Standalone Fantasy Search Results

News: LA Live on PBS July 31st

"The PBS special -- consisting of never before televised live musical performances from the Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Halo, Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, God of War, Civilization, Chrono Cross, StarCraft and Guitar Hero franchises, and a musical journey through classic gaming -- premieres July 31, 2010 and airs throughout August on PBS stations (check your local listings at http://pbs.org/tvschedules). Support your local PBS station now -- you make it possible for your PBS station to offer...

News: Alice in Wonderland Synopsis

From Walt Disney Pictures and visionary director Tim Burton comes an epic 3D fantasy adventure ALICE IN WONDERLAND, a magical and imaginative twist on some of the most beloved stories of all time. JOHNNY DEPP stars as the Mad Hatter and MIA WASIKOWSKA as 19—year—old Alice, who returns to the whimsical world she first encountered as a young girl, reuniting with her childhood friends: the White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, th...

Arthrobots: Steampunk Insects on the Loose!

A man named Tom Hardwidge has taken it upon himself to create an army of steampunk insects from a bunch of different found materials, including bullets and pocket watches. He's made a ton of them—and they're really awesome. They're modeled after real insects, too, and aren't just fantasy creations. His website has them all categorized by species, with clever, robot-inspired names. His arthrobots are for sale, too, so if you're interested in owning your very own horde of steampunk insects, you...

News: UK Newspaper Runs Series of Yellow Anti-Video Game Articles

The United Kingdom has long been known as an international hub of yellow tabloid journalism. The News Of The World, one of the nation's largest tabloids, is famously in court right now because of the deplorable methods it used to acquire salacious information about interesting people. It appears, given their recent string of video game related reportage, that daily newspaper Metro has also had its fair share of morally dubious reporters on staff.

News: Final Fantasy 14 First Impressions

These impressions are coming from a person completely new to the Final Fantasy Online world. Never played FF 11 or the FF 14 Beta. This game is not friendly to new people. The account creation is a Kafka like experience in things that don't make sense. For the game itself, the beginning tutorial is awful and does not really teach you the basics of combat. Here is a small breakdown of my opinions, with the good points first so that they don't get overshadowed by the negatives.

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: An Amnesiac Retrospective

Three years ago, Double Fine productions held an in-house event called the Amnesia Fortnight. The company was split into four teams, each of which set out to spend two weeks developing an idea for a small game and present it to the other groups at the end of the duration. All of the ideas turned out to be winners, and founder/owner Tim Schafer secured publishing deals for all four games to be released on a combination of XBLA and PSN. In honor of the excellent Trenched becoming the third game...

News: Want a Next-Gen Old-School Final Fantasy Game? Go Cheap. Go Cthulhu.

I was raised in the glory days of Japanese RPG's (JRPG's) on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were the biggest game franchises, and real gamers could debate their merits endlessly. We remained engaged in the stories of the games, even though the soldiers, princesses and schoolchildren all had spiky day-glo hair. We waded through hours of randomly triggered menu-based battles instead of playing Doom or baseball. And we loved every minute of it.

How To: Induce Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming refers to the mental state when you are conscious of the fact that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. Though lucid dreaming is a rare occurrence for most people when they are sleeping, you can actually mentally train yourself during the waking hours and incorporate a number of techniques to increase your chances of achieving a lucid dreaming state.

News: What Was the First Adventure Game?

Adventure gamers would love to know what was the first adventure game. Well, it was a 1970s computer game titled "Colossal Cave Adventure", also known as "Adventure". Designed by Will Crowther, the game was in FORTRAN and initially had 700 lines of code and data, which was later expanded to 3,000 lines of code and more than 1000 lines of data.

News: Enter the Weird World of Hojamaka Games

Without Japan, video games would not be very fun. Atari's early work was important, but Japanese developers, publishers, and hardware makers were responsible for almost every major advance in video games for the first 25 years of their mainstream existence. In recent years, it has often been said that they have become less relevant than Western developers. In the indie games movement— (our area of greatest interest here at Indie Games Ichiban)—Japan does not have anywhere near the presence th...

News: Early Humans Use Each Others' Skulls As Drinking Cups

How far would you go to be resourceful? Early Britons used each others' skulls as drinking cups and bowls. Recently, researcher Silvia Bello found human skulls with the top cut off laying in Gough's Cave, England. Skillful cut marks make it look like fellow humans scraped off the dead skin to clean the bone, and chips around the rim of the skull cup make it look like the edges were evened out for a better drinking experience. Researchers have found other skull cups in France and Germany, but ...

News: Control a Video Game by Swapping Spit

Once there was Spin the Bottle. Then there was the embarrassing adult version of Spin the Bottle—on Wii. And then there was artist Hye Yeon Nam, who decided to skip all pretenses and go straight for the spit-swapping, no foreplay necessary. Hye Yeon Nam devised a method for controlling a bowling video game by French kissing. It works like this: "One person has a magnet on his/her tongue and the other person wears the headset. While they kiss, the person who has the magnet on his/her tongue, c...

News: It's Hot, It's Creamy. It's Three Course Gum as a Meal

Remember Willy Wonka's magical gum? Wonka promised the flavors of tomato soup, roast beef, baked potato, blueberry pie and ice cream. As the avid gum lover Violet Beauregarde tested it out, she exclaimed: “It’s hot and creamy, I can actually feel? it running down my throat!” Um, yum... I think. Good news. Wonka's three course chewing gum is finally a reality-in-the-works. Scientists at the Institute of Food Research (IFR) have been developing recent advances in nanotechnology, which could pot...

