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Privacy Is So 2001: An Anime Video Game Novel About Social Media

Japanese people are into many things Americans find weird—like YouTube's beloved canine-hosted cooking show or Daito Manabe's light up LED grills or even more insane, a vending machine that distributes live crabs. In light of these cultural oddities, the Japanese phenomenon of visual novels (NVL, or bijuaru noberu), seems relatively normal. A meeting place of books and video games, visual novels are a sort of "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" for the new generation.

News: Dust Off Those Old Nintendo Cartridges, Hyperkin Is Here!

Do you remember when video games came on tiny chips in plastic cartridges? When the CD and 3D graphics just meant ugly games with long load times? Before epic cinematics, spoken dialog, or cordless controllers? Do you still have all of your old games and lament that the consoles, cords, and controllers required to play them have either been stolen by exes or broken while moving apartments?

Play GIRP: All the Finger Strain of Climbing without the Risk of Death

Great controls are the most important and difficult part of game design. Games with vector graphics and non-existent stories are classics because their creators managed to create a system where using buttons to control a shape on a screen was intuitive and fun. This is the tradition that Pac-Man has left us with, a gaming world in which controlling the character onscreen in an engaging way is the crux of the game's enjoyment.

News: Hetero, Gay or Bi? Bed Your Soulmate in Dragon Age 2

When you grab a video game off the shelves, finding love is probably not your end goal. Most games focus on letting the player shoot guys, order other guys to shoot guys, or build houses. Mass Effect 2 comes closer than most titles to offering virtual romance, but the relationships are shallow and strictly heterosexual. I found whoring my way around the Normandy much more satisfying as a gameplay option than developing an emotional connection to another character.

News: What if Super Mario Was a First Person Shooter?

The classic Super Mario Bros is perhaps the most beloved video game on Earth. Almost daily, homages to Mario pop up on the web over and over and over again. Everybody loves the charming 2D world of Mario. But what would Mario look like in 3D… and moreover, what would Super Mario feel like as a First Person Shooter game?

Eyes Officially Popped: The Future of Gaming Looks Awesome

Tune in! Below, an attendee of the Game Developers Conference 2011 captures footage of the new eye-popping visual effects in Epic Games' latest upgrade of their Unreal Engine 3, a "toolset used in blockbuster video games, 3D visualizations, digital films and more." If this is what the graphics looks like captured from an audience cell phone, well, one can only imagine what it would look like on your widescreen... The demo, titled "Samaritan", ran on a custom-built PC system in real-time compu...

Ultimate Video Game Trick: Building Mario in Tetris

Mario in Tetris! Pixel art-style! While the two blocky Nintendo properties are obviously a natural fit, it's hard not to boggle at the audacity of it all. The time lapse below condenses an hour and a half of playing—1,112 lines—into roughly 2 minutes. The cap doesn't quite come off, which is to say it never really goes on, but, just the same, it's a remarkable feat. SOURCE YouTube.

Picture of the Day: Flesh-and-Blood Lara Croft (She Ain't Acting)

Who is Lara Croft? Video game character. Comic strip hero. Action figure. Actress Angelina Jolie. All wonderful, yet all fictional. If you're looking for a flesh-and-blood archetype, try XtremeJenn, a Lara Croft cosplayer who's linked her real life "hobbies" to the world's beloved Tomb Raider. Found on Unreality Mag, this picture is the real thing. No green screen, no staging. XtremeJenn does everything a badass Tomb Raider should do: skydiving, base jumping, and some serious rock climbing.

News: Dead Island Game Resurrected in Gruesome New Trailer

For the longest time, Dead Island seemed to be... well, dead. The intriguing zombie game was first revealed back in 2007 by its developer, Techland, with a subpar teaser trailer that compared it to already shelved games in the Resident Evil series and the upcoming Left 4 Dead. But since then, it's been a ghost, thought to be abandoned—until now.

News: Kinect Hacked To Play Full-Body World of Warcraft

The world has been overflowing with Microsoft Kinect hacks, each more amazing than the last. The latest innovation, created by a group of engineers at USC, promises an exciting future in gaming (and gets gamers off their asses). The program is called FAAST, and allows for full body motion control in different PC applications, such as World of Warcraft, as demonstrated below: Previously, Hacked Kinect Captures 3D Video in Real Time.

Friday Fresh: Hack Angry Birds & More

This week, we take a break from the holidays and focus on one of our favorite pastimes: video games. With new releases, hacks, and Easter eggs coming out every day, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the choices available. Never fear: we're here to help you sort out the wheat from the chaff.

News: All Hail Street Fighter

As a tribute to video game classic, Street Fighter, Hongkiat has compiled a collection of impressively done artwork on the theme. My favorites below; click through for the whole series of 60 (and artist credits).

News: My Name is Kira, and I'm an Addict...

...a FarmVille addict, that is. Poor Kira is just one of many who pours way too much time and money into their virtual Facebook homesteads. Zynga’s FarmVille is the most popular of the many Facebook web games. In fact, it attracts more than 75 million players monthly.

Get your 16-bit Fix Now: 10 Vintage Games You Can Play Online

WonderHowTo World, LoadSave points us to great resource courtesy of Mashable: "Here are ten computer and arcade games we all know and love that you can now play online and free of charge. If you’re of a certain age, you probably played these games while waiting for your mom to finish grocery shopping. Or they might have been on your very first video game console. We hope you remember them fondly and enjoy playing them again."

News: Crazy Awesome Xbox 360 Mod Up For Auction

Jeez, Microsoft is really pulling out all the stops lately. First, a whole lotta bling, and now they celebrate their millionth console sold with this limited edition Halo Xbox 360, designed by Richard Taylor and the Weta Workshop. The one-of-a-kind console is being auctioned off on Ebay, and the winning amount will be matched by up to $10,000 by Microsoft New Zealand for a donation to Cure Kids.

News: Baby Kicks Ass at DDR

Instant web classic. 5-year-old Ryota tears it up at dance dance revolution. If he's lucky, maybe someday Ryota will exceed this teen's suspiciously amazing DDR godliness. Previously, HOLY COW! Who Taught White Baby To Dance?

News: Freakish Fanatical Facts on FarmVille

Get a little perspective on FarmVille hysteria, via FarmVille World, written by tenebrism: Did you know it only took five weeks to make FarmVille?  That it currently has over 80,000,000 users?  That FarmVille farmers outnumber real farmers in the United States by a ration of 80 to 1?

News: Get Out of Farmville! Dr. Phil Treats an Addict

Facebook games have become a worldwide, web-wide addiction. Just take a look at all the tutorials on WonderHowTo alone. For most of us it's just fun and games (literally), but some have an addiction that merits the attention of the (perhaps officious) Dr. Phil. In a recent episode, Trends for 2010: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Dr. Phil takes on a mother with a serious Farmville addiction.