A fan of the 2001 GameCube game Wave Race: Blue Storm found a long-buried Easter egg in the racing game this week.

The code, posted to the NeoGAF message board by user “Raoul Duke,” unlocks a sardonic commentary track that insults the player at every move. “You don’t have an inferiority complex,” the announcer quips. “You’re just inferior.”

The code seems “pretty elaborate,” says Chris Bieniek, editor of Tips & Tricks Codebook magazine. “It’s separate from the password entry system that ..read the full article

Christopher Lloyd will reprise his role as Dr. Emmet Lathrop “Doc” Brown in the Back to the Future videogame, publisher Telltale Games said Wednesday.

This will be the first time the actor has portrayed the harried inventor of time travel since Universal Studios launched Back to the Future: The Ride in 1991.

Telltale announced its intention to revive the classic 80’s films as a videogame series earlier this year. Through a licensing agreement with Universal Studios, the maker of contemporary adventure ..read the full article

Hudson will donate 10 cents for every Facebook user that clicks the “Like” button on its forthcoming game Lost In Shadow.

Child’s Play is a pet charity of the videogame set. The organization, founded by Penny Arcade cartoonists Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, raises cash for children’s hospitals, providing toys, games, books and movies to sick kids. It’s not uncommon for game companies to tie Child’s Play fundraisers to promotions for their new games.

Here, Hudson is piggybacking its good deed ..read the full article

Chiptune artist Moldilox released a pair of songs last month for a videogame that never existed.

The two tunes, composed with the program MilkyTracker, are meant to be lost songs from the soundtrack to a NES game called Fourteen — a cart based on a bizarre manga of the same name by Kazuo Umezu.

The manga does indeed exist. Sadly, we are not fortunate enough to live in a universe where there was an 8-bit videogame that told the story of ..read the full article

Penny Arcade awarded a $10,000 scholarship to Jeffrey Lin, a PhD student from the University of Washington on Tuesday.

Lin wowed the scholarship judges with his plans to study how vision scientists can contribute to the field of game design. Prior to his win Lin was already hard at work studying visual cognition in video game players.

“Vision scientists have the tools and skills to help developers tackle problems from how to reduce motion sickness some experience in FPS titles to how ..read the full article

The videogame Portal is required reading for some Wabash College freshmen this year.

Michael Abbott, a teacher at the liberal arts college in Indiana, explained Friday how Valve’s first-person puzzler wound up on a reading list alongside work by Aristotle and Shakespeare.

Earlier in the year, Abbott found himself on a committee to create the curriculum for a mandatory freshman seminar called “Enduring Questions” –a class that seeks to encourage students to engage “fundamental questions of humanity” using works old and ..read the full article

A Star Wars fan uses a Wii Remote to gun down Tie Fighters.Screengrab: Gus Mastrapa

Star Wars Uncut, a crowdsourced remake of the original 1977 film, was released on Friday. Those with keen eyes will notice that more than a couple of the scenes use videogame controllers as sci-fi props.

The project, conceived by Casey Pugh, tasked hundred of civilians with reshooting 15-second segments of George Lucas’ classic space opera. Users voted on the best scenes, then Pugh and company strung ..read the full article

Herman Li (left) and Sam Totman play real guitars in DragonForce. The band, known for its challenging contribution to Guitar Hero III, will release its first live album Sept. 13.Image courtesy DragonForce

Can your ears handle a blistering live version of one of Guitar Hero’s most notorious tracks? Now you can hear — exclusively on Wired.com — a new recording of DragonForce’s “Through the Fire and Flames.”

Guitar gamers the world over know the name of DragonForce, the London metal band ..read the full article

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The soundtrack to Sony’s war-zone action game SOCOM 4 will sound a little familiar to anyone who’s seen Battlestar Galactica. Composer Bear McCreary, who wrote the epic music for the rebooted sci-fi TV show, will bring his signature blend of rock and ethnic instruments to the PlayStation 3 game, which Sony will launch in 2011.

