| Cult of Mac

Fallout 4′s awesome wearable bonus incompatible with iPhone 6 Plus

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Man, that would have been cool.
Man, that would have been cool.
Photo: Bethesda

If you’ve been itching to put a real-life Pip-Boy on your wrist via the $120 collector’s edition of Bethesda’s highly-anticipated role playing video game, Fallout 4, and you own an iPhone 6 Plus, you may be out of luck.

The larger handset will not be supported for the wristband, but you can still run the companion app when the console and PC game comes out later this year.

Epic Batman: Arkham Knight trailer thrills and chills

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Batman may have met his match. Photo: Rocksteady
Batman may have met his match. Photo: Rocksteady

Get ready to watch the epic slow burn in the official trailer for the upcoming conclusion to Rocksteady’s Arkham video game series, Batman: Arkham Knight. Scarecrow is uniting all of Batman’s enemies — Penguin, Two-Face, the Riddler, Harley Quinn, Poison, Ivy, and the Arkham Knight — to take Gotham City and take down The Bat.

Sure, there’s a little bit of Bane-like incomprehensibility in the Scarecrow’s voice-over, and (barring a miracle) the Joker won’t be in town this time around, but this game is looking pretty amazing. The in-game shots of Batman plunging down the skyscrapers of Gotham City, the brutal combat animations, and the just plain high-resolution glory of the fictional city and it’s lone hero make us want to play Batman: Arkham Knight right now.

Check out the epic trailer for the June 2, 2015 game below.

Play more than 2,000 ancient DOS games in your browser for free

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Travel carefully, friends. Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC)
Travel carefully, friends. Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC)

Older games that we all loved and played relentlessly as kids tend to disappear as the old operating systems that we played them on are sent out to pasture.

The Internet Archive, a free library of millions of free books, movies, websites, and other media, has also archived thousands of older MS_DOS games, like Maniac Mansion, Prince of Persia, and–yes–Oregon Trail, and has given us all access to them for free.

Turns out, you can still get dysentery while traveling to Oregon, even if you haven’t kept your old PC or Mac to play the seminal educational game on.

“The collection includes action, strategy, adventure and other unique genres of game and entertainment software,” writes Jason Scott, the Software Librarian for the Internet Archive. “Through the use of the EM-DOSBOX in-browser emulator, these programs are bootable and playable.”

Meet House Forrester in new Game of Thrones video game

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Pretty good likeness, don't you think? Photo: Telltale Games
Pretty good likeness, don't you think? Photo: Telltale Games

In George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, anyone can play the Game of Thrones, including little-known House Forrester.

Telltale Games, the house behind video gaming hits like The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead, have brought this more obscure Westeros family to the forefront of a brand-new game set in Martin’s Game of Thrones universe, and it looks delightfully dramatic.

Check out the trailer below, which includes some fine voicework from Natalie Dormer and Peter Dinklage as their respective characters from the show, wily Margaery Tyrell and diminutive Tyrion Lannister.

10 astonishingly great video games based on movies

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This delightfully colorful video game had kids throwing apples and leaping across dangerous bazaar stalls  to re-enact some of the crazy scenes from the Disney animated movie of the same name. The title blended some Prince of Persia gameplay with the easy-on-the-eyes color palette of the Disney hit to create a very playable video game experience.
This delightfully colorful video game had kids throwing apples and leaping across dangerous bazaar stalls to re-enact some of the crazy scenes from the Disney animated movie of the same name. The title blended some Prince of Persia gameplay with the easy-on-the-eyes color palette of the Disney hit to create a very playable video game experience.

From pixels to polygons: The fascinating evolution of video game graphics

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The first successful full-color video game came out in 1979. Photo: Stuart Brown
The first successful full-color video game came out in 1979. Photo: Stuart Brown

If you’ve been alive in the past fifty years or so, you’ve played a video game. It’s a primarily visual art form that uses current-day technologies to provide ever-evolving gaming experiences across generations.

This new series of short, ten-minute videos written and produced by Stuart Brown aim to take a closer look at the evolution of video game graphics, from the simple monochromatic lines of Pong to the incredibly rich and detailed photo realism of today’s games like Crysis, Destiny, and Far Cry 4.

“Graphics are absolutely important,” says Brown in the fifth and final video. “They are an essential part of video games. A window into another world and a prime indicator of the technology that powers it.”

Check out the first two installments below.

Dark Horse Comics does video game titles like no other

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Dave Marshall, Editor Dark Horse Comics. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Dave Marshall, Editor Dark Horse Comics, holding a coffee table book of video game art. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

SEATTLE, Washington – Walk into a comic shop, and you’ll probably see titles from publisher Dark Horse Comics. Known for its creator-owned series like Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and Sergio Aragonés’ Groo the Wanderer as well as television and movie adaptations like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or 300, the comic book publisher has a booth at the Penny Arcade Expo this weekend in Seattle to show off a different genre of comic.

The booth at the Washington State Convention Center in is full of video game-themed books of all stripe, from Mass Effect and Tomb Raider single-issue comics to larger, coffee table volumes like Hyrule Historia, which is chock full of the lore of The Legend of Zelda, and The Art of Naughty Dog, an art book that focuses on the popular game developer’s artistic output.

Dave Marshall says that video game books are the third pillar in the Dark Horse publishing strategy, and have become just as valuable a content stream as the creator-owned or media-based titles.

“We get the original writers and artists from the video games themselves to actually write or consult on these books,” he told us at the Dark Horse booth Saturday morning, “so we can come to the fans at a deeper level than just a crummy tie-in or cash grab.”

You can’t play this game alone – find a friend and conquer Together: Amna & Saif

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Picture courtesy Mount Olympus Games
Picture courtesy Mount Olympus Games

SEATTLE, Washington – Together: Amna & Saif puts you and another player on the same screen, controlling a mother and son duo of characters to solve various environmental puzzles. It’s a “couch co-op adventure puzzle game” that requires you to talk, interact, and think with another human being.

Lead designer Lyle Cox told us that he’s always wanted to make a game that benefits society in some way. “My hope is that people who play the game,” he said, “get some benefit to their relationship for having done so.”

Dad mows down video games and we can’t stop watching

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Screenshot: Rob LeFebvre, via YouTube
Screenshot: Cult of Mac

We’ve all heard it: “Turn that TV off or I’m gonna take it and toss it out the g*dd*mn window.” Chances are, if you’re a parent, you’ve even said such a thing (I know I have).

That’s why after repeated watchings we just had to share this viral video from YouTuber McJuggerNuggets about a crazy family with a dad that resorts to mowing down his layabout son’s video game collection to intimidate the kid into getting a job.

Check out this NSFW video (F-bombs galore) below and you’ll be as hooked on the uncomfortable family drama as we are.