Gamer jumps off bridge, dies for points

Belding, Michigan -- Avid video game enthusiast Chip Dibson made the ultimate sacrifice for his hobby this weekend. The twenty two year old McDonalds employee was found washed up down river after having thrown himself off of the local bridge. While police were investigating ways to blame a form of popular media on the death, they noticed that the iPhone clutched in his dead hands was opened to the game "Epic Win."

The popular "app" gives players the ability to create a "to-do" list of day-to-day chores, and then earn "points" for their "character" as they "complete" items on the "list." Police say Chip's brother, Gus, has confessed to putting "Jump off of bridge" on his brother's to-do list within the game.

"He plays that game constantly, and I always joked that he would do anything on his list despite the consequences just to get all of the possible points. So I snuck into his room when he was sleeping and added "Jump off of bridge" to his list. When he woke up, he yelled at me about it and said he had to do it now so he could complete his list. I didn't think he was serious." said Gus in the police report.

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Extremely bored gamer plays past first hour of latest licensed game, discovers disturbing videos

It's no secret that licensed games are completely unplayable pieces of junk. But what you might not have known, is that apparently the developers know that as well, and act accordingly. Well, at least we always assumed that... until now. Now, we have proof.

Yesterday morning an article was submitted to N4G, and in a matter of minutes had begun gaining popularity. It was a horribly written article, but what it contained had taken the gaming community by storm. In a half hour's time Joystiq had picked it up and was reporting on it. In only a few hours, seemingly the entire Internet.

The original article, found here, was written by one Hunter Anderson -- a deeply disturbed, or stupid, or, maybe really drunk individual; We're not entirely sure. Either way, he detailed a harrowing journey in which he actually attempted to complete the most recently released licensed game. What he found would confirm what countless snotty gamers have always presupposed.

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Microsoft admits schizophrenia, healing process begins

In an effort to confuse potential customers regarding their upcoming Xbox 360 motion controller, now renamed “Kinect”, Microsoft has both confirmed and denied a retail pricetag of $150. Multiple online retailers have had the device listed at the $150 price point for over a week now, but earlier today the official Microsoft store put up a Kinect pre-order page matching that price.

Conversely, Xbox Live Group Manager Aaron Greenberg announced via Twitter that any retail “estimates” are “purely speculative”. Immediately after sending the tweet, Greenberg unbuttoned his shirt, tousled his own hair, and levitated over Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Hotel to complete what he referred to as a “mindfreak”.

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SquareEnix to revive Rad Racer series, capitalize on 3D/Radness trend resurgences

3D is the future of Television and video games, right? That's what companies have been hinging on lately, and SquareEnix is no exception. They recently announced that they were bringing back their Rad Racer franchise in order to capitalize on the growing 3D trend.

"You know how, when a major movie remake like King Kong or Clash of the Titans comes out in theaters, the companies that own the originals will quickly rerelease it to store shelves? Well, this is kind of like that." said SquareEnix President and CEO, Yoichi Wada. "We aren't going to be changing much. It'll actually be pretty much the exact same game. We found about a hundred giant boxes of those 3D glasses in the basement, and we figured we might as well use them."

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Rockstar Games hires legal team, discovers geographic location names exempt from copyright law

Interesting news from Rockstar Games’ New York City office today, news that gives insight into one of the developer’s most consistent and baffling design choices. It turns out the company’s executive team had no idea they’re legally free to use specific location names in their games.

In a statement released this afternoon Dan Houser, Vice President of Creativity, said, “We’ve always had lawyers at the ready to defend us from the countless lawsuits brought our way by disgruntled parents, but now that we’ve got a legal team in house to look at our products we’re learning a lot. For instance, city names like Miami, New York, and Los Angeles are absolutely fair game. This is what happens when you assume.”

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'Six Days in Fallujah' developer details torture mini-game, confident they'll find publisher

There have been plenty of controversial video games before, but most have been for their inclusion of violence or sexual situations. Very few have ever dared to tread into the realms of a real, historical event to tell their story; Those that have were almost entirely indie developed games... until now.

You may have heard of the controversy surrounding developer Atomic Games' 'Six Days in Fallujah' already, but it definitely won't be ending there. Since losing their original publisher, Konami -- after a group of war veterans criticized the game's existance -- the studio has been hard at work promoting the game in the hopes of landing a new publisher.

Unfortunately, they may just be shooting themselves in the foot. In a recent interview with This Gamesite Isn't Fake, they talked about how confident they were in finding a new publisher, then immediately revealed their new torture mini-game section to the interviewer.

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Denis Dyack reveals he’s an alien; No one surprised

Earlier this afternoon, a man with a misspelled first name and made-up last name, Denis Dyack, confirmed what everyone in the video game industry already knew. Dyack is an alien. Speaking on the subject, Dyack remarked, “It’s true, I’m an alien from outer-space. Silicon Knights isn’t just the name of my development company, but also the name of my Andromedan Space Navy regiment. Not to brag or anything, but it’s the best Space Navy regiment ever; so good, in fact, that we’ve changed the face of Space Navy regiments across the galaxy.”

Long-time friend and co-worker, Steve Henifin, explained, “I always knew Denis was weird, but I thought maybe he was just foreign or something. Nope: alien. In retrospect, it makes a lot of sense.”

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President Obama banishes video games to hell

Exercising a little-known executive power that has gone unused since the Van Buren administration, President Barack Obama officially banished video games to Hell early Tuesday morning. The legislation, colloquially known as the “Go Outside and Play” act, was signed into law effective immediately leaving many in the video game industry stunned and without a job.

In an effort to defend the act, President Obama held a press conference earlier today with several notable names from the gaming industry. Among the attendees were Satoru Iwata of Nintendo, Bobby Kotick of Activision, and Billy what’s-his-face from that Donkey Kong movie. You know the one.

Said Obama of the act, “This has been a long time coming. Video games have been poisoning our youth since their inception and the United States will be better off without them. Seriously, what the hell is a Katamari? It sounds like some kind of seafood, but it’s not; I checked.”

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Brutally realistic Paperboy reboot in the works

In the last few years, an increasing amount of long forgotten franchises have been pulled from the basement shelves and given a makeover, but none as surprising as this. A new studio -- named The Existant Game Company (tagline, "This game company totally exists, we swear!") -- has licensed the Paperboy franchise from Midway and announced they are developing a reboot of the series.

"We want to make it true to the present day newspaper delivery field." said lead programmer Imma Realname. "It won't necessarily be fun, but it'll be realistic to the plight of the everyday newspaper carrier, and that's what we were aiming for."

Somewhat a franchise reboot, the game story will also act as a sequel of sorts. You'll still be playing as Frank, the Paperboy, but he is now a Paperman. All grown up, he has ditched the old bicycle route and obtained a motor route that takes him way out into the country roads.

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