Ian Walker

Crying Suns Is Like FTL But With A Better Story

After raising over €72,000 in crowdfunded donations last year, Crying Suns is set to arrive on Steam tomorrow, September 19. Its art style and core mechanics both draw obvious inspiration from similar, years-old releases, with a narrative that constantly makes promises of answers over the horizon. Despite a dizzying opening determined to beat players over…

Did You Know Mickey Mouse And Donald Duck Parodies Almost Appeared In Shin Megami Tensei?

Before the arrival of Kingdom Hearts in 2002, it seemed impossible to imagine Disney characters appearing alongside original characters in a Japanese role-playing game. But it apparently came close to happening back in 1992, almost 10 years before the world was introduced to Sora and company. As some longtime fans may already know, two unused…

Street Fighter Champion Gives Up Thousands In Protest Of Japanese Bureaucracy

This past weekend, a legendary Street Fighter player placed first in what was perhaps the most stacked Street Fighter V tournament ever, but he will only be taking home a fraction of his prize money. That’s due to Japan’s heavily restrictive laws on competitive gaming and his own personal principles. Yusuke Momochi is one of…

Brilliant Mario Maker 2 Designer Makes Courses Unlike Any Mario Game

The suite of building blocks offered by Mario Maker 2 means there’s no shortage of creative users out there fine-tuning a wide array of levels that would likely never be seen in the original series. But one of my favorite creators is uniquely capable of making me forget that what I’m playing is technically still…

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is set to launch on January 17, 2020. The action RPG’s latest teaser reveals that it will follow Goku’s story through at least the Majin Buu saga, which means appearances by the eponymous pink antagonist and Gohan alter-ego Great Saiyaman are thankfully in order.

The Internet Reacts To Fire Emblem: Three Houses’ New Outfits

Tactical dating simulator Fire Emblem: Three Houses received a sizable update this morning, giving folks some more stuff to play around with as they alternate between leading teenagers into battle and attempting to woo the guy or gal of their digital dreams. In addition getting several new auxiliary battles and an extra-difficult mode for the…

Video Games Get One Step Closer To Being In The Olympics

Although the Olympics are known more physical competitive pursuits like gymnastics and swimming, the organization has been inching closer and closer to the world of esports over the last few years. Its latest toe dip into the water comes in the form of a $500,000 gaming tournament hosted with Intel, held during the lead-up to…

Sayonara Wild Hearts is coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Apple Arcade on September 19. This stylish “dream pop collection” arrives in a month already packed with game releases, so don’t expect Stephen to check it out for awhile

A New Bomb Trick Is Blowing Up Breath Of The Wild Speedrunning

The act of finishing a video game as quickly as possible, or speedrunning, is an iterative process that evolves quickly with the contributions of a large community. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has seen numerous updates to its speedrunning strategies in just two years, and the latest technique has the potential to…

Gothic Platformer Offers Brutal Combat With A Side Of Religious Trauma

Blasphemous, the indie platformer that Spanish studio The Game Kitchen crowd-funded two years ago, is now available on every major gaming platform. While I wasn’t one of theKickstarter backers, I have been looking forward to this release for some time, both as a fan of difficult Souls-like games and someone who has long had a…

Mortal Kombat 11 Rookie Steamrolls Evo Champion SonicFox To Win Major Tournament

The ongoing Mortal Kombat 11 Pro Kompetition made its first and only stop in Canada last weekend, bringing players to the Great White North to compete for a chunk of points towards qualifying for the finals next year. Even with some of the world’s greatest players in attendance, the Mortal Kombat 11 tournament at DreamHack…

Celeste‘s Upcoming Free DLC Closes Out The Story

In a surprise announcement, the folks behind Celeste revealed that the endearing puzzle-platformer will be getting some new content in just a few days. Chapter 9: Farewell will launch, appropriately, on September 9. Celeste ended on an upbeat note and strawberry cake, but the developers weren’t ready to say goodbye to the world they shared…

Stop Telling Me To Drink The New Tea Pokémon, Nintendo

Last night’s Nintendo Direct was full of announcements, but the most exciting for Pokémon fans was likely the segment that detailed new content in the upcoming Pokémon Sword and Shield. This included reveals for two new Pokémon, one of which Nintendo is very eager for fans to literally drink. The last few installments of the Pokémon…

Red Dead Online will receive its next update on September 10. Frontier Pursuits introduces three additional Specialist roles—Bounty Hunter, Trader, and Collector—as well as a free membership that rewards players as they level up and The Outlaw Pass, which increases those gains for the price of 35 gold bars.

Undertale‘s Sans Joins Smash Bros. As A Mii Fighter Costume

The next batch of Mii costumes heading to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will be headlined by good skeleton boy Sans from Undertale, the hit indie RPG that was ported to Switch a little over a year ago. This announcement came during a special presentation after this evening’s Nintendo Direct. Super Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai…

The Legend of Bum-bo is heading to PC via Steam on November 12. This prequel to the oft-updated The Binding of Isaac is a puzzle-based deck-building rogue-like adventure that tasks players with finding the titular Bum-bo’s stolen coin. If it’s anything like Isaac, I’ll be playing it for the next decade.

Apex Legends’ New Event Turns Everyone Into Glass Cannons

Apex Legends got a big update today, called “Voidwalker” due to its focus on resident goth character Wraith. It adds updated challenges, limited edition items, changes to the map, and a limited-time mode featuring powerful weapons and minimal armor. Much like the previous Apex Legends event, which let playersplay solo, the biggest draw of Voidwalker…

Pokémon Masters received its first big event today. “Reach for the Top” gives players the opportunity to team up with Blue and his Pidgeot in a handful of new story chapters while also making the original Pokémon rival more likely to drop in the random trainer pull. Good luck!

Following in the footsteps of other fighting game devs, SNK recently announced an official competition for both Samurai Shodown and King of Fighters XIV The SNK World Championship is scheduled for March 2020, and the entire shebang will feature a prize pool of over 10 million yen, or around $95,000.

The Soulcalibur World Invitational is heading to Las Vegas on November 2. Seven of the world’s best Soulcalibur VI players will be joined by one challenger from an open qualifier to compete for a prize pool of $25,000.