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Listen To Banjo Read Magic: The Gathering Cards
Banjo, the titular bear from N64’s Banjo-Kazooie, can speak, but not in words. When he moves his mouth only gibberish comes out. It’s a cursed virtual life he leads, especially when he’s forced to read the words on Magic: The Gathering cards. Reddit user haochies created a program called Banjo MTG. It’s pretty straightforward: type…
By Ethan Gach -
Team Fortress 2 YouTuber Returns Three Years After Faking Terminal Illness
The popular Team Fortress 2 YouTuber known as Sketchek has returned to the platform after a three-year hiatus with a new video in which he admits to having lied about being terminally ill. In a now-deleted video originally uploaded to YouTube in November 2015, Sketchek told his fans in the Team Fortress 2 community that…
By Ethan Gach -
Club Penguin Speedrunner Sets New Record In Fan Remake
In May 2016 a player who goes by supermanover00 decided to speedrun the children’s online browser game Club Penguin by seeing how fast they could complete all 11 missions in the game, which they did at 45:43. Club Penguin is no more, but nearly three years later, supermanover00 has returned and beat their previous record…
By Ethan Gach -
Microsoft’s Inside Xbox Show Isn’t Working
Yesterday afternoon, Microsoft aired its latest episode of Inside Xbox, a monthly livestream in which the company updates players on new stuff in the world of Xbox. Like most episodes of Inside Xbox, it was long, precisely staged, and light on interesting news. If new Nintendo Directs have become exciting, mini-E3 press conferences, new episodes…
By Ethan Gach -
OpinionImpressionsGod Eater 3 Is Like Monster Hunter But Simpler
The God Eater series is Bandai Namco’s take on Monster Hunter, and while not nearly as big or deep as the best games in that series, God Eater 3 does a good job of making up for those shortcomings with flashy combat and an apocalyptic backdrop that helps raise the stakes. God Eater 3, which…
By Ethan Gach -
The 3DS Is Even Dying Better Than The Vita
People have been calling PlayStation Vita a dead console for years. Now, Nintendo’s 3DS seems poised to join it, with hardly any new games on the horizon for the rest of 2019. Yet even in death, Nintendo’s clam-shelled handheld still feels more alive and vibrant than Vita. The 3DS’s annual lineup has grown thinner with…
By Ethan Gach -
The Voice Chat Software In Fortnite Switch Is Now Available For All Developers
All Switch developers can now license the voice-chat software that powers the Switch version of Fortnite, the company behind the tech said today. That means an easy solution for developers who want to let you chat in Switch games using a headset plugged into the console, and not Nintendo’s bizarro-world phone app. Vivox, a tech…
By Ethan Gach -
Review Site OpenCritic Says It’ll Start Keeping Track Of Games With Loot Boxes
The review aggregation website OpenCritic announced today that games with loot box mechanics will now include a warning at the top of their OpenCritic page pointing that out. On Overwatch’s OpenCritic page, for example, there’s now a bolded section highlighted in orange right below the aggregated scores that reads: “Please note: This game has monetized…
By Ethan Gach -
Players Are Making Advance Wars And Fire Emblem Maps Inside Wargroove
Wargroove is an excellent spiritual successor to the Advance Wars series, and in keeping with the tradition of those games, it comes complete with a robust map editor that players can use to make all sorts of interesting stuff., One player used it to remake the campaign from the original Advance Wars Though it’s been…
By Ethan Gach -
The black and white adventure game Minit can be beaten in under half an hour, but only 5% of players have One of the game’s designers shared some completion statistics on Twitter today, one of which showed that an incredible 0.3% of players defeated the final boss but never finished the game.
By Ethan Gach -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryAnthem‘s Demo Ends With An Exciting Cloud And A Less Exciting Rock Monster
Anthem’s open demo, which launched this past weekend, had its first “mini-event” last night. A fiery vortex formed in the sky, and some big rock monsters appeared on the ground below. It made for a nice change of visuals and something new to hunt, but like a lot of what the demo has shown off,…
By Ethan Gach -
Esports
Yoshi’s Story Is Back In This Weekend’s Smash Tournament
“Yoshi’s Story” is an extremely small Super Smash Bros. stage that first appeared in Smash Bros. Melee. Now it’s in Smash Bros. Ultimate, and the organizers of Genesis 6 have decided to make it playable in one of Smash’s biggest annual tournaments this weekend, showing a healthy willingness to experiment when it comes to the…
By Ethan Gach -
Four Months After Release, Super Mario Party Has Never Gotten An Update
These days, most video games get a regular stream of updates full of bug fixes, balance tweaks, and new content. Even Nintendo has made a habit of patching all of the games it publishes. There’s just one glaring exception: Super Mario Party, which is still on version 1.0. Few major first-party Nintendo games have felt…
By Ethan Gach -
Someone Got Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Working On A Sony Watchman
Sometimes gaming enthusiasts are so preoccupied with whether or not they can, they never stop to think if they should. How else to explain one Smash Bros. fan’s decision to create an elaborate retro electronics setup so they could play 10 rounds of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the 1.8 inch screen of a Sony…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureKotaku Game Diary
For Honor’s New Fighter Leans Into The Game’s Simple Pleasures
For Honor got its first new fighter of 2019 yesterday: Black Prior. I could talk about how it’s cool that Black Prior is sort of emo and brooding and has a weird affection for skulls. Or how the character puts an interesting emphasis back on turtling, a strategy that almost strangled the fun out of…
By Ethan Gach -
Anthem‘s Fragmented Launch Risks Ruining What Makes Online Games Great
Remember when games used to just, come out? They had a release day. On that release day, or potentially the night before, you’d go to the store, hand a person some cash, the same amount as everyone else, and walk out with a game that you could then go home and immediately start playing. That…
By Ethan Gach -
Nintendo’s Internal Data Shows That Smash Bros. Ultimate Is Pretty Balanced
We already suspected that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s roster was pretty evenly matched, and now we’ve got data from the game’s lead creator to prove it. r. In a new column for the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai shared some data on the wins and losses of many of the game’s…
By Ethan Gach