Once again, it’s time to get some all-in-one analysis with our second-hand panel of experts!

Surprise! Microsoft’s launching a new hardware console … who knew? And inside a giant circus tent full of magic and dreams, we got our first look at the best fee-charging-for-used-games, not-backwards-compatible, Internet-mandatory, groovy-retro-design game console ever made: the Xbox One!

It won’t be long before this hardware masterpiece matches up against Sony’s PlayStation 4, but why wait to make crucial judgments? A 60-minute event with no Q&A session is plenty of time! What say you, panel of experts? The Xbox One: bringer of world peace or red ring of death?

Launch the gallery below to learn the language of love!

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Once again, it’s time for some bouncy commentary from our socially engineered panel of experts!

BEWBS! In an video game industry increasingly sensitive to gender issues, it’s just lucky we have a developer like Vanillaware to come along and remind us that we’re really all just pretending to be grown-ups. To wit: George Kamitani’s character designs in Dragon’s Crown, Vanillaware’s side-scrolling fantasy elf-em-up, which skip merrily past “exaggerated” and go straight to “daaaaammn.”

It’s not uncommon to see female video game characters with breasts larger than their heads, but Kamitani’s art style — along with Crown’s hyper-jiggling animations — still gave a jaded gaming community pause. Then, when Jason Schreier at Kotaku called it juvenile in a slightly juvenile way, Kamitani doubled down, lightly suggesting that anyone not sexually aroused by his ladies’ physics-defying anatomy was probably gay, and that was probably bad. He’s apologized since.

All that leaves us feeling confused, angry, and possibly a little horny. So what say you, panel of experts? Artistic license or license revoked?

Launch the gallery below for wisdom!

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

The master is stealing a few lessons from its prized student.

It’s been a decade since apathetic rogue Garrett last took something he shouldn’t have in the Thief trilogy of first-person stealth games, but you’ve likely felt his sneaky influence in many top-tier franchises ever since. Thief wrote the book on hiding in — and striking from — the shadows. Naturally, it’s now time for a reboot. Publisher Square Enix and developer Eidos brought a 25-minute, hands-off slice of a larger level to the Game Developers Conference last week, and it felt both impressive and familiar.

But it reminded me less of earlier Thief games and more of Dishonored, the similarly steampunky, first-person stealth game that proudly declared its Thief inspirations with every move it made. Dishonored played like one big homage to those classics. The new Thief, due on the PC, PlayStation 4 and other next-gen consoles sometime in 2014, looks like it’s paying those compliments right back … possibly with a few improvements.

True crime

“We loved Dishonored,” says Thief producer Stéphane Roy. “It’s really cool to see players loving that kind of game and wanting more. Dishonored is about revenge. In Thief, your job will be to steal, not to kill.”

And while some mystical elements return from the previous games, Thief won’t go full-bore into the fantastic like Dishonored did. “We really want to be more realistic,” says Roy. “No zombies.”

Thief returns to its traditional setting of The City (still unnamed after all these years), a port town bisected by a giant wall and built around twisting waterways much like Dishonored’s Dunwall. Story missions happen out in the city proper while Garrett can pick up more personal side missions in his own inner-city hub. The chaos-versus-order themes also remain intact, with the mysterious Baron pushing an industrialism agenda backed by a brutal police force called the Watch. Roy wouldn’t go into the opposing faction, but concept art hinted at a religious figurehead giving a fiery sermon with a noose ominously dangling in the background.

Taking what isn’t yours

The demo opened with Garrett targeting a nobleman named Eastwick — specifically, a gold medallion temporarily in Eastwick’s possession. Garrett infiltrates a city district in a covered wagon as the Watch piles bodies on carts; locks other, less skilled thieves in stockades; and hangs troublemakers from second-story windows. “A change is coming,” says Garrett. “I hear nooses tightening on every corner.”

That’s the first major step away from Dishonored and Corvo Attano, its annoyingly silent protagonist. Garrett narrates Thief. We get full access to his shrewd, pointed thoughts.

Appropriately enough, Garrett’s design steers clear of the heroic. He’s dark, gaunt, and scarred. The game shifts into third-person views when Garrett makes a vertical climb, so you get a good look at him often. Roy didn’t specify whether Garrett’s bionic eye makes a return, but his right eye is conspicuously green and glowing. While he doesn’t have magic powers, Garrett does know what he’s doing. “You start out as a master thief,” says Roy, with all that that entails. Garrett made liberal use of a rush move that gave him a stealthy burst of speed over a very short distance — nowhere near as powerful as Blink, Corvo’s handy teleportation move — and he has access to Focus abilities, one of which highlights all useful items and enemies much like Corvo’s Dark Vision.

Focus, however, also comes with a few offensive uses.

