Microsoft's IllumiRoom takes gaming visuals outside the box and onto the living room. Basically projection mapping for your living room, based on a 3D scan using Kinect, Microsoft Research's IllumiRoom lets you show either all of a game's environment, or only certain parts, projected on your living room walls.
posted by Joakim Ziegler on May 2, 2013 - 24 comments

Contrary to a lot of idle criticism, Bungie's Halo series of video games has a surprisingly rich backstory -- a universe complex enough to support seven bestselling novels, a wiki with over 7,000 articles, and one of the most successful ARGs in history (including a full-fledged radio drama). The series has also turned out sweeping audiovisual work, from the games' cinematic cutscenes and epic music (lots of free previews) to top-shelf anime and the Hollywood-quality short films -- ODST, Believe, Deliver Hope, Landfall -- that were made to promote the games (the latter of which, produced by Neil Blomkamp, inspired District 9). And that's apart from all the material produced by Bungie's dedicated fan base: genuinely hilarious machinima from Red vs. Blue, professional-level graphic novels (table of contents at the top), gorgeous artwork, hours of recorded dialogue, complete transcripts of hidden apocrypha, and more factual analysis, story speculation, and casual discussion than you can shake an energy sword at. But most of these pale in comparison to the latest and greatest exercise in Halo beanplating: the Svmma Canonica, a 40-page, 17,000-word formal treatise on the nature of canon in the world that Bungie built, and how it will fare once Bungie moves on and the franchise is managed by 343 Industries. Discussion over at Bungie's official site, or at decade-old fan forum Halo.Bungie.Org.
posted by Rhaomi on Jan 31, 2011 - 71 comments

"It's a secret to everybody" -- an unbelievably comprehensive blog post about the etymologies of the names of famous (and not-so-famous) video game characters.
posted by empath on Jun 20, 2009 - 26 comments

Reinier van der Ende, an x-ray technician at the largest hospital in the northern part of the Netherlands, decided to combine his work with one of his hobbies and proceeded to x-ray his collection of video game consoles, peripherals and game cartridges. Here are the fruits of his labour. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on May 2, 2009 - 20 comments

The Console War Is Officially Over (Via)
posted by Del Far on Feb 18, 2009 - 53 comments

Braid is the latest videogames-are-art posterchild. The mind-bending, time-twisting platformer is currently the most critically acclaimed XBLA game. Jonathan Blow, the designer, is something of a games philosopher. You can listen to a fascinating talk he gave on game design last year here.
posted by empath on Aug 11, 2008 - 96 comments

Improve your Rock Band drumming technique. Rock Band as in the videogame, that is.
posted by nthdegx on Jan 11, 2008 - 124 comments

Halo 3: Easter eggs, including the excellent Red Vs Blue in-game dialog easter egg; the RvB Halo 3 beta initiation; 3D images and how-to (dig out your glasses); achievements, ranks, armor, skulls, and campaign scoring explained; Bungie's favorites (videos, pics, maps, game variants to download to your 360)... and that grenade stick.
posted by nthdegx on Nov 28, 2007 - 22 comments

Not your older brother's Burger Time. Burger King is developing three XBox videogames starring its eponymous mascot. And not just any games: they'll be modeled after such titles as Halo, Mortal Kombat and Need for Speed. But, you know, with fast food. Confirmation of the plans came in the form of a lawsuit threatened against Kotaku, the blog that broke the story.
posted by me3dia on Apr 17, 2006 - 31 comments

Having trouble with that new videogame you got for Christmas? Text-only walkthroughs don't do it for you? Then try Stuck Gamer. Video walkthroughs for a pretty good number of games. Including, thanks the Lords of Kobol, Ninja Gaiden.
posted by WolfDaddy on Dec 26, 2005 - 16 comments

The best E3 wrapup I've read this year. Also the only E3 wrapup I've read this year. But there are pictures! And amusing musings! It's also by Our Boy Mefite kevspace.
posted by WolfDaddy on May 31, 2005 - 33 comments

Will Xbox 360 games run on Mac OS X w/ a G5? (via Slashdot) Looks like Xbox 360 games run natively on the G5. Macs, for a long time, have not been considered a platform that companies have been anxious to develop their games for. Looks like this is gonna change.
posted by Livewire Confusion on May 21, 2005 - 46 comments

Have a spare $199 lying around? Steel Battalion Central is your one-stop Steel Battalion source. For those of you not in the know, SB is the $199 Xbox game with it's own custom 40-Button controller. It's also one of the most intense hardcore Video Game experiances of the last few years.
posted by hughbot on Mar 4, 2004 - 15 comments

Microsoft Delays X-Box Release Sure it's only by a week, but the article also hints at anticipated availability problems. Why does this seem so familiar?
posted by ttrendel on Sep 22, 2001 - 21 comments