US retail chain GameStop has poured cold water on claims that Microsoft's Xbox 360 successor will somehow prevent used games from being played.
The newly announced tax relief for UK videogame companies is expected to bring a rush of overseas investment, but Swedish developer Avalanche Studios has little interest in setting up shop despite the financial benefits of doing so.
UK chancellor George Osborne bowed to months of intense pressure from the UK videogame industry and confirmed on Wednesday that Games Tax Relief will be introduced in April 2013.
Passagebalt – which has been put together by Sergio Cornaga – is just about everywhere this week, and it’s easy to write the game off as tedious mash-up hipsterism. The weird thing, though, is that this simple, tongue-in-cheek spot-welding of Jason Rohrer’s Passage and Adam Saltsman’s Canabalt, turns out to be kind of effective in its own right.
Our April issue, which is on sale now, features reviews, along with Post Script articles, on all the most important games including Mass Effect 3, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Syndicate and Journey.
An enhanced version of 1998 BioWare RPG Baldur's Gate is headed to iPad, developed by Edmonton studio Overhaul Games.
Due on the App Store this summer, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition runs on an unpgraded version of BioWare's Infinity Engine. The download will include the original game, the Tales Of The Sword Coast expansion, and brand new content including a new adventure and party member.
Organisers of a petition urging BioWare to change the ending of Mass Effect 3 are to cease accepting donations for Child's Play at the charity's request.
Cult Cartoon Network series Adventure Time is to make an appearance on DS, courtesy of Mighty Switch Force, Contra 4 and Bloodrayne: Betrayal developer Wayforward Technologies. Mathematical!
Brian Fargo's Kickstarter-funded Wasteland 2 is now headed to OSX and Linux after the project secured more than $1.5 million in funding from fans.
Square Enix has confirmed that it will publish 3DS rhythm game Theatrhythm Final Fantasy in Europe.
Due this summer, Theatrhythm features more than 70 pieces of music from the Final Fantasy series, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. As the below video shows, it's no regular music game: there are RPG elements too, with players choosing a party of four, taking them into battle and levelling up.
Microsoft has announced Arcade Next, a four-week run of Xbox Live Arcade releases published by Microsoft Studios beginning next month.
First up is Trials Evolution, Finnish studio RedLynx's Trials HD followup with a heavy emphasis on user-generated content, with players using the same track editor its designers used. It arrives on April 18, for 1200 Microsoft Points.
Bayonetta will be a playable character in the western release of Platinum Games' upcoming multiplayer brawler Anarchy Reigns, publisher Sega has confirmed.
Sega Japan confirmed her inclusion in Anarchy Reigns as a pre-order incentive earlier this week, but we've just had confirmation through that she will also star in the western versions of the game, which will be released in Europe on July 6.
Sony has formally announced LittleBigPlanet Karting, a spinoff due this year for PS3, in development at Vancouver studio United Front Games.
A post on the PlayStation Blog confirms the existence of the project, which was first revealed by a leaked promo shot last month. In keeping with series tradition, there will be a heavy focus on user-generated content under Sony's 'Play, Create, Share' banner.
GameStop has announced its financial results for the fiscal year ending January 28, which reveal the US retailer has enough cash in the bank to buy ailing UK chain Game Group almost 50 times over.
The company is sitting on cash and cash equivalents of $655 million (£413.5m); Game Group's market capitalisation - the amount it would cost to buy the company based on its share price - is just £8.29 million.
A particularly brutal set piece from The Raid: Redemption - a film about a SWAT team that becomes trapped in a derelict tower block run by a mobster and his marauding army of foot soldiers - has been turned into a free Unity game by a group of fans.
Gareth Huw Evans' action flick is released worldwide on Friday, but if you want to try your hand at the little known martial art Silat (in QTE form, of course) then click the link at the bottom of this story.
Recent declines in sales of new games at US retail have portrayed a market in decline, but new figures released by NPD Group today go some way to disproving that theory.
The market research firm estimates total US spend on second-hand games, rentals, subscriptions, full-game downloads, DLC, and mobile and social games in the final three months of 2011 came to $2.04 billion.
Nvidia has today launched its latest graphics card, the GeForce GTX 680, retailing at £429. The step-change in capability that it offers is something of a statement of intent for the PC market as a whole: a GPU which effectively throws down the gauntlet to manufacturers of next-gen consoles. Not only does it make huge gains in performance, but it does so while slashing the required power intake, and running cooler and quieter, too.
A number of companies are being linked with a buyout of Game Group after the nation's largest specialist videogame retailer filed for administration yesterday.
Retail Week (via MCV) reports that "five or six" companies are circling Game, which put itself into administration, giving it ten days to keep creditors at bay while it finds a buyer. GameStop, the US retail chain which has been linked with a buyout of Game for some months, is keen, but will not be drawn into a bidding war.
Cheshire studio Brain In A Jar has been awarded the EU rights to a simulation based on the Indianapolis 500 race for Xbox 360.
The Indy 500 is, together with the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours Of Le Mans, part of the 'triple crown of motorsport', considered the three most prestigious events of their kind in the world. As well as the race itself, Indianapolis 500: Evolution will follow the development of the famous course and the cars that raced on it between 1961 and 1971.
Yesterday's announcement of tax relief for the UK videogame industry was welcome, but light on detail. It has since emerged that it won't be in place until April 2013, and needs to be approved by the EU, which typically forbids state aid of this nature. George Osborne intends to commit £15 million in the first year, and £35 million the year after, with the finer details to be hammered out in consultation with the industry. Will it go far enough, and will it have the desired effect?
Electronic Arts has attempted to put a positive spin on Zynga's acquisition of New York studio OMGPOP, saying the reported $180 million buyout of the Draw Something developer shows what good value EA got when it acquired PopCap last year.
In the quest to better understand how games generate meaning, something I feel we need a more robust understanding of is the notion of depth. Depth is something we often talk about when discussing a game, but it is an elusive quality to define. Strangely, human beings seem to have an almost innate ability to quickly discern whether or not a game is deep when playing it. Yet beyond simple assertions about the presence or absence of depth, without a more rigorous understanding of what depth is, we gain almost no utility from this knowledge.
The Edge Create Challenge has been in full swing for two weeks now, but if you've got as far as downloading and installing Unity only to be baffled by its interface, the below links should help to get you moving again.
The Edge Create Challenge has been in full swing for two weeks now, but if you've got as far as downloading and installing Unity only to be baffled by its interface, the below links should help to get you moving again.
BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka says the studio is working on new “game content initiatives” to appease fans unhappy about Mass Effect 3's ending.
Responding to the furore caused by the trilogy’s conclusion in an open letter on the developer's blog, the executive said BioWare was "genuinely surprised" by the passionate reactions of some of its followers.
Warren Spector-led studio Junction Point has announced a sequel to Disney’s 2010 Wii exclusive platformer Epic Mickey.
Due for release this autumn on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, Epic Mickey 2: The Power Of Two will see the famous mouse returning to the first game's Wasteland setting, a location filled with forgotten Disney characters and theme park attractions.