A look at Bioshock Infinite

Destructoid and Kotaku describe their experiences with a partial playthtough of Bioshock Infinite.

*Buy Bioshock posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Blade Runner cityscape animated gif.

2. From a long, somewhat rambling, but quite interesting article on the ongoing failure of Square:

it's no secret that seven out of ten game pitch documents here in The West are plastered with concept art pulled shamelessly from Deviantart.com, with asterisked captions under every tenth or eleventh image: "This art is copyright Some Talented Individual From The Internet—she or he is not our employee, though this is definitely the sort of thing we would want an artist to do; in fact, we might hire this person." I don't see anything wrong with this method. Well, in Japan, they do: You can't photograph your friend hugging a plastic statue of Colonel Sanders without a representative of Kentucky Fried Chicken theatrically weeping and groping his face at you. It's confusing and weird.

So what I'm driving at is this: they say Japan is on the skids—re: games, anyway—and they say that The West is on the smooths. I tell you what—the smooths are pretty smooth, up in here. And I tell you what again—in Japan, they wouldn't use some kid's art in their pitch document. They'd have to offer the kid a lifetime contract first. So, in this manner, I present you with a hypothesis that Square-Enix has accumulated—through numerous expansions, attempted expansions, and maybe-superfluous conglomerations, so many artists that a nuclear physicist wouldn't feel wrong assuming that they were probably—and definitely—the most important members of the company.

3. Fingerprint scanner that works from several feet away. Via.

Link roundup

1. The ESPN Films: 30 for 30 Limited Edition Collector Set is 40% off at Amazon. (Perfect for Father's Day.)

2. Desktop wallpaper of a forest reclaiming a city.

3. 90 minute video showing off (what I think) are the first few quests of the Jedi class. It looks a lot like KOTOR.

Link roundup

1. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw reviews Mortal Kombat.

2. The Worst Internet Intern Interview Ever. Via.

3. FYI, don't plan on mass-producing and selling Portal fan art.

Olly Moss's Resistance 3 cover art as wallpapers

I took the liberty of turning Olly Moss's cover art for Resistance 3 into widescreen wallpapers. You can save 17 cents by preordering the game at Amazon.

Rapture Central Computing

Illustrations for Rapture Central Computing from Bioshock. Rapture's great computer will be featured in the Minerva's Den downloadable content:



Via.

*Buy Bioshock posters at eBay.

Gotham City Impostors

Destructoid has a preview of Gotham City Impostors. The companion comic is available at Amazon. Via.

Advertisement for Sarif Industries' body enhancements

Clever ad for Sarif Industries and its body enhancements. It's a promotion for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Via.

*Previously: Deus Ex action figures; Deus Ex viral site.

Watch the Alice Madness Returns Intro & Gameplay

Enjoy the first (disturbing) ten minutes of Alice Madness Returns, which you can preorder at Amazon. Via.

Link roundup

1. 15% off t-shirts at Zazzle for the next three days with the code SPRINGSAVING. Perfect time to customize a chimera t-shirt.

2. LA Noire is getting lots of raves, but here's a fairly negative review, which makes the game sound awfully slow. (The companion story collection is a dollar download at Amazon.)

3. $25 donation to the American Liver Foundation gets you a free sketch from Chris Giarrusso.

Link roundup

1. Fascinating article about Stanley and Livingstone by Jess Nevins. (If you've enjoyed the various League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes, then you should definitely pick up his companion books.)

2. Steve Wing writing about comics:

And take the Hulk. The Hulk was this rampaging engine of destruction, sure, but still, deep down, he was basically a nice guy. That is, he was the reverse of how we actually were in seventh grade, me and Rick and Jerry: all too nerdishly nice on the surface, but underneath raging.

Via.

3. First 15 minutes of L.A. Noire.

4. First five minutes of Duke Nukem Forever.

Link roundup

1. From an extended discussion of Brink at RPS:

I was looking at the screenshots I’ve taken vs the screenshots we were sent for previews and things. And it’s just heartbreaking. A mess of text and cramped spaces, not these fantastic looking, exaggerated muscleguys in apple-crisp locales.

