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I’m quite curious to see what it was like for freelance journalist Justin Amirkhani to ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms and play through PlayStation 3 title Dyad. He’s launching a crowdsourced fundraiser to pay for the production costs of making a short film about the experience. Amirkhani even had the game’s creator, Shawn McGrath, reluctantly guide him through the trip. I suppose this is art.

Dyad, available on PlayStation Network, already has quite the psychedelic look to it (think arcade-classic Tempest meets the music-infused on-rails-shooter Rez). Amirkhani wants to show, however, that looks might be a bit deceiving.

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On November 6, 2012, there were two reasons you might've been standing in a long line -- you were either waiting to buy your copy of Halo 4 or about to vote in the 2012 Presidential Election.

Yet every gamer of legal voting age should view the release of Halo 4 on Election Day as a great insult.

Releasing Halo 4 on Election Day has to be one of the greatest outrages to adult gamers since we graduated from high school. Microsoft Studios is implying that their core audience is composed of immature brats who are willing to avoid their civic duty for a simple video game. 

It’s obvious that the games industry treats its audience like 14-year-olds who have just hit puberty, but releasing a major title during the election is a kick in the face while being given the finger.

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OK, the voice you hear in this video doesn't belong to the real Christopher Walken, but it's a good enough of an impression to make this "Walkenthrough" of Dishonored incredibly hilarious.

Of course, it's not really much of a walkthrough. You won't learn any assassination tricks, but you will get to watch Walken try to throw dead whores at a guard. What more could you want?

You can watch the hilarity yourself after the break.

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Had I been born in another age, chances are that I would have been an explorer. Once upon a time, our world was wrapped in magic and wonder. Nowadays, an airplane ticket and a few hours time can span oceans. And, if you’re really ambitious, you might venture a mouse click and a keystroke or two to reveal the particulars of your destination on the flight over.

Perhaps, then, it stands to reason that the biggest draw of video games has been very much the urge and challenge to unravel the mystery of what waits behind the next door, inside of locked chests, or beyond distant mountaintops -- a sort of surrogate thrill in a world divested of secrets.

This seduction of exploration -- if only virtual -- caused me to slip out of bed at 4 a.m. on school days to sneak in a few extra hours of the original Zelda while my need to chart the unknown came up during parent-teacher conferences in the form of maps I had sketched of Metroid’s long shafts in the margins of my math homework. I doubt I’m alone here.

Clearly, games scratch a deep itch for adventure and discovery in an world now containing little opportunity for either. But what happens when the vistas and environments of video games become more familiar than the scenery outside our front door?

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Once again, we demand a recount with our army of paid pundits!

It's here! It's finally here...an end to all the commercials, robo-calls, and street teams knocking on our doors! Today we choose the leader of the free world! At last, the democratic process upon which we founded our beautiful country will leave us the hell alone. And whether we canonize Mitt Romney or extend Barack Obama's contract (with America), you know one lucky winner will strive make our lives better and run the entire country into the ground. Well, that's what my TV tells me, anyway.

What say you, panel of experts? Any plans or predictions for election day?

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"I'm busy today."

- The Master Chief, Halo 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I'm voting for the Peace and Freedom Party's one-two ticket punch of Rosanne Barr and Cindy Sheehan. It's like the best Saturday Night Live sketch ever!"

- Isaac Clarke, Dead Space 3

 

 

 

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Fans love the epic, emotionally charged music from The Legend of Zelda role-playing franchise. I recently chatted with Jason Michael Paul, creator of The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses live-concert series, to ask him what makes Zelda's music so special, what his dream project would be, and what the future might hold for video game music concerts.

Louis Garcia: Why do a show focused on Zelda?

Jason Michael Paul: I just think that with a 25, now 26-year, history, Zelda is one of the most [storied] franchises. We saw the success of those concerts [Paul previously created Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy and Play! A Video Game Symphony], and it was kind of [a] necessity that we do a concert to continue on. It’s more or less a natural progression. There’s only two franchises worthy of getting their own concerts: Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda.

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Recently on Bitmob, the integrity of games journalism has come into question. I found this amusing because, frankly, there’s no such thing. Now, who am I to talk about this subject? Well, I’m a journalist in Canada. I’ve covered elections, city council, tragedies, triumphs, and sports games.

I’ve also written reviews on my own time and hosted a current affairs web series. So I have some knowledge and experience to back up my claims.