Pages: 1 2

Once again, it’s time for our panel of video-game characters to get some skin in the game!

Super Bowl Sunday! That glorious national holiday where America shuts down to watch the best commercials of the year and some sports that happens between them! And this year, we get the Cain and Abel goodness of brothers John and Jim Harbaugh coaching the rival teams. Thanksgiving is going to suck at their house.

But enough trivialities! What say you, panel of experts? In the epic clash between the San Francisco 49ers versus the Baltimore Ravens, who shall reign supreme?

Launch the gallery to see the future!

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Those gifted with new mobile devices this holiday season have a world of fun awaiting their fingertips — maybe too much fun. Thousands of games have been made available over the years, especially since iOS and Android have increased in popularity, making the selection process frustrating for those navigating Google Play, the App Store, or the Amazon App Store for the first time. Well, consider this list of the best mobile games your saving grace. We’ve compiled a source for mobile gaming based on user friendliness, accessibility, and more importantly, fun factor. Whether you have an iPhone, iPad, Galaxy device, or Kindle Fire, these games are waiting for your attention. Think of this list as a beginner’s guide to gaming on your mobile device.

Plants vs. Zombies

Developer: PopCap Games
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Plants vs. Zombies still stands as one of the more addictive games I’ve played. Ever. The object of PvZ is to protect your home from a hoard of zombies that hungrily make their way across your yard. All that stands in their way are plants curiously armed for your war against the living dead.

Specifically, the plants are equipped with a variety of weapons, such as projectile peas. Other plants eat zombies while cherry bombs blow them to deader than dead bits. The more plants you create, the better your chance at survival. You must position your plants strategically, or the game will end rather quickly.

Cut the Rope

Developer: Chillingo Ltd.
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Cut the Rope is disgustingly cute. How so? A piece of candy hangs on a rope over an adorable little monster, and the player must swipe to break the candy free and drop it into the creature’s mouth. His smile is priceless. He’s a happy, goofy-looking little beast named Om Nom.

Cut the Rope’s puzzles are mostly based on physics and timing. For instance, the candy may be hanging from two or three ropes. The order in which you cut them becomes a strategic decision, and timing a cut perfectly so that the treat lands in Om Nom’s mouth can prove tricky. Some of the tougher parts incorporate elements such as hungry spiders that also want the treat, forcing the player to act quickly while still trying to carefully plan moves. More often than not, you’ll retry a level in the hope of feeding the little guy a candy so you don’t have to see his pouty face. It’s heartbreaking, and you can’t help but feel overwhelmed with guilt every time you fail.

Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade II

Developer: Chair Entertainment
Platform: Apple App Store

Infinity Blade is the first iOS game developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, and it looks beautiful. It’s truly a showcase of what can be accomplished visually on a mobile device with the right resources, and it’s not far from what current consoles are capable of.

You walk through a castle fighting monsters using simple left, right, and swipe gestures to dodge, block, or attack your enemy. These controls work well with touch screens because they don’t rely on precision finger movements. Instead, the player must focus on timing and pattern recognition to win. It’s Punch-Out!! with shields, swords, ogres, and knights.

Angry Birds series

Developer: Rovio
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

I admit that every time a new Angry Birds game hits the download market, I pretend I’m too cool to be interested. How many times can Rovio reskin the same game? Then I pick it up, and I’m hooked. Angry Birds is arguably the most popular mobile game around right now, and for good reason. It’s no wonder the developers keep releasing sequels and making Angry Birds available on every thinkable platform because even when you want to hate it, you have to admit it’s fun.

The object of the birds’ anger are evil green pigs that have stolen their eggs. The player’s job is to slingshot the birds into said pigs’ fortresses, rendering them dead and bacon. You have a limited number of birds per level, and you must find clever ways to efficiently eliminate all the pigs before advancing. The puzzles are physics-based, so players have to calculate distance and trajectory to win. You’ll often find that what was supposed to be a few minutes of playtime can become an hour or more of slaughtering hogs and cursing at the touch screen.

Draw Something

Developer: Omgpop
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Draw Something was one of the first mobile games to bring a social element to the general public thanks to its Facebook integration. In fact, the social network is very likely the reason Draw Something became so huge. It’s easy to sign up for because most of us have a Facebook account. It’s also very accessible to nongamer types since drawing is a basic skill, which eliminates the need to learn complicated control schemes or rules to enjoy the game.

One player is given a word and must do his best to represent it in a drawing by using his device’s touch screen. Then, he sends it to the other person, who must guess the word based on his (usually horrible) illustration. You can be playing against several friends at once, and it’s not unusual to have 10 or more games going at any given time. Keep in mind that it may be hours or even days before a friend gets back to you with a reply. The only downside to any of these social games is that you are forced to rely on others if you want to play. Once the initial popularity dwindles, it’s a little harder to find opponents.

