Jason Schreier

The Mona Lisa, As A Next-Gen Video Game

You may have seen the original version of this imageat some point over the past few years. Now it’s been updated for our upcoming era of microtransactions, as seen in games like Ryse, Forza 5, Crimson Dragon, NBA 2k14, Killer Instinct, and Dead Rising 3. Welcome to the future. (via @toythatkills)

As Xbox One Complaints Increase, Microsoft Promises Improvements

Day-one Xbox One adopters have had their consoles for a week and a half now, and the warts are starting to show. Over the past few days, we’ve seen a surge of complaints about the new Xbox’s interface and operating system, and today, Microsoft’s publicly promising that they’ll do better. We mentioned a few of…

You Can Access The Xbox One’s Developer Tools Right Now [UPDATE]

If you’d like to take revenge on the Xbox One for watching you move and listening to everything you say, you can now get inside its brain and see a whole bunch of developer settings you probably shouldn’t be looking at. Every Xbox One is rigged to be a developer kit, as Microsoft told us…

How To Find Demos On Xbox One

Good news: the Xbox One has game demos! Bad news: they’re kind of annoying to find. You can’t see the free versions of each game in the Xbox One store itself—and there aren’t all that many available yet (though Microsoft’s Larry Hryb promises to keep us updated)—so if you want to find demos for the…

Hi folks! No Random Encounters today—I’m off for Thanksgiving—but you can talk about all things JRPG right here. I’ll start things off with a poll: What’s the best Dragon Quest? I think DQVIII gets my vote.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s a picture of Mario chasing after a decapitated Toad head. (via Alison Rapp)

Skyrim For $7.50 Highlights Steam Thanksgiving Sale

Happy Thanksgiving! Skyrim is $7.50 on PC today. Sleeping Dogs is $5. So is Rogue Legacy The Steam sale is live right here, and you’ll have to do some digging to find all of the deals. If you uncover any great ones, post’em below.

Mod Skyrim, Get Job At Bungie

Want to get a job at Bungie, one of the world’s most respected video game studios? Easy. Spend thousands of hours writing a Skyrim mod so detailed and intricate, it feels like an expansion pack. That’s what Alexander J. Velicky did, and now he says he’s taking a designer position at the studio best known…

Why I’m Not Buying That Fallout 4 ‘Teaser’ Website

UPDATE (12/7): Yep. It was a hoax Original story follows: For the past few weeks, our tips inbox has been overflowing with messages about Fallout 4, which everyone assumes will be the next game from the talented folks at Bethesda Game Studios. The hypothetical next Fallout game is getting a lot of attention on sites…

The Vita Gets A Slick New JRPG Today

The PlayStation Vita needs more games like Ys: Memories of Celceta, a Falcom-developed action-RPG that comes out today for Sony’s portable system. Ports of games like Borderlands 2 and Spelunky are great and all, but this is the type of game that the Vita really deserves: a sharp, solid JRPG that you can only play…

Did Your Xbox One Disc Drive Break? You Get A Free Game

Good news for anyone with a broken Xbox One: Microsoft is offering free games to anyone affected by the infamous disc drive issue that caused brand new games to make a terrible grinding noise upon insertion. One affected user told me about the deal on Twitter today, and Polygon got an e-mail confirming news of…

The lovely turn-based RPG Festival of Magic, which was showcased at PAX Prime a few months ago, is now on Kickstarter. They’re asking for $250,000.

Xbox One Has The Best Error Messages

Via Twitterer @getB3NT, behold the greatest error message on any video game console. “Because of your past behavior, you can’t Xbox Live Gold is required to use Skype for Xbox One.” (Note: @getB3NT says you get that error message if you swear in a private Skype call, but I just spent like five minutes cursing…

Valve Announces Steam Reviews

Valve is launching a crowd-sourced review system on Steam, and it’ll let you give ratings to any game in your library on the PC distribution network. The beta goes live today You’ll also be able to rate other peoples’ reviews, like you can on networks like Amazon. Presumably this will work better than the infamously…

There’s A New Final Fantasy Out Today, And You Should Stay Far Away

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years hits iOS and Android today, and while it’s not as egregiously offensive as some other games in the once-beloved series (like the microtransaction machine All The Bravest), it is a terrible game and you should stay away. I wrote a little bit about The After Years last year, so…

Reports Of Xbox One Disc Drive Issues Increase

As we continue to hear from more and more brand new Xbox One owners who say their disc drives don’t work, Microsoft’s solution remains the same: contact customer service. That’s unfortunate news for affected gamers who thought there could be a DIY fix for what we’re calling, for lack of a catchier name, the “Disc…

Microsoft Has No Clear Solution For Xbox One Disc Drive Issues

If you got an Xbox One today and your disc drive isn’t working, Microsoft has no answer for you yet—they say to contact their customer service people for help. Microsoft doesn’t have a fix yet for the issue, which has caused Xbox One Blu-ray drives to make a horrible grinding noise when they try to…

The Next Generation Of JRPGs

It’s official: next-gen is now current-gen. We’ve got a whole new generation of video games to complain about, and two brand new consoles with zero JRPGs to play on them. Yeah, that’s a thing. If you’ve followed next-gen mania at all, you’ve probably noticed the serious lack of Japanese role-playing games. I’ve been keeping a…

YouTuber Says He Was Censored For Criticizing Another YouTuber

This morning, video-maker Matt Lees put up a video criticizing another YouTuber, KSIOlajidebt. A few hours later, it was taken down—removed by YouTube due to a copyright claim by KSIOlajidebt himself. Censorship? Lees, who works for the website Videogamer.com, sure thinks so. KSI, who has four million subscribers on YouTube, is a controversial figure in…

Xbox One Disc Drive Issues Reported By Small Number Of Users

Several Xbox One buyers have reported disc drive issues affecting their brand new consoles, and although we don’t know just how big a problem this is, the videos floating around are a little nerve-wracking. In the few videos I’ve seen so far, all posted this morning on YouTube, new Xbox One owners pop in game…