Ethan Gach

This Farming Sim Is Like Stardew Valley Except Really Sad

Picture a stripped down, hollowed out, watercolor version of Stardew Valley, and you’ll have something very close to The Stillness Of The Wind, which released on February 7 for Switch and PC. It feels like a trip to Grandma’s house filtered through the existential loneliness of a Samuel Beckett play. It can be relaxing but…

PCs Would Make FIFA Tournaments A Lot Simpler

There are still 13 weeks of matches left in the English Premier League’s 2018-2019 season, but EPL teams’ glory in the world of esports will be on the line this weekend in the FIFA eClub World Cup taking place in London. I hope it hurt you to see that lower case “e” as much as…

How Apex Legends’ Microtransactions Work

Respawn’s new battle royal game Apex Legends has tons of cosmetic unlockables, ranging from new character outfits to special animations for when you execute a downed player. All of them can be earned either by progressing in the game or by spending real money on loot boxes. Here’s a breakdown of how Apex Legends’ microtransactions…

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…

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…

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…

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…

God 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…

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…

Last fall’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider will join Xbox Game Pass starting February 7. Pumped BMX Pro and the first season of The Walking Dead will also get added that day. Crackdown 3, de Blob, and the Batman: Return to Arkham collection will follow later in the month.

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…

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…

Overcooked 2 gets a free Chinese New Year update today that adds new kitchens, chefs, and recipes. Most notably, it also brings a new survival mode where you try to cook for as long as possible as each new dish adds more time to the clock.

Warframe’s big Fortuna expansion arrives in the Switch version of the game February 5. In addition to getting a new open world space on Venus, story missions, and frames, the Switch version will also be getting a new option to enable motion controls only when aiming down sights.

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…

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.

Anthem‘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,…

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…

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…

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…