There’s journalism and video games, but the two don’t go hand in hand in the way some may think. These “games journalists” are actually reviewers, commentators, columnists, and (at the end of the day) entertainers. 

I don’t think anyone confuses Daily Show host Jon Stewart for a journalist.

Just to be clear, reviewing a game isn’t journalism. That’s an opinion. Being critical is fine, but it isn’t what makes you a journalist.

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I've just finished killing all of my friends.  

Ragdoll physics make for entertaining conclusions to their brief lives. They'll get over the ass-kicking that I have just delivered, I'm sure, but not before I'm able to enjoy it.  

I'm at a LAN party. We have sixteen players shooting at each other between four Xboxes, and tonight I'm wielding the Duke as if it's a seamless extension of my mind. Halo 2's shrink wrap has only been off for a few hours, but I've established a clear dominance among my competition. My sensitivity is cranked up to a billion, and I've turned on my ADD; Twitch-Gaming is the only thing keeping me alive. 

 Well, that and a badass energy sword. 

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The current generation of consoles (that being the seventh) currently holds the record for the longest running life span of consoles to date. Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, and Nintendo's Wii have been the dominant video game consoles for seven years -- much longer than most people expected and longer than many have hoped.

With year 2012 finally reaching its end, gamers have been anxiously awaiting any sign of eighth generation consoles to ease their minds of any further speculation.

So far, Nintendo’s Wii U remains the only confirmed entry, slated for release this November. As for Sony’s next PlayStation and Microsoft’s successor to the Xbox 360, rumors floating through cyberspace are about all any of us have read, with no confirmed release dates of any sort. 

Commentators, however, have predicted that these two elusive consoles will show up some time around 2013 or 2014.

As we're talking about the eighth generation of video game consoles, it's logical to assume that they both will feature some of the most capable processors the gaming universe has seen thus far, allowing for the usual advancements in graphics and sound that we experience with every new generation. But the few actual mentions of a new PlayStation and Xbox, from various sources, have not exactly been the most reassuring.

In fact, two of the most vigorously spread rumors have been instilling a sense of anxiety in gamers more than anything else and have us asking: "Why the hell would they even think about doing that?"

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I played Metro 2033 to completion for the first time more than a year ago. It had been on my radar (and my Steam list) for quite some time, and I finally got around to actually playing it. I’d heard so many great things and was very excited to play.

It didn’t quite grab me in the way I wanted. The voice acting was laughably bad in spots. Character models have some of the deadest eyes I have ever seen. The shooting was stiff and didn’t give me the control I wanted during intense moments.

By the time I reached the end, I wasn’t having much fun. I even downloaded an FAQ to help me power through the last few levels in peace. Quickly, I moved to the next game, not really thinking about the experience I'd just had. I had more games in my backlog to "slog" through.

Recently, I had an itch to play the game again. Part of me still wanted that experience I was expecting the first time through. I decided to try a few things to hopefully strengthen the game.

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The Games Media Awards held in London last month caused quite a stir when the public found out journalists were tweeting PR-prompted hashtags in return for a chance to win free gear.

The news got out of hand quickly, and video-game journalists and fans are still talking about it. The image above, of journalist Geoff Keighley forcibly surrounded by junk food as part of an interview, became emblematic of the issue (though not Keighley's fault).

Well, Bitmob is all about games writing. It's in our blood, and it's the purpose of our site. So when an issue like this grabs the attention of our community, we want to hear what you have to say.

We've already front-paged a couple of your articles on this topic, and our own Jason Lomberg has shared his opinion as well. But we thought it made sense to round all your thoughts up into one hub. So check out the article summaries below, and see what you think.

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Filmmaker Devin Graham -- whose YouTube channel is worth a browse even if you're not a giant nerd -- has struck again.

You might remember his first real-life Assassin's Creed video from September, and this morning, he released another installment. This one takes place in the woodsy, cliffsy setting of developer Ubisoft's just-released Assassin's Creed III, and it features a flip-happy Assassin taking out a couple of hapless Redcoats.

The video, which you can see after the break, has a little bit of Tag and a lot of Hide and Seek, but its main draw is obviously watching a real dude dressed up as a member of the fictional Assassins flipping over things. Seriously, the number of flips in this video is almost gratuitous, but the thing is so awesome that you probably won't care.

Just try to resist the urge to yell "Parkour!" after every stunt.

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