Trust the Japanese to come up with something like this (funny, artistic and weird). Fans of Arnie may cringe, fans of Bayonetta may run and hide but nobody can deny the power of the 'Bayonettor!'

And before anyone says a thing, I didn't come up with that name!

Image via Tumblr

With the GDC in full swing, the news about Sony's new motion controller simply named 'Move' is doing the rounds online. So it's time for the important questions that only gamers can answer. Afterall, we are the target audience and will ultimately be the consumers buying this product.

I've read a few things about the new motion controller but for those of you who haven't heard or read anything yet, here's a quick rundown for you:

The controller's button layout includes a shoulder button, start, select, and the usual four PlayStation action buttons (eg. X and O). It features vibrating Dual Shock, and its 3D position and orientation tracking sensors can even pick up rotation in your wrists.

So basically, it's Sony's version of a product that is likely to fall in the same market as the Nintendo Wii but is also looking like it could be the Sony contender against Microsoft's 'Project Natal'.

Depending on your focus and motivation, gaining achievements can be an easy thing, a rewarding thing or one of the most frustratingly annoying experiences of being a gamer. You could also be one of the rare gamer types that plays games purely for fun without caring about achievements at all! I don't personally know anyone like that but I'm sure they're out there... somewhere.

So after posting the "You were killed by Death" article yesterday, I thought it would be fun to expand this a little and focus on what it is that gamers find the most rewarding about clocking up achievements. Is it the true sense of achievement one gets from completing something or is it purely because of the online kudos one can acquire after unlocking as many achievements as humanly possible?

Hank Chien, a 35-year-old Manhatten based Plastic Surgeon has beaten the Donkey Kong record set by champion Billy Mitchell in 2007.

Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell were both featured in the documentary entitled "King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters" which is how Hank Chien first became interested in beating the record.

"The King of Kong piqued my interest in the game and after watching the documentary I started to play seriously in November 2008. I have been pursuing this goal for quite some time, so it was very exciting for me to finally achieve it," said Chien.

Chien beat Billy Mitchell's score of 1,050,200 that was set during a live gaming event in Floriday in 2007. The new score of 1,061,700 set by Chien was verified by Twin Galaxies.

Chien lives with his brother in Manhatten and the brothers support each other as Hank aims to beat his new record again.

It's a unique experience when you get "Killed by Death" as I recently discovered playing BFBC2. If you're familiar with the game, you'll notice this message will display if you're killed by an object or vehicle in the game rather than another player.

And although Battlefield Bad Company 2 has had its fair share of network issues and bugs, the game is absolutely awesome and I highly recommend it.

Probably the most attractive aspect of the game for me is the diversity of the classes. You can play as a straight-up shooter type with the 'Assault' class or if shooting a whole lot of players all of the time isn't really your thing, you can opt to play as more of a 'support' class such as a 'Medic' or 'Engineer'.

As reported by the LA Times, Cylon-lovin' gamers everywhere will be thrilled to hear about the franchise being developed as an online multiplayer game.

The game will be introduced at the Game Developers Conference this week and like Quake Live, will be completely browser based and free to play:

"We're picking a point in the chronology of the series that fans are very familiar with to tell new stories," explained Bill Kispert, vice president of digital platforms for the partnerships and licensing department of Universal Pictures, which owns the "Battlestar Galactica" rights and made the game deal. "There will be space combat as well as missions and exploration."

Battlestar Galactica the game is set for an August/September release and will be published by BigPoint.

Via the LA Times

Image via GoreMasterNews

Chris Dahlen, shameless East Coast Liberal and erstwhile game journalist, learns a nice lesson about gun play from his son and Big Buck Hunter Pro:

We’re at Joe’s New York Pizza, having a slice while my wife is teaching a class. It’s a great pizzeria, except that they have a coin-op game in the restaurant, and it happens to be one of the only games I don’t want my four-year-old to play: Big Buck Hunter Pro.

 

“Why do you want to play that?” I said. I fumbled for a follow-up. “I’ve heard it’s not that good”...

 

Here’s the dilemma I faced. As a dad, do I let my kid try something he might enjoy more than I want him to? Should I let him make up his own mind, and trust his four-year-old judgement? Or do I shelter him from it, just as I’ve protected him from The Phantom Menace, jam bands, and the n-bomb?

 

“Come on, dad. I want to play it.”

 

I gave in.

 

My son’s aim was lousy. He was happy just to wave the rifle around and pull the trigger...

 

And that’s when I realized - my son understood this game better than I did. I was hung up on the form, while he went straight for the function. To him, a gun isn’t a weapon; it’s more like a magic wand with a trigger. In his imagination, it’s a tool that lets him reach out and make cool stuff happen. This is not bad, because the targets are not real, which is obvious. He doesn’t want to kill the wildlife; he just wants to make things explode.

While many of us fret about the social politics behind our interactive carnage, it's good to be reminded that sometimes, to paraphrase Freud, a videogame gun is just a cool way to make things blow up.

