Culture

Reno Forced Me To Use Parries In Final Fantasy VII Remake

Shocking though it may be, Final Fantasy VII wasn’t part of my childhood. As such, Remake has given me a great opportunity to learn more about this iconic roleplaying game. I’ve fallen in love with the bumbling members of Avalanche and find the overarching eco-terrorists vs. exploitative megacorp narrative compelling. And now the game is…

18 Months After Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar Has Made Big Cultural Changes

Last fall, nearly a year after the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, top Rockstar executive Jennifer Kolbe sent out an email to staff with a list of bullet-pointed initiatives to improve Rockstar’s culture. Rockstar, the game developer behind Grand Theft Auto and many other highly selling, often controversial games, had been widely criticized a…

Latest Cooking Mama Game Was An Unauthorized Release, Say Creators [Update]

The creator of the Cooking Mama games says it pulled the plug on the latest game, Cooking Mama: Cookstar, over quality concerns. Except the publisher went ahead and released it anyway. Controversy has been swirling around Cooking Mama: Cookstar ever since it temporarily went up for sale on the Nintendo Switch eShop at the end…

How’s It Going?: Zen Edition

We’ve made it to Wednesday. Welcome back to our daily open thread. Yesterday was not a stellar day for me. I made the mistake of reading some articles about what the future could look like, which sent me into a spiral of anxiety and despair. As human brains often do (or at least my brain),…

Pokémon Rumble Rush Ends Service In July

Mobile pocket monster battling game Pokémon Rumble Rush launched less than a year ago to universal agreement that it is indeed a game with Pokémon in it. It’s shutting down for good on July 22. A simplified mobile version of a game series that was already pretty basic, Pokémon Rumble Rush never had a lot…

Track: Ode To The Mets | Artist: The Strokes | Album: The New Abnormal

Atomic Bomb Dome. Hiroshima, Japan. By Luke. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line  

Luke, He Is Your Father

Rick Boer, once known around these parts as the King of Metal Gear cosplay, has since become a family man. Which hasn’t stopped his cosplay efforts; it just means he’s got someone else around to help out. These images show Rick and his son Luke (his actual, very good name). This first one below was…

Track: At All Times | Artist: Manga Saint Hilare | Album: Make It Out Alive

Bring Disney Infinity Back And Put Snoop In It

Alex Alvarado is an artist at Disney, where he’s worked on stuff like Frozen 2, Big Hero 6 and Moana You can see more of Alex’s stuff at his ArtStation page

Sex Games Are Voice Acting’s Wildest New Frontier

To the voice actress known as SilkyMilk, the most important part of her job is authenticity. Hentai, as a rule, is escapist entertainment: something prospective masturbators the world over turn to when the humdrum restrictions of reality fail to appease their fantasies. SilkyMilk believes it her highest honor is to reflect those same fantasies as…

Wolfenstein Is Now A Board Game

Now that the recent Wolfenstein games have fleshed out the series’ canon and roster of characters, it’s time for a board game to come in, promise some plastic miniatures and, as they always do, ask for money on Kickstarter it’s a co-op dungeon crawler, so anyone who has played anything from Space Hulk to Imperial…

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick Gave 10,000 Employees His Personal Cell Phone Number

Companies in the video game industry are handling the ongoing covid-19 pandemic in various ways, from retailers dragging their asses in protecting their employees to studios implementing work-from-home policies. Activision Blizzard’s plans include giving 10,000 workers a direct line to CEO Bobby Kotick. During a recent appearance on CNBC, Kotick spoke at length about how Activision Blizzard…

Riot Addresses Concerns Over Valorant‘s Always-On Anti-Cheat System

Players who install Valorant, the new first-person shooter from Riot, also add to their computer an anti-cheat system that activates whenever they boot up their computer. It’s practically always on, which caused quite a stir within the gaming community after being discovered yesterday. A Riot rep tells Kotaku that their anti-cheat system, called Riot Vanguard, needs…

A New XCOM Game Is Coming Out Next Week

I definitely didn’t wake up today expecting to suddenly have a new XCOM game on my radar for next week, but here we are. XCOM: Chimera Squad is a new standalone game set five years after XCOM 2. It’s coming to PC on April 24. Chimera Squad, announced today by publisher 2K and developer Firaxis,…

How’s It Going?: Life Lessons Edition

Good morning! Welcome back to our daily open thread. Yesterday, a friend of mine on Facebook asked people what things they’ve learned from or during this pandemic that they’d like to hold on to once life shifts to whatever “normal” is going to look like. I like this question a lot, and I tend to…

Minecraft Gets Graphics Overhaul Later This Week On PC

Players will be able to explore Minecraft with dazzling new visuals when its RTX Beta gets underway on April 16. Nvidia announced it was working on bringing real-time ray tracing to the popular open-world crafting game at last year’s Gamescom, and according to a new blog post by the company, the fruits of that labor…

The Nintendo Switch Finally Lets You Remap The Controls

At long last you can customize the button layout for your Joy-Con or Pro Controller on the Switch. The much-requested feature was added last night in a firmware update and means players can now change their controller layouts at the system level rather than only if specific games that allow for it. While great in…

Track: Lover, You Should’ve Come Over | Artist: Jeff Buckley | Album: Grace (Legacy Edition) 

Hideo Kojima’s P.T. Recreated In HyperCard Software

Since its release in 2014, Hideo Kojima’s P.T. has been recreated and inspired other games. But those games tend to keep the original P.T.’s shadowy, dark color palette. Game developer Ryan Trawick went a totally different direction.  Instead of making his own murky P.T. homage, Trawick created it in Apple’s HyperCard software. The result is monochromic,…