gaming

Since its first release in 1997, the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) video game series has given gamers a nearly unlimited supply of chaos and mayhem on virtual city streets. For several months now, Rockstar has been teasing hungry gamers with exciting screenshots from the highly anticipated GTA V.… Read more

Before "Game of Thrones" became a pop culture phenomenon, pretty much the only people thinking about dire wolves were historians and paleontologists. Canus dirus means "fearsome dog." The massive wolfy creatures are long extinct, but they've gained a new popularity through the "Game of Thrones" books and television show.

Fans can already get a Hand of the King replica pin, a replica Iron Throne, and even a "Game of Thrones" beer, but they haven't been able to get a dire wolf. That could change soon. The Dire Wolf Project has quietly been in the works since 1987.… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--If you could play high-end, 3D games in your browser at the same speed as on a console, would you? Here at the annual Game Developers Conference, the maker of Firefox revealed a plan to get you to do just that.

Mozilla's current holy grail is getting the mix of HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS that powers the modern Web to run apps at speeds that rival native code, the operating system-dependent languages underpinning apps on iOS, Android, Windows 8, and other proprietary systems.

The not-so-secret weapon in Mozilla's plan is something called ASM.js, said Director of Engineering Vladimir Vukicevic. "It's a dialect of JavaScript that can optimize [code] much better. It's around two times as fast," he said.… Read more

This fall, many gamers will return to the battlefield -- Battlefield 4, that is. We've got all the details, including preorder information and console availability.

During an event yesterday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, game maker DICE delivered a heart-pumping trailer featuring 17 minutes of Battlefield 4's single-player action. As Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" played in the background, the montage opened with the protagonist, Recker, waking up to find himself and his outfit trapped in a Jeep that was sinking to the bottom of the ocean.… Read more

So many deals, so little time!

1. Mo' terabytes, mo' savings. If your PC doubles as a media center, especially one that pulls DVR duty, you can't have too much storage. Likewise, if you work with a lot of video, you can't have too much storage.

While supplies last, TigerDirect has the Western Digital Elements 3TB USB hard drive for $99.99, plus $3.80 for shipping. That's after redeeming a $20 mail-in rebate (PDF), which makes this the least expensive 3TB external drive I've ever seen.

It's a USB 2.0 drive, alas, but … Read more

Auralux (iOS|Android) on its surface is a beautiful and simple strategy game, but it quickly gets very challenging as you progress through levels. Your job is to conquer suns, and ultimately two AI-controlled teams using a single type of unit.

There have been other similar strategy games for mobile devices, but none that kept the gameplay so incredibly simple. When you start out, you have one sun that is producing an army per second, as does each other team. But before you rush to attack another team, you'll want to conquer gray, uninhabited suns by sending your armies. … Read more

If you're starving for information about Battlefield 4, three new screenshots found on EA's Web server might whet your appetite.

CNET confirmed the authenticity of the screenshots after downloading the files from an insecure EA Web directory associated with the official Battlefield blog. In comparison with its predecessor, BF4 appears to contain massive upgrades, especially when it comes to textures and draw distance, as well as considerable improvements in the way soldiers and weapons appear. … Read more

Game maker Popcap today revealed Plants vs. Zombies Adventures (PvZA) beta for Facebook, but gamers might be more interested in the mention of Plants vs. Zombies 2.

The social spinoff PvZA takes gardeners out of the backyard (the primary setting in the first game) and sends them on the road to fight off ravenous zombies. To freshen up gameplay, Popcap enhanced the title with new plants, zombies, and defenses, as well as the implementation of social features that include leaderboards and community challenges. … Read more