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Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is just one of the new games we discuss on this week's podcast while Chris Kohler is in the desert. Image courtesy of Electronic Arts. Join us, won’t you, for the sound of four lost souls muddling along? With Chris Kohler in Las Vegas all week covering DICE — though he sends greetings by way of a bizarre megalomaniacal written statement — the rest of the crew is forced to call in a replacement. I’m joined by Wired.com managing editor Marty Cortinas and Wired... Read Full Story

LAS VEGAS — A week after finishing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , the 100-strong team at Bethesda had a “Game Jam.” Their mission, said creative director Todd Howard at the DICE Summit on Wednesday, was to think of something they wanted to have in the world of the role-playing game, then implement it. Howard revealed the results of the Game Jam to a packed crowd during his keynote speech at the annual conference of gaming executives. He cautioned the crowd that the features we would see in... Read Full Story

Game developer Double Fine ( Psychonauts , Brutal Legend ) will raise funds for a new game via Kickstarter, it said on Wednesday evening. The proposed game will be a classic point-and-click adventure game in the style of Tim Schafer’s previous work like Grim Fandango and Maniac Mansion . It will be developed over a period of six to eight months by a small team supervised by Shafer. Like all Kickstarter projects, which draw small amounts of funding from a large group of individual backers... Read Full Story

You asked, and we deliver (if belatedly): Here’s the full video of our “Retrogame Roadshow” panel at Penny Arcade Expo 2011 in Seattle. Playing to a live crowd of PAX attendees, our group of classic gaming experts asked audience members to come on stage with their gaming treasures of days gone by. The panel, in a manner reminiscent of Antiques Roadshow or Pawn Stars , talks about the item — what it is, why it’s rare (or not!) and how much it’s worth. During this panel, we had an amazing... Read Full Story

Tell me about it, lady. Image: Square Enix by Garret Martin, Ars Technica Final Fantasy XIII-2 takes place three years after Final Fantasy XIII . Vanille, Fang, Snow and Lightning are gone; either dead, encased in crystal or disappeared to unknown adventures. Serah Farron, Lightning’s sister and Snow’s fiancée, hides her pain while teaching the children of New Bodhum and helping her friends in NORA. Images of Lightning engaged in an epic battle haunt her dreams, but she knows her sister... Read Full Story

Pictured: Michael T. Astolfi (L) and Aaron Rasmussen, creators of upcoming game BlindSide. Photo courtesy Aaron Rasmussen Aaron Rasmussen was 16 years old when a chemistry teacher told him to mix red phosphorous and potassium chlorate. The  two chemicals are volatile when mixed , but they don’t normally combust without some form of impact. But these chemicals were in their pure form. The blast hit Rasmussen straight in the eyes, knocking him out. When he awoke, he was blind — a condition... Read Full Story

If you check out our Product Reviews section today, you will see that I wrote a review of the Japanese PlayStation Vita . I even did the exciting video feature above. Expect a lot more as we get closer to the U.S. launch on February 22. Read Full Story

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announces the Wii U at E3 2011. Image courtesy Nintendo Nintendo has revised its financial forecast for the 2011-2012 fiscal year, predicting a net loss of 65 billion yen ($837 million). In October, it had forecast a net loss of only 20 billion yen ($258 million). “We had higher expectations for the year-end season, but failed to meet them ,” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told reporters in Osaka, Japan, according to a Reuters report. Although Nintendo... Read Full Story

Capcom will release Resident Evil 6 later this year for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 20, it said on Thursday. The latest game in the venerable action-horror franchise will feature Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy , two of the most popular heroes of past Resident Evil games, as playable characters. They will both be joined by new characters, possibly to be controlled by the computer or a second player much like in Resident Evil 5 . A report by IGN also indicates that Resident Evil... Read Full Story

On the latest episode of 1up.com’s Retronauts podcast, we present the Year in Review. Not this year, of course; that would be ridiculous. No, instead we review the gaming accomplishments of years past, in five-year increments. So we discuss 1972, then 1977, then 1982, then 1987 and so forth until we run out of interesting things to say. As it turns out, these were pivotal years, featuring the launch of the first home game console, the Atari 2600, the games that led up to the big industry... Read Full Story