Wired.com visited Skywalker Sound earlier this summer, where McCreary was recording the game’s soundtrack. While we were interloping on George Lucas’ ranch, we ..read the full article

Inside the Scout Backpack, pockets and other storage options make organizing your gear easy.

The Scout Backpack is mandatory gear for the geek on the go.

Created by Astro Gaming, purveyor of high-end gaming headphones, the Scout Backpack is designed with the gamer in mind. From the outside, the bag appears modest. But inside, it is lined with a buttery fabric that softly cradles all your gear.

This weekend, I loaded up the Scout for a brief trip. First, I slid my ..read the full article

Reader Link Holden alerts us to this goofy video produced by some interns at the EA Redwood Shores office. Shouldn’t they be doing work or something?

“Electronic Arts holds a contest where the interns from all of the studios are encouraged to create a video that shows ‘Day in the life as an Intern,’” reads the official description. This is Redwood Shores’ entry from this year. Clever!

An Invader sticker set will snazz up your wall.Image courtesy Vinyl Design

They conquered arcades in the ‘70 and now they’re coming for your rec room.

Win a set of Space Invaders-inspired wall stickers (pictured), courtesy of Vinyl Design, Australian purveyor of decorative decals.

The 27-piece, multicolored kits usually go for around $50. Vinyl Design’s Retro Vibe line also features stickers inspired by Tetris, Pac-Man and Pong.

Sound off in the comments below if you want your name thrown into the hat for ..read the full article

On August 8, some of the country’s best Tetris players will compete in Los Angeles for the title of world champion.

The Classic Tetris World Championship, hosted by Nintendo World Championships competitor Robin Mihara, is set to go down in the Downtown Independent Theater in Los Angeles.

Competitive Tetris players Harry Hong, Thor Aackerlund, Jesse Kelkar, Jonas Neaubauer, Ben Mullen, Daniel Anderson and Dana Wilcox will play the classic NES version of the game in a tournament overseen by Twin Galaxies‘ Kelly ..read the full article

The once-rumored director of the BioShock movie has decided to make videogames of his own.

Guillermo Del Toro is on the verge of announcing a partnership with a major company that would see him making videogames, the director told MTV News on Wednesday.

“We’re going to do games that are going to be technically and narratively very interesting,” the Mexican filmmaker promised.

Del Toro, it should be noted, has excellent taste in games. He’s a fan of Shadow of the Colossus, BioShock ..read the full article

Image: Olly Moss/A Life Well Wasted

Stop what you’re doing and go listen to the latest installment of the Life Well Wasted podcast. It’s 58 minutes well spent.

A Life Well Wasted is recorded and mixed by one man, Robert Ashley. He used to be a prolific game journalist, even covering such topics as World of Warcraft and Spore for Wired magazine. As of late, he’s been pushing the boundaries of the podcast form.

Ashley goes out and finds the most interesting ..read the full article

The massive book of Rockstar Games’ art has been canceled and a new project is underway, publishing representatives said to Wired.com.

Alexander Galen, vice president of Distributed Art Publishers, informed Wired.com last week that plans for the comprehensive $450 tome, called Digital + Analogue: The Art and Science of Rockstar Games, had been scrapped since it was announced over a year ago.

A representative from publisher Steidl confirmed that the listing on the company’s website was erroneous and has since been removed.

According ..read the full article

Deadpool and Ryu exchange uppercuts in the comic-crossover fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 3, which will be playable at Comic-Con International this week.Image courtesy Capcom

Comic book superheroes and videogame characters will collide at Comic-Con International, the annual convention that gears up this week in San Diego.

The big game will undoubtedly be Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, the long-awaited return of one of the greatest crossovers in gaming. Set to be released next spring, it’s a coke-fueled ..read the full article

The most common phrase in videogames is now suitable for framing.

A new print from New York-based artist Shelter Serra depicts a hand-rendered, hot pink version of the “Game Over” message seen in videogames since the dawn of the medium.

In a video interview Serra says the Game Over piece is a commentary on the fleeting nature of the worlds we visit when escaping the one we live in.

A second print from Serra, though not directly referencing videogames, may be of interest ..read the full article