Video Games

Wreck-It Ralph Influenced Not Only by Video Games But Harajuku, Gaudi and the San Diego Chargers

Wreck-It Ralph won't be in theaters until November, but the buzz for Disney's forthcoming animated film has already begun. Directed by Rich Moore (The Simpsons, Futurama), the movie stars John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer and Jane Lynch as video game characters whose lives are more comp ... More >>

An L.A. Riots Video Game Concept in Which You Can Be Rodney King

See also: *The Problem Solverz Creator Ben Jones: Using Video Games 'Like Religion' *Five Cheap Ways You Can Support Your Favorite Artists *UCLA Game Art Festival Features Caine's Arcade Made by a 9-Year-Old, and More With E3 ready to take over downtown Los Angeles this week, it makes sense that G ... More >>

Video Games as Physical Therapy? USC Uses Motion-Capture Technology to Heal the Injured

Startups is a new column about new companies, big ideas and bold discoveries happening in the L.A. area. Belinda Lange knows how to have some serious fun. A physiotherapist by training, Lange leads a group at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), which d ... More >>

Gourmet Gaming Combines Our Two Favorite Things: Video Games and Food

Screenshot of Gourmet Gaming's websiteGourmet Gaming's real life version of "The Meat" in classic Sega video game Golden Axe​If you would like to take your video game experience to the next meta-level and, say, concoct a red potion similar to the one Link drinks in The Legend of Zelda, Gourmet ... More >>

Gears of War 3: We Played It

​What do you do when you come into possession of a copy of Gears of War 3 and your taste in games is decidedly more Super Mario Brothers? You find someone with an Xbox 360 who is down to play and can, hopefully, show you the ropes. I'm not a gamer. I like what I played as a child-- arcade sta ... More >>

What, Exactly, is 8-Bit Music?

Liz OhanesianComputeHer live at Obsolete​ Cristina Fuentes is a master of Game Boy beats. She plays "8-bit" music, also known as "chip" music or "chiptunes," whose name references computer chips. What unites musicians of this genre is not so much a specific sound, but rather the technology ... More >>

Sega Unleashes Sonic Generations Demo Today for Sonic the Hedgehog's 20th Anniversary

Sega​ Read more in "Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog Turns 20, Joins Nintendo's Mario for London 2012 Olympics Video Game." June 23 marks the 20th anniversary of Sega's beloved mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. Beginning today, gamers can download demos of Sonic Generations, the anniversary game, via Xbox ... More >>

Frogger 3D and Four Other Games for Those Who Miss Arcades

Shannon CottrellPlaying Skullgirls with Arcade-in-a-Box controllers​"We are now missing the classic arcade style games," says Tak Fujii, producer of Konami's forthcoming Frogger 3D game. It was a sentiment that we heard a lot at E3 last week. Game developers, who are arguably the biggest fans ... More >>

Skullgirls: The Next Big Fighting Game?

Reverge LabsSkullgirls​ For more on Skullgirls, see "Skullgirls: Screenshots from the Next Big Fighting Game." Check out our E3 2011 category for more coverage from the show. See more photos in Shannon Cottrell's slideshows, "E3 2011: Day One" and "E3 2011: Day Two." Over the course of E3, th ... More >>

Atari Updates Classic Video Games with Centipede: Infestation and Warlords

Shannon CottrellCheck out our E3 2011 category for more coverage from the show. See more photos in Shannon Cottrell's slideshows, "E3 2011: Day One" and "E3 2011: Day Two." Inside Atari's E3 Booth​At E3 it's easy to get swept away by the new. The three-day show, centered around games that hav ... More >>

Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog Turns 20, Joins Nintendo's Mario for London 2012 Olympics Video Game

Shannon CottrellSonic the Hedgehog's 20th anniversary party​Check out our E3 2011 category for more coverage from the show. See more photos in Shannon Cottrell's slideshows, "E3 2011: Day One" and "E3 2011: Day Two." Inside the E3 booth for Sonic Generations, the 20th anniversary Sonic the He ... More >>

Video Games Live: The E3 Event That's Open to the Public

Marcin Wichary, Creative Commons via WikipediaTommy Tallarico playing Video Games Live in 2009​Today is the first day of E3, the annual event where video game companies unveil their latest products. There's a lot of hype surrounding the three-day show, but, unfortunately most people won't be a ... More >>

Harold Goldberg's All Your Base are Belong to Us and the Cultural History of Video Games as Emotional Story of American Entrepreneurship

Screencap from Sega's Zero Wing​ "All Your Base are Belong to Us" famously circulated as an Internet meme a decade ago. Originating as a poor English translation (from Japanese) of dialogue in Sega's 1991 video game Zero Wing, the phrase has a new life as the title of Harold Goldberg's cultura ... More >>

Anamanaguchi's Peter Berkman Shares His Top 3 Influences: Tim and Eric, Japanese Music and Video Games

Ethan Saks​ Tonight, Anamanaguchi plays The Roxy with Peelander-Z and, tomorrow, the 8-bit punk band behind the music for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game will head down to Meltdown Comics, where they will appear inside the Nerdist Theater. Right before the band left for South by Southwe ... More >>

Five Myths About Female Gamers Debunked

WeDare and the ensuing controversy got us thinking about girls and games. While we're at least happy that there are going to be female characters in video games we're a little disappointed that yet again, the female characters exist for sex appeal and little else. The industry is still laboring unde ... More >>

Guitar Hero is Dead, Long Live the Top 10 Songs to Play on Guitar Hero!