E3 2010: El Shaddai Trailer

Not enough bible in your games? Damn right! Until we get Grand Theft Moses this is the next best thing. Think of this game as the Old Testament + Acid Trip + Jpop Male Idols. From the Producers of Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami. El Shaddai is a very unique looking game, very much looking forward to it.

News: Final Fantasy 14 Final Thoughts

Spending five days with the game is enough to know it's not to my liking. Is it a horrible MMO? Yes, yes it is. There are better Free to Play MMOs launched years ago that are better than this. As a fan of the Final Fantasy series (I am currently playing and liking Final Fantasy 13), this MMO is so bad that at some point I couldn't justify the awful environment, game play, and interface.

News: Until Project Rainfall Succeeds, We Must Hack the Wii for Xenoblade Chronicles in North America

For as much money as they've made from North American video game audiences over the years, Japanese game developers don't seem to have very much faith in them. Dozens of great titles from their 40 years in the industry have appeared in Japan and across Europe, oftentimes even in English. But they never make it over to America, like Mother 3, Last Window: Midnight Promise, Dragon Force 2, and Tobal No. 2 (that one didn't even hit Europe).

Bethesda vs. Notch: Does 'Scrolls' Infringe Upon 'The Elder Scrolls'?

Minecraft might still be in development, but that doesn't mean a creative guy like Notch doesn't have time for other projects. A few months ago he and his company Mojang announced their second game, a digital collectible trading card affair called Scrolls. A simple title (perhaps too generic if anything), but it's not the name of an extant game, and it's appropriate given the visual style and card-based gameplay of the game itself.

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: Three Summer XBLA Titles That Rock

Generally, summer is a slow time for video games, but not when it comes to Xbox Live Arcade where it's harvest season! In the last month, there have been at least four great games released on XBLA, with Bastion getting the lion's share of the attention. But the remaining three are pretty awesome, as well, and should help you while away the time spent indoors away from the brain frying heat sweeping the U.S.

The Schmupaissance: Gatling Gears and the Rebirth of Shoot-'Em-Up Games

Shoot-em-up games, or shmups, consist of lone or small groups of players shooting at and being shot at by hordes of colorful enemies. The genre is thought to have peaked in the mid-'90s, but recent games in the indie world may be saying otherwise. Geometry Wars and other twin-stick games kicked off the trend, but newbies Trouble Witches NEO, Outland and just-released Gatling Gears have brought some much needed originality into the modern shmup scene—making it something worth exploring again. ...

News: Final Fantasy 14 Special Edition Unboxing

Final Fantasy 14 the MMO is now live. The special edition priced at $75 enables people to play eight days earlier than people getting the regular edition, which comes out on September 30th. Mine arrived yesterday and here are some pictures of what's inside the special edition version of the game:

News: World's Most Magical Treehouses

What is it about the fantasy of the treehouse? Escapism. Other worldly, bird-like elevation. Beauty and peacefulness. Backwoods simplicity (although in some cases, truly elaborate works of fine architecture). Whatever the draw is, I'm dying to have my own treehouse in the woods, and I'd gladly take any of the examples below.

How To: Make A High-Lighter Stun-Gun

The Stun-Gun In this article, I'll show you how to make a small, weaponized highlighter. Before I get into how to built this device, let me warn you. This device is harmful! When used, it can cause burns and/or serious muscle spasms. The voltage is potentially deadly! DO NOT attempt to build this device unless you are experienced with safety, electronics, soldering, and understand circuit schematics.

How To: Create a Custom Arch Linux Distro

Having a custom Linux distro can be the coolest thing ever. Most of you will probably be satisfied with any particular Linux distribution, but I know I'm not the only one out there who wants it to have custom configurations and programs preloaded while leaving the bloatware behind.

News: Moshi Monsters Rise from Indie Game to Kiddie Empire

Four years ago Mind Candy was a pretty small game company. They were best known for their revolutionary but short lived ARG Perplex City, and had no other successful franchises to fall back on when that ended. Their plan to save it? Start a free online social game for children ages 7-12 called Moshi Monsters, where kids can create monster pets, raise them, and socialize with one another in a controlled, safe environment.

News: First MXC. Then Ninja Warrior. And Now… Retro Game Master!

Japanese game shows are legendary for being more extreme (and absurd) than their American counterparts. Chris Farley immortalized the concept in a classic SNL sketch, and MXC and Ninja Warrior have both achieved great success dubbed and subtitled on American television. A big part of their appeal is how demanding they are compared to U.S. game shows. Only a few people have actually won Ninja Warrior in its 23 seasons on the air, and MXC is a constant comedy of failure and pain.

News: Grand Theft Auto 4 Looks Like Gran Turismo 5 with iCEnchancer

Grand Theft Auto 4 was a landmark game. It gave yet another reboot to the already rebooted Grand Theft Auto series, arguably the most prestigious video game in the West. It has a 98 on Metacritic, making it by that measure the best game of modern times. Whatever your stance on the gameplay may be—which has received its fair share of flak in the three years since its release—the graphical steps that the team at Rockstar North took to create their fantasy replica of New York were a major step f...