2. From Bill Simmons's portrait of Phil Jackson:

When I think of Phil Jackson, two guys come to mind: Young Phil and Old Phil. Young Phil was skinny with dark hair and a goofy mustache; he looked like he came from another era, like someone Larry Dallas would bring over to the Regal Beagle to meet Jack Tripper. Old Phil didn't look anything like Young Phil: white hair, a clean-shaven face, a heavier frame, and a body that was scattered in nine different directions. Still, Young Phil and Old Phil had one thing in common: They kept their cool at all times.

3. Vic Armstrong's World's Greatest Stuntman sounds great. i09 has an extended excerpt about the filming of Total Recall. For example:

Sharon Stone was funny. We all thought that Rachel Ticotin was going to be the big star, she was a fabulous actress, looked gorgeous and yet she went nowhere. Sharon Stone you couldn't drag into the gym, she just didn't want to train, didn't want to do anything, yet she became a superstar in Basic Instinct. Wendy was doubling Rachel and Donna Evans doubled Sharon and did all the kicks and everything else really, we mainly shot Sharon for close-ups. Though I must say she looked dynamite in those close-ups!

Gizmodo has an excerpt about Temple of Doom. The book is 34% off at Amazon.

Rick the Adventure Sphere dialog and t-shirt design (Portal)

Late in Portal 2, you gain the assistance of a robot known as Rick the Adventure Sphere ("designed for danger"). It's a pretty heated moment, so the natural inclination is to swiftly complete the task at hand, but if you take your time, Rick says one great line after another, including singing an adventure song and suggesting catch phrases once you beat the boss. You can enjoy his dialog in the video above. And there's a brand new t-shirt design by up for vote at Threadless:



Finally, speaking of Portal, here's Erik Wolpaw's recent NYU lecture:



Via.

*Portal 2 is 40% off at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. The established video game reviewing press has known for at least a week that Brink was a disaster.

2. Steel Divers, which is supposed to really show the 3DS off, was essentially completed for the DS and then repurposed for the 3DS.

3. Captain America wallpaper.

Brink launch trailer

I'm not crazy about first person shooters, but I like the character design and parkour antics in Brink. And as you can see from the first two stills, the trailer opens with a cool look.

Portal Frankenturret Papercraft; Portal Posters, and more

The frankenturret as a paper toy available for download. Also available: a gentleman dinosaur with a monocle:











Some of the Portal posters in this Flickr gallery.






Clever use of portals allows us to see Wheatley hacking the lock.

They Live the augmented reality game

They Live - - the winning entry in Kotaku's augmented reality game contest. (Just a mockup, alas.)

*Buy the Nintendo 3DS at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. I didn't expect to read this:

Thor on the Nintendo DS is not what you'd expect. Despite having to tie into a movie property and needing to work with certain likeness and story parameters, the developers at WayForward (Contra 4) have created a great licensed game. Thor plays incredibly well, and is a remarkably well-executed 2D brawler.

$30 at Amazon.

Kotaku likes the Wii and DS versions too. Just like my experience with the Force Unleashed 2, the Wii version was pretty good fun, while the PS3/Xbox versions got terrible reviews.

2. Gawker:

We all know reality television shows, including and especially American Idol, are basically serial hoaxes. But couldn't they try a little harder to maintain the illusion? Idol producers went to elaborate lengths last night to falsely present Jennifer Lopez's on-air performance as "live," but they left behind a few editing artifacts proving that it was taped.

3. And also at Gawker:

Kate Middleton's Brother Pretends to Be a Lawyer to Get His Dirty Pictures Off the Internet.

Link roundup

1. "In honor of the new crime thriller video game L.A. Noire coming to Playstation®3 and Xbox360® on May 17, 2011, the Los Angeles Times and Rockstar Games present this special archive edition Crime Map detailing just a few of the fascinating and frightening crimes that made 1947 such a landmark year for LAPD detectives." Via.

2. From a longer article about design school, advice I wish I had when I was still in school:

Ask anybody that went to school what they thought of it, and you will get the same response. “It was ok, not great. But this one teacher changed made it all worth while.” It’s exactly that one or two teachers that you connect with that make the school experience “worth it”. When you find your mentor, go out of your way to take more classes with them. Ask them for guidance and have them critique your work HARD. Their advice will be more than worth the tuition.

3. Plastic Army Men with PTSD and various injuries. (Some might find these offensive.) Via these sites.

*Previously: Killzone Army Men.

Halo meets Portal

Halo given a Portal level.