Lions and tigers and zombies, oh my. Cliche and tired for most, that tag line is actually well-deserved and made fresh again by Spanish dev Jose Manuel. With a penchant for transmuting literary gems into epic zombie shooters — well before Pride and Prejudice got infected — Manuel and his team at Akaoni Sutdio are set to follow up Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ with Zombie Panic in Wonderland. NintendoLife caught up with Manuel to ask him about his love of undead–folk tale mashups:

[F]olk tales and zombies are two themes that I’ve always particularly liked. When I was a child, my mother used to tell me stories before I went to sleep, and it was something I loved. Moreover, I've felt fascination for horror movies since I was very little. I think it all started when one night I got up while my parents were sleeping and turned the television on. It was past midnight, and The Night of the Living Dead was being broadcast. It was the first horror movie, and the first zombie movie I saw. I was really scared [laughs], but I loved it. Since then, every Tuesday I got up at the same time to see the horror movie of the week.

 

 Tuesday may just be the toughest day of the work week, but don't despair. Check out Anoj's "Top Ten Halo 3 Suicides" for a good laugh...or at least a reminder that life could be worse.  Ouch.

[via Machinima.com]

If there's one thing I love about online gaming, it's the opportunity to see people at their very worst or their very best. People who are normally calm under pressure in person, can sometimes change into the most horrid of creatures online - especially in multiplayer games.

If you're likely to fall into one or several of the following categories (minus 'The Mute'), you may want to consider turning on the mute button. Ever tried playing an online multiplayer game with the mute button switched on? Oh the the experience can be utterly blissful! This is particularly so if you're the 'overly' competitive type that just revels in pointing out other people's faults during the worst possible time. I mean, there's no point yelling "WTF dude - why didn't you see the Sniper?!" down the mic when your friend has already respawned. Firstly, they've respawned and secondly, everyone knows a good sniper is one that's hidden from view...

But try putting it to the test. The next time you're gaming, switch on the mute button and try listening to what everyone else is saying. It can be one of the most hilarious things you'll ever do. Inbetween erratic fits of silent frustration, I quite often also find myself doubled over in hysterics at some of the things gamers will say when playing games. People will tend to take on certain personality types online and it's not too hard to pick them out.

Firstly, there's the "Oh WTF - how did I die just then?" type that will insist, no matter what the situation (even if they are running around in wide open spaces with bullets flying towards them from every direction) that they shouldn't have died. Duh. Try asking them why they didn't use cover - you know like, the entire forest of trees located all around the map and woah... the 'Gamer who should never die' will soon become 'The Rager'.

Mafia II features a deep and compelling narrative that is embellished with a sophisticated, era-evoking atmosphere, according to 2K president Christoph Hartmann. Apparently, part of evoking that sophisticated atmosphere includes Hugh Hefner.

While anyone who's been to the Playboy Mansion might dispute the sophistication and class of that franchise, 2K has licensed more than 50 vintage covers and centerfolds, which we presume will litter the bathrooms and stand sentinel in the closets of wiseguys throughout the game.

Playboy's Editorial Directory, Jimmy Jellinek, says that “for more than 55 years, Playboy has been a part of America’s pop culture landscape, engaging its readers with insightful features, interviews and fashion spreads, as well as pictorials of some of the world’s most beautiful women. Mafia II is set when Playboy first came into vogue and features characters whose style and attitudes mirror content from our early issues."

The hitch, of course, is that because 2K only licensed vintage Playboy imagery, gamers won't have access to the classic excuse — "I bought it for the articles."

In this week's episode. Vince commits a cardinal sin against Mario. Bad Vince, Bad.

I've never been a huge fan of the Halo franchise which is kinda odd for me considering I love multiplayer shooters. But I have to admit, I am pretty hyped for Halo: Reach. I didn't play Halo: ODST and before deciding not to play it, I spoke to quite a few gamers on my buddy list to see what the general concensus was. Unless you're outside of the U.S., you probably won't come up against the problem of finding good games to play with reasonable lag but the idea of playing with a bad ping didn't really appeal to me. If I'm going to play a shooter and at least be on some sort of equal footing with the people I play against, ping and lag issues are important factors.

Unlike myself, I am sure there are many gamers out there who could probably put their retro gaming knowledge to the test by examining the image above. This pic displays some of the oldest gaming consoles/systems around (some of which I haven't even heard of, just quietly). Think you can name them all? Put your gaming knowledge to the test and let us know what you think here.

Image via Tumblr

Chile was hit by a devastating quake last weekend, killing hundreds and leaving hundreds of thousands more homeless. How do you cope after something so terrible?

Well, some people apparently play games. A story on ZAM tells of a 33-year-old woman named Karen who was playing games when the quake hit. And two days later, after she discovered her family was OK, particularly those in the hardest hit areas, she was back playing games and making plans to play with friends.

From the story (she apologized for her broken English):

In this week, I only play Starcraft to keep my mind out of all this stuff. Today my best friend come to my house we start to talk and we decide to play this Friday and Saturday on my Xbox360... we are going to play Fifa 2010 and some Left 4 Dead to take out everything ... and try to relax ..."

Turns out hse had her spirits raised when on of the few things that survived was a World of Warcraft stein she had recently purchased (see picture). So I guess games can offer hope as well.