gaming

It's called Project Unity, and it's been the labor of love for the modder known as Bacteria. It's taken three years and 3,500 hours of work, but it's finally done.

Unity houses the original circuit boards from 15 classic consoles, all powered by a single PSU and outputting via a single Scart cable.

Most clever of all is the single master gamepad designed by Bacteria. The controller actually takes a custom-built cartridge, which maps out the control interface for the required system. So, to play a PlayStation 2 game, for example, you plug the PS2 cartridge into the gamepad and it'll behave like the appropriate controller. … Read more

The Sims Social was once heralded as Electronic Arts' "most successful Facebook game," but now it's being laid to rest along with SimCity Social and Pet Society. These three social games will be extinct from Facebook as of June 14.

The game maker made the announcement today, saying that it was a hard decision but had to be done in order to "reallocate servers and resources to more popular titles," according to the FAQ section of its Web site.

"Today we are informing players of the difficult decision to retire some of our Facebook games: The Sims Social, SimCity Social, and Pet Society," EA wrote in a blog post today. "After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off."… Read more

Nintendo had yet another bad month in March, according to Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter.

In a research note to investors today, Pachter, who follows the gaming industry about as closely as any other analyst, said he believes Nintendo sold 55,000 Wii U units in the U.S. in March, representing a 17 percent decline compared to February. Perhaps even worse for Nintendo, its old Wii mustered 85,000 unit sales, falling 51 percent year-over-year, but still trumping a device that came out long before its latest.

Pachter, who each month releases his estimates on hardware sales based on channel … Read more

Many things can make a birthday special -- a nice dinner, a night out on the town, a long-lost friend decked in glitter popping out of a giant cake. Sometimes, however, a heartfelt geeky homemade gift can outshine them all.

Reddit user XsimonbelmontX went above and beyond for his wife's recent birthday by creating a highly customized version of Monopoly based on Fallout -- her favorite video game series.

The incredible attention to detail put into the game might astound you, as the creator, who identifies himself as Brandon, spared no mental expense at adding a Fallout touch to everything from the currency to the pieces.… Read more

It seems like Electronic Arts is still reeling from its recent leadership shakeup. The gaming company today confirmed that it is laying off an undisclosed number of employees.

"EA is sharpening its focus to provide games for new platforms and mobile. In some cases, this involves reducing team sizes as we evolve into a more efficient organization. These are difficult decisions to let go of good people who have made important contributions to EA, and whenever possible we retrain or relocate employees to new roles," a company spokesperson told CNET. "Streamlining our operations will help ensure EA … Read more

We recently complained about the lack of a single best-case gaming laptop for the Windows 8 era. That was largely because of the handful of portable PCs with higher-end graphics cards we'd reviewed in the six months since Microsoft's new OS took over, none thought to include a touch-screen display. That's a feature not particularly called for in even current-gen PC games, but it's one that Windows 8 practically begs for during the hours when you're not using your laptop for gaming.

Since then, we've finished reviews of a couple more gaming laptops -- … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- EA awarded "Worst Company in American History" for second consecutive year.

- Next Xbox won't be backward-compatible, report says.

- CNET How-to: How to make a video game patchbay.

- Warner Bros. Montreal developing Arkham City prequel starring "unrefined" Batman: Arkham Origins.

- 404 news: We're starting to break segments out into shorter clips that are easier to share. Help us blast these out to your friends, won't you? The first one is our report on the list of NSFW movies the Vatican is watching right now!… Read more

My boyfriend is a little different than most. His name is Taira-kun. He's big and strong, though his arms are tiny. He's actually a Tyrannosaurus rex, but I don't seem to hold that against him. I'm all caught up in Jurassic Heart, an online dating simulator that pairs you up with an extinct beast for a love interest.

The sim gives you difficult choices to make, like which hair clip to wear before meeting your big lug. Naturally, the meat-on-the-bone hair clip is the one to go with. Cute and yummy.

According to the sim, Taira and I have a lot in common. We both like meat. We both play the ukulele (at least I do in real life), though it doesn't get into the specifics of how the necktie-wearing dino manages to play the tiny instrument. The sim takes you through meeting up with your carniverous heartthrob, buying a ukulele, eating grilled chicken in the park, and taking a romantic evening walk.… Read more