Top 10 Songs to Play on Guitar Hero

Was the Death of Guitar Hero Inevitable? Slash, Star of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Answers Here

Slash, guitar icon. And some dude, guitar hero. ​Our inner 13-year-old boy cried yesterday when news broke via Rolling Stone that video game company Activision was officially pulling the plug on popular music game franchise, Guitar Hero. The game that made plastic kiddie guitars cool and launc ... More >>

Guitar Hero, RIP (2005-2011)

The game that stunted the growth of a million actual-guitar hero careers: Guitar Hero​ Rolling Stone is reporting the impeding demise of guitar-with-buttons videogame Guitar Hero: The Guitar Hero video game franchise is officially dead. According to publisher Activision, which will close its ... More >>

(VIDEO) One Journalist Meets His Creepy-Real 'L.A. Noire' Video Game Counterpart

Game InformerAh, to play (and star in) video games for money​Hey -- we wanna do that! Video-game blogger Dan Ryckert, over at Game Informer, is making us feel like we definitely picked the wrong beat of this career with some detailed escapades into the realm of virtual reality. Ryckert scored ... More >>

'Call Of Duty: Black Ops' Draws Midnight Nerd Herd To L.A. GameStops, Best Buys

A GameStop employee braces himself for the stampede​Updated after the jump: L.A.-area GameStop stores weigh in on the success of their midnight launch parties. Originally posted at 6:05 a.m. The economy had a pretty wild night last night. While you were sleeping, it partied with passive-aggr ... More >>

World Cyber Games: Nerds Come To Los Angeles To Vie For Global Domination ... While Sitting Down Comfortably

Associated Press​Nerds. We feel for you. Comic-Con isn't coming to Los Angeles. Everyone with a laptop and a Blogger account thinks they don't need you to design a website anymore. And girls still don't like you. But there's hope: The World Cyber Games is in L.A. for four days through the week ... More >>

'Adventure Time' Creator Pendleton Ward on Video Games, Zombies and Comic-Con

In Adventure Time, Finn, a young boy who uses exclamation like "algebraic!" and "mathematical!" even though he isn't very good with numbers, and his sharp canine pal Jake traverse the Land of Ooo, where they fight zombies, save princesses from the Ice King and embark a variety of other quests that ... More >>

Live Review: Activision's E3 2010 Preview Event with Eminem, Jane's Addiction & Usher - "We Got the Cash!"

Last Night: Activision E3 2010 Preview Event with Eminem, Jane's Addiction, & Usher

Today In WTF: Gamers Go Gangster; First-Person Shooter Gets Shot

​In the what-has-the-world-come-to department, we bring you the warm story of a man playing a video game early Tuesday in L.A.'s Koreatown neighborhood: Someone walked up to him and opened fire, putting him in County-USC Medical Center, where he's recovering. The attack happened shortly after ... More >>

Have You Played Atari Today? Bringing the Original 2600 out of Storage

Kevin ScanlonAbout 12 years ago, my wife and I pulled her original Atari 2600 out of storage and hooked it up to our television. We set it on the floor, next to my Sega Genesis, and showed it to our kids. "What's that?" One of them asked. "This is how we started playing video games at home when we ... More >>

At L.A.'s E3 Summit: The Business of Beautiful Killing Games

Faster, Dracula! Kill! Kill! Bloodthirsty peeks at the latest versions of Flock, BioShock, Borderlands, WolfQuest and Castlevania, plus Konami designer Koji Igarashi

A Hero for Our Time

Are rocker video games the new MTV — and will they help save the music universe?

Mashup Mayhem

DJ WiiJ at Safari Sam’s

Night Out: We Can Be Heroes

Get in the game at Hyperion Tavern

The Zombie Zeitgeist

On the stump since 1968

Colossal

The mark of the Shadow, the future of gaming

Back to Old School

When Pac-Man Was God

Best art bits & bytes

Attention, Ball Lickers!

Gaming guides come of age

The Wrath of Pong

Putting down the Kalashnikov, picking up the Joola blade

Babes in Toyland

ArtStation 2

Nic Kelman on games’ higher aspirations

Smash Box

The Incredible Hulk’s cathartic punch

Man's Best Friend

Nintendogs puts existentialism in the palm of your hand

Grand Theft Autolux

Star Wars Rules/Sucks

Lucas’ best-selling video game shows which trilogy is better

Donkey Kong in the Bowl

An 8-bit evening with the LA Phil

Smoke the Muthafuckas, 50!

Calling all High-Level Homies

7 Ways To Waste Time

Inside Your Xbox (or Playstation 2)

Pass the Paddles

Our guide to the games

Pac-Man Forever

Playtime

Blood on the Joystick

Notes on Grand Theft Auto III

Pocket Pal

NeoGeo’s hand-held gaming system bucks Nintendo’s hegemony