Rayman Jungle Run

Developer: Ubisoft
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Ubisoft is one of those top-tier gaming companies that wasn’t afraid even early on to invest in development and publishing for mobile platforms. Rayman Jungle Run was picked by Apple as its best game of 2012. Luckily, Rayman is multiplatform, so Android users don’t have to sit this one out.

Rayman Jungle Run is what’s called an autorun game. The character — in this case, Rayman — continuously runs through the levels. The movement is out of your control. It’s the player’s job to jump, glide,, or attack at the right moment. This genre has grown in popularity on mobile devices because it brings elements of traditional run and jump games (often called platformers) yet keeps gameplay simple enough so that users aren’t annoyed by sloppy touch-screen controls.

Pages: 1 2

DICE is fast transitioning into “that Battlefield studio,” even if EA Games vice president Patrick Soderlund is on the record stating plainly that the publisher doesn’t want the studio to become a factory that pumps out nothing but sequels to the popular first-person modern-military shooter.

So, what else could the talented Swedish company have in the works? Well, maybe this Easter egg in Battlefield 3 is a hint — or maybe it’s just an allusion to the otherwise forgotten game Mirror’s Edge.

In the latest map for Battlefield 3, called Aftermath, a pair of red shoes sit perched on the corner of one of the tall Iranian buildings. The sneakers look uncannily like those that Faith Connors (the protagonist in Mirror’s Edge) wears throughout her journey in the first-person parkour game.

The below video shows exactly where in the level players can find said shoes. While watching, listen for Faith’s phantom breathing that you can hear right as the clip ends:

On Nov. 21, in response to Soderlund’s claim that DICE wishes to diversify beyond Battlefield, a former lead producer at DICE on the Battlefield series Tweeted the following:

It is general knowledge in the Stockholm dev scene that Mirror’s Edge 2 is in production at DICE eurogamer.net/articles/2012-…

— Ben Cousins (@BenjaminCousins) Nov. 21

DICE wouldn’t comment on that since it’s a rumor, and these hidden shoes might have nothing to do with an announcement. They are probably just the result of a level designer with a desire to tease fans, but evidence is piling up to support a case for Mirror’s Edge 2.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Electronic Arts’ abrupt debut of Battlefield 4 rippled across the gaming community within the past week with many gamers staking into the “too soon” camp as the primary reason for the upcoming fourth-quel’s lukewarm reception so far.

Indeed, EA’s chatter regarding another fully realized entry in the popular multiplayer first-person shooter franchise seems impulsive. Battlefield 3 Premium is but a month old and only two of the five planned map packs released so far.

Of course, some shooter fans consider yearly installments of their favorite titles the standard metric for pacing. Call of Duty players, for example, receive a new game every year regardless of choice. The Battlefield franchise typically sticks to a two-year cycle, but concerns over whether developer DICE’s resources will become stretched between maintaining BF3 and developing BF4 present possible roadblocks for the studio in addition to shoring up player-requested features such as in-game voice chat functionality and a spectator mode.

DICE, predictably, thinks the timing is ideal.

“We’ve seen a lot of concerns about the pacing of release,” BF3 community manager Ian “Crash” Tornay wrote in a Reddit post. “I think it’s worth noting DICE released a Battlefield game every two years or sooner and Mirror’s Edge at least every two years.”

He continued, “I truly believe we’re in one of the best positions for creating our next title. [BF3 graphics engine] Frostbite 2 has matured, we’ve been gathering fan feedback like crazy, BF3 continues its expansion with features we can learn from, and we’ve got more data about how people play than ever.”

Tornay also pledged DICE’s continued upkeep of BF3′s servers and support, saying, “Starting work on BF4 doesn’t mean we’re abandoning BF3 or working any less hard to bring you the best expansions we can.”

He also confirmed “other ways” of accessing BF4′s beta test (planned for fall 2013) aside from pre-ordering developer Danger Close’s Medal of Honor: Warfighter, although the latter provides a “guaranteed entry,” according to Tornay.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

What if the popular shooter Halo was made a decade earlier? What if Nintendo decided to make a fighting game featuring its stable of characters a console generation earlier than it did with 1999′s Super Smash Bros.? What if the role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII looked more like Final Fantasy VI? Well, they’d all probably be a lot more pixelated, but (as the gallery below shows) they’d still look awfully fun.

This collection of images, originally gathered by Reddit user Afrotators (I always love these usernames), shows multiple titles from gaming’s more recent years given the retro treatment. It makes you yearn for the days when pixels dominated polygons and your mother picked out your clothes for you. Now she just ties my shoes for me. Oh, how I miss those golden years!

