Culture

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for trying to make focaccia, after last weekend’s attempt at Mark Bittman’s no-knead bread was, uh, unsuccessful. Bread requires a lot of sitting around, though, so that’s plenty of times for video games. Fortnite has a big season event this weekend, so I’ll be tuned into that Sunday afternoon. Beforehand, Frostpunk is…

Frostpunk‘s Developers Don’t Want To Call The Console Version A Port

Snowy city-builder Frostpunk was one of my favorite games of 2018, even though most of my Victorian outposts fell to cold, starvation, or citizen uprisings. Video producer Paul Tamayo and I sat down with the game’s developers from 11 Bit Studios to talk about how they’re bringing the PC survival game to consoles this summer.…

The Tension Of Playing Overwatch During A Blizzard Controversy

Yesterday, like I do every day, I wrapped up my workday, closed my Chrome tabs and, without pausing, hit the Windows button on my keyboard. In the search bar, I typed “Over-” and hit enter. My eyes found the big, blue “Play” button on the game launcher. Overwatch’s familiar orchestral music swelled and, in an…

The Confusing End Of Destiny 2 Shadowkeep, Explained

Destiny 2’s latest expansion ends with a cliffhanger, one that suggests that it is the final set-up for a fight the series has been building to since the franchise debuted in 2014. We’ve got some theories about what it means. The campaign’s final scene is mysterious. An unknown artifact transports you to a flowery, grassy…

Track: I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus | Artist: Beabadoobee | Album: I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus

Fish. Kyoto, Japan. By Brian Ashcraft | Twitter 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!

Donald Trump Has A Twitch Channel Now

Donald Trump got a Twitch channel, from which he’s currently livestreaming a rally in Minneapolis. This is how we live now. As of this writing, Trump’s channel has almost 9,000 followers, and about 8,700 are watching his rally in Minnesota. The chat is moving rapidly, but there are walls of “IMPEACH,” as well as a…

PC Game Install Sizes Are Ballooning And I’m Scared

Earlier today, I was reading over the PC hardware specifications for the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and, when I reached the hard drive space requirement, did a double-take. 175 GB. For one game. My hard drive currently has less than half that space free for all games. And Modern Warfare is far from…

College Hearthstone Players Who Held Up ‘Free Hong Kong’ Sign Drop Out Of Tournament

Earlier this week, three collegiate Hearthstone players on the American University team held up a sign that read “Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz” during a stream broadcasted on Blizzard’s official Hearthstone Twitch channel. They expected a suspension similar to the one that, the day before, putpro player Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai on the sidelines for…

New Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Speedrunning Trick Shaves Three Hours Off Previous Record

Grand Theft Auto games are huge, which makes speedrunning them a time-consuming proposition. A complicated new trick discovered for San Andreas has shortened a run that normally took almost four hours to under 30 minutes. The new trick—whose name, “Arbitrary Jump In Skip,” could honestly use some work—is only doable on the Windows Store version…

When I Was A Kid, Spider-Man On Genesis Was The Scariest Shit

Like a lot of people around this time of year, I spend a lot of October thinking about being frightened. This is pretty new for me. I was a nervous, fearful kid who grew up as a teen in a religious home, so I spent my entire youth avoiding horror either by choice or by…

PewDiePie Is Having Second Thoughts About The Whole YouTube Thing

A profile of YouTuber Pewdiepie in the New York Times titled “What Does Pewdiepie Really Believe?” does not quite answer that question. In fact, Pewdiepie himself does not seem to know. New York Times writer Kevin Roose spoke to Pewdiepie, nee Felix Kjellberg, in the aftermath of March’s shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a…

Pokémon Masters Producer Knows His Game Is Boring, Apologizes

Yu Sasaki, producer on mobile game Pokémon Masters, recently issued a public apology for the game’s lack of content. His lengthy statement acknowledges a list of player grievances, which includes poor battle design and usability, and promises to address them. “We’re disappointed we did not meet the expectations of our community, and for this, we…

I Succeed At This Game By Trying The Silly Shit You’d Be Punished For In Other Games

I love old-school adventure games so damn much, but sometimes I just can’t manage to finish them. I get stuck on puzzles but I’m often too stubborn to consult a guide, or I lose patience with their pacing, or sometimes I’m just tired of looking at my laptop screen (most of the adventure games I…

Indie Developer And Her Boyfriend Talk About Making A Game About Their Relationship

Nina Freeman’s calling card as a developer is allowing a player to enter into her life. Some of her games, like Cibele, which is about a relationship that takes place over an MMO, have been semi-autobiographical. Now, Freeman and her real-life partner, Jake Jefferies, have turned their relationship intoan intimate video game called We Met…

Mill Decks In Magic: The Gathering Are A Goddamn Bummer

“Dishonorable” isn’t a word you hear a lot in Magic: The Gathering. It’s good to win and bad to lose, and whatever strategy most consistently gets you that win is good in itself, too. Knights know that’s not the case—that there are both honorable and undignified ways to win—which is a little ironic, because ever…

Soon, Steam Will Let You Play Local Multiplayer Games Online

Sometimes, you’d rather stretch out on the living room couch in your underwear than be the deli meat in a couch co-op sandwich. Valve today shared its plans to make Steam’s local multiplayer games playable online, so from now on, you won’t have to elbow your way into some personal space when you’re already screaming…

Track: Koufukuron (A View of Happiness) | Artist: Sheena Ringo | Album: Muzai Moratorium -Innocence Moratorium-

Pretty Green Forest Kyoto, Japan. By Bill. 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!

The Inevitable Cosplay Of Overwatch‘s Mei Supporting Hong Kong [Update]

Yesterday, when Kotaku reported that Overwatch’s Mei had been turned into a symbol of the Hong Kong resistance, one commenter wondered if there would be cosplay of this at next month’s BlizzCon. Probably! But we don’t have to wait that long. Redditor Zephronica uploaded these photos to r/HongKong of what has to be the first…