Cecilia D'Anastasio

Arms Lets You Fight In A Hoverboard Skate Park, And It Is Dope

The Nintendo Switch’s upcoming fighting game Arms offers much more than battle slinkies. Its wild maps might be its best asset. Right now, I’m obsessed with Arms’ Snake Park map, where you can glide on hoverboards and punch people in the face. It’s the Arms character Kid Cobra’s map (ha ha—get it?). He’s a skateboarder…

D&D‘s Upcoming Adventure Is All About Zombies And Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs are coming to Dungeons & Dragons with its upcoming adventure, Tomb of Annihilation. Slated for a September 19th release, Tomb of Annihilation will have players hacking through a jungle full of undead, dinosaurs and, yes, undead dinosaurs to find a legendary artifact that could quell a curse. D&D lead designer Mike Mearls described Tomb…

The Best Tekken 7 Characters For Beginners

Tekken was not, and never will be, easy to master. Its latest iteration, out today, is no different. In Tekken 7, it can feel like there’s no middle ground between button-mashing and five-move combos. My current main Alisa, I’ve learned, has 131 entries in her move list. That’s intimidating. But after spending some time with…

D&D‘s Biggest Livestream Event Happens Tomorrow

Dungeons & Dragons’ biggest livestreaming event ever goes down tomorrow. Steam of Annihilation will be two days of D&D games played by the game’s designers and big fan personalities. Throughout the stream, publisher Wizards of the Coast will dole out info on D&D’s next storyline. It was fans who spurred publisher Wizards of the Coast…

Overwatch‘s New Moon Map Is Heaven For Snipers

Space is the place, and as of yesterday, a new Overwatch map. Overwatch released its Lunar Colony assault map onto its public test realm and it’s certainly a new and uncharted frontier. It’s a labyrinthine maze of hallways, barriers and side-rooms—pulled together by two control points—that’s themed after an abandoned moon base where the gorilla…

Funimation plans to bring the upcoming live-action Tokyo Ghoul movie to North American theaters, Crunchyroll reports It will be released in Japan late July.

Programmer Puts $50,000 On Stock Market, Lets Twitch Decide What To Do

Yesterday, “playing the stock market” took on a whole new meaning. On new Twitch channel Stock Stream, Amazon engineer Mike Roberts entrusted his $50,000 savings to the chaos that is Twitch chat, where thousands of anonymous users invest it in what they please. Roberts says it’s the world’s first co-op, multiplayer game that uses real…

Our First Impressions Of Tekken 7: Satisfying, Difficult

Early on in Tekken 7’s story mode, I’m told to throw Heihachi’s five-year-old son off a cliff. It’s canon in the Tekken series, typically a drama saved for cut scenes. Here, it’s flippant—push the square and triangle buttons and, buh-bye, kid Tekken 7, which will release on June 2nd, entices players who, like me, fell…

Overwatch‘s New Map Is On The Moon

Overwatch just premiered its newest map, which is set on the moon circa 2060. It’s Horizon Lunar Colony, an assault map where players battle it out to capture the point while discovering clues from the former scientific base. Check it out: Of course, it’s a map for Overwatch’s beloved Winston, a genetically-engineered gorilla who used…

A Nostalgic Game That Spills Out Into Your Internet Browser

If the medium is the message, then AOL’s messaging software—at least for my generation—has the same sentimentality as whatever we talked about over it. That’s the pitch of Emily Is Away Too, a new visual novel that plays out in “EOL” Instant Messenger windows, away messages and personal profiles. I played its predecessor, 2015’s Emily…

Just Because is an upcoming anime about a group of high schoolers and their old friend who transfers to their class right before graduation. Artists behind Sword Art Online: Progressive and The Pet Girl of Sakurasou are working on it.

‘Only Girl Syndrome’ Pits Gamer Girls Against One Another

Last week, footage of two women fighting in Overwatch went viral.“You’re one of the worst Mercys I’ve ever played with,” one told her team’s Mercy player. “Me? You’re the Mercy who’s rezzing one person and feel like they’re really good,” the second player, Bailee, shot back. The two women were at each other’s throats, arguing…

Magic: The Gathering‘s Duel Decks Are Perfect For Casuals

Magic: The Gathering is a very good card game that I am very picky about playing. I’m a casual player, more likely to challenge a friend at a bar than attend a local tournament. I’m not about to pore over apps and blogs to assemble some impenetrable, holy deck; I’d rather play Magic: The Gathering…

Microsoft’s Twitch competitor Beam just got some new bells and whistles. Now rebranded as “Mixer,” the platform now offers co-streaming, which lets up to 4 streamers combine their streams into one broadcast, and a mobile streaming app, currently in beta.

Burnt-Out Smash Pros Are Talking About Unionizing

Earlier this week, Smash 4’s top player admitted he was overwhelmed: “We really need an off season,” Gonzalo “Zero” Barrios wrote on Twitter. “Committed players are traveling the whole year [with] no breaks.” The conversation snowballed. Fans, tournament organizers and fellow players noted that, to organize an off season, the anarchic Smash 4 community would…

Wargaming Apologizes For Threatening YouTuber, Promises Change

The studio behind the massively successful game World of Tanks walked backtheir controversial actions against one of their former community YouTubers today. “We acted too quickly and over the line when we threatened to have YouTube remove SirFoch’s video through a copyright infringement complaint,” the company said in a statement. “And we are apologizing for…

Overwatch Anniversary Event Brings Some Killer Dances

Overwatch’s one-year anniversary event is live—that means tons of new Legendary skins, three new arena maps and a slew of new bringing-me-to-tears adorable dancing emotes. Happy birthday, Overwatch, and may each year bring a new iteration of Sombra doing the Shuffle. First, let’s take a look at some Legendary skins: And my favorite…. The new…

My Eye-Opening Trip To An Anime Maid Cafe 

It would be a gross understatement to say that I do not enjoy Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. The viral winter anime turns my stomach with its nauseating mix of saccharine anime tropes and raunchy fan service. And, on top of that, somebody who is both dear to me and on my apartment’s lease will not…

Blizzard May Have Clarified Pharah’s Controversial Background In Overwatch [Correction]

Early in its now year-long life, Overwatch’s Egyptian hero Pharah’s Native American-styled skins sparked wide controversy over cultural appropriation. We spoke to Blizzard about Pharah’s backstory, and while they wouldn’t fully confirm her heritage, Blizzard offered some insight on their controversial design decision. Since Overwatch’s release, Pharah’s heritage has been a point of contention. Two…

Blizzard Says Overwatch Wasn’t Meant To Be Political, But It’s Not That Simple

At yesterday’s New York Overwatch event, in a rented-out space in midtown Manhattan, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan stood in front of a slide showcasing an old Egyptian woman, an autistic Indian woman, a bodybuilding Russian woman, a plump Chinese woman and a Mexican hacker woman. “One thing that we did with the game that…