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

I’m certainly not the first to say that Dishonored is a blatant amalgamation of other games. Though publisher Bethesda Softworks (Rogue Warrior, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) and developer Arkane Studios (Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, BioShock 2) have been deliberately avoiding the words “bio” and “shock” while referencing inspiration for their upcoming hybrid FPS, it’s still pretty easy to dissect Dishonored into its various individual ingredients. But being the “mother of all gaming cocktails,” as Atomic’s Nathan Lawrence puts it, is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when your product is derived from some of the more unique titles gaming has ever known.

1. Mirror’s Edge
Although there is plenty of running and jumping along rooftops in Dishonored, the Mirror’s Edge influence is most apparent in the above cinematic trailer. In the game itself, Corvo isn’t quite the fluid parkour veteran that Faith is, nor does he have to be thanks to his Blink ability, which allows him to instantly teleport short distances. Corvo can use Blink (and, with a little more precision, the Possession ability) to easily jump gaps, survive long falls, and reach locations that would be otherwise impossible to get to, even for Mirror’s Edge’s nimble heroine. Yet, he still manages freerunning just fine when his magical resources are depleted — which is almost never.

2. Thief
Sam Fischer and Solid Snake have kept the stealth genre alive and kicking long after Eidos’ Thief franchise went silent, but Dishonored’s first-person view and partially non-linear gameplay harkens back to Garrett’s glory days. Arkane insists that Dishonored can be played either full stealth or guns-blazing, but just like in Thief, the latter approach usually results in getting overwhelmed by large groups of enemies and a swift “game over” screen shortly thereafter.

If you want to continue down the path of least resistance (ie. not die), sticking to the shadows and rooftops is the way to go.

3. Hitman
Perhaps more than any other game on this list, the Hitman franchise has always provided copious methods for achieving a goal. Being that both Agent 47 and Corvo are assassins, their goals are almost always the same.

An example of the many ways you can dispatch a single target is best illustrated by a mission revolving around the Pendleton brothers. You can stealthily dispose of Pendleton and his prostitute, or you can possess your target, walk him out to the private balcony, then exit his body and push him over the edge with a blast of wind. More interestingly, though, is the ability to complete the game without killing a single person — in the case of Pendleton, Arkane said it’s possible to complete a series of side missions that will allow you to brainwash the man and send him to work in his own slave mines.

4. BioShock
Visually, the comparison between Dishonored and BioShock is an easy one: the first-person view, the dystopian steampunk setting, and even the stylized character design is reminiscent of 2K’s recent string of games such as BioShock 2, XCOM, and The Darkness II. But the familiarity is more than skin deep. The plague rat ability, where Corvus summons a sea of rabid furry piranhas to rapidly gnaw living targets down to the bone is reminiscent of the Insect Swarm Plasmid in BioShock 2. Corvo also uses a wind blast attack that is akin to the Sonic Boom Plasmid from BioShock.

Is Dishonored a shameless rip-off of BioShock just because it has some similar abilities? Of course not, but there’s more than a few aspects of Dishonored that make it impossible to play without feeling like you’re in a spin-off of some sort to 2K’s underwater classic.

5. Half-Life
Dishonored features an “original world envisioned by Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov.” Arkane was also working directly with Valve on a Return to Ravenholme title set in the Half-Life universe that was eventually shelved, so it’s not a major leap to expect that some of those concepts and assets would make their way to Arkane’s next big title.

Perhaps the most striking similiarity, though, is Dishonored’s Tall Boys, bi-pedal guard units that appear to be a mish-mash of Half-Life’s Combine soldiers and synthetic Strider creatures. Really, it’s just a guy on mechanized stilts, but you can reflect their rockets back at them with Corvo’s wind gust ability, just like Gordon could do with his Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2.

Dishonored will be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC on October 6, 2012. You can read about the pre-order bonuses here.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Facebook’s Timeline lets you place an image at the top of your profile. Sure, you could add a crummy, awkwardly cropped family photo — or you can use a kick-ass cover from your favorite video game.

We’re releasing seven days’ worth of artwork, each with a different theme, that you can use to decorate your Facebook profile:

• Sunday: The Modern Era
• Monday: Modern-Retro
• Tuesday: The Indies
• Wednesday: The 8/16-bit Era
  
• Thursday: Social and Mobile
• Friday: Arcade
• Saturday: Future Games

Today’s batch of covers features 10 titles from the current generation of games. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pictures, then right-click (or ctrl-click for Macs) them and hit “save image as” to save to your computer.

Asura’s Wrath

Battlefield 3

Rayman Origins

Killzone 3

Dead Space 2

Halo: Reach

Red Dead Redemption

Final Fantasy XIII

Mirror’s Edge

Infamous

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---