one million copies sold) by the same name. That month, Buckner & Garcia performed "Pac-Man Fever" on American Bandstand . Like many acts from a decade defined by one-hit wonders, Buckner & Garcia could not extend the success of "Pac-Man Fever" into successive works. A second song off the same album, "Do the Donkey Kong" barely missed Billboard's Hot 100 (peaking at No. 103 on a separate list). None o…
- Steve Jobs' Voicemail - 5 October 2011
During the iPhone 4 leak, I somehow, through no real grift of my own, found myself in possession of Steve Job's phone number. It went directly to his desk phone. My first thought was, "Steve Jobs has a desk phone?" It seemed like the kind of phone number you hang on to, so I wrote it down on the back of a business card and threw it in a desk drawer. But I never called. I mean, what would I say to Steve Jobs? Just picking up the phone and saying hello to me would probably cost him a few thousand dollars' worth of time. Would I thank him for his work? Could I come up with a question that would make him think I was smart? Did that even matter? Would I ask for a job? I never could come up with a good reason to bother him. Tonight, I'm looking at that phone number on that card. I'm going to call it and—if it's real and if I can summon the nerve—I'm going to leave Steve a message.…
- Former Microsoft Developer Killed In Traffic Accident - 26 July 2011
Former Microsoft Game Studios developer Steve Lacey, who had worked on titles like Crimson Skies and the Flight Simulator series, has been tragically killed when a drunk driver smashed into his car while trying to collide with another vehicle in an incident of "road rage". Lacey was 43.
- Enough People Sucked at This Game That It Doesn't Work Any More - 11 July 2011
It's a mechanic as old as games themselves: perform poorly and you lose a "life". Experimental Dutch title GlitchHiker went a little further, though: perform poorly and the whole game died. An entrant in the Dutch Global Game Jam 2011 earlier this year, GlitchHiker was tied to a central server which was programmed to literally destroy the game with each life lost. Players could earn lives by playing well, but if they didn't, the game would experience increasing defects until it was rendered unplayable. Despite a weekend of people trying their best to "save" GlitchHiker , it is now no more. Well, you can download the thing if you want, but it won't work. GlitchHiker
- Star Wars Galaxies Designer Eulogizes the Dying MMO - 24 June 2011
The original MMO set in a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars Galaxies , is ending its online existence this December , making way for Star Wars: The Old Republic . Contracts expire and so too must the occasional online community. Star Wars Galaxies designer Raph Koster, also notable for being lead designer on Ultima Online , offers his take on the game scheduled to "sunset" later this year, a eulogy of sorts, with a dash of post mortem. The former Galaxies designer adds his take on how the game might have been a bigger success, right from the get go. "Here's what I would have done differently," Koster writes. "I would have made sure the ground and space games were launched all at once. I would have given the game another year to develop and really polish it quite a bit. I think we created one of the most unique and amazing games ever created in the MMO space. It is the sandbox game. Nothin…
