Culture

The Designer Of The NES Dishes The Dirt On Nintendo’s Early Days

When discussing Nintendo’s rise as a digital dreamsmith in the ‘80s, game designers like Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi get most of the limelight. But it was the hardware designed by Masayuki Uemura that served up their fantasies to millions around the globe. I spent 2019 criss-crossing Japan researching my book Pure Invention: How Japan’s…

Bungie Just Made Destiny 2 Raids More Rewarding (For The Next Three Months)

Raids are some of the hardest but most rewarding parts of Destiny 2. If you’ve spent any amount of time playing the game you really owe it to yourself to see what these six-player missions have to offer, especially since some of them won’t be around for much longer. Last month, Bungie announced that a…

Grab Watch Dogs 2 For Free On PC This Weekend

On Sunday, Ubisoft will show off Watch Dogs Legion during a not-E3 event called “Ubisoft Forward.” But that’s not all the Watch Dogs you can hound up this weekend, as Ubisoft is also giving away a free copy of Watch Dogs 2 for PC. Watch Dogs 2 carries over many of the thematic elements of…

Originally scheduled for release August 28, the completely rebuilt Mafia: Definitive Edition will now arrive on September 25 in order to further polish the yadda yadda whatever. A gameplay reveal is scheduled for July 22, to show everyone what they’re waiting a month longer for. 

The bad news is the release of THQ Nordic’s revitalization of bad baseball man’s RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning has slipped from August 18 to September 8. The good news? There’s an expansion called Fatesworn coming out for the game in 2021. Huh.

Halo 3 Comes To PC July 14

Eyes up, space marines: 13 years after it landed on console, Halo 3 is finally coming to PC. As announced by the official Halo Twitter account, it’ll be available next Tuesday as the next installment of Halo: The Master Chief Collection Halo 3 is the capstone of the original Halo trilogy. The second game, if…

How’s It Going? Toy Edition

It’s day two of my reign as “How’s It Going?” curator, and I’ve already broken out the toys. Welcome back to our daily open thread. Yesterday I talked about my bed desk, the relatively small space that serves as my work/living space. It’s stacked with wires and electronics, game consoles and gadgets, but that doesn’t…

Happy 20th Anniversary To My Favorite Final Fantasy

In 2000, after a pair of PlayStation games that were more science fiction than swords and sorcery, I wanted a Final Fantasy that skewed heavily towards classic fantasy fare. Final Fantasy IX, released on July 7, 2000, in Japan, was exactly the game I was looking for. Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi said Final Fantasy…

Track: You Don’t Know How It Feels (Home Recording) | Artist: Tom Petty | Album: Demo

Rice Fields. Osaka, 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!

Lil’ Buddies

Aleksey Bayura is an artist at Riot, the developers of League of Legends and Valorant You can see more of Aleksey’s stuff at his ArtStation page

A Cosplay Coloring Book!

Put together by Milynn Sarley and featuring art by Emily Claus, Starlight Guild is a new colouring book that turns some excellent fantasy cosplay into some excellent, crafty art. Cosplayers and costume designers featured include aliciamariebody, fireflypath, hendoart and _fairytas. “I took my real life friends who have made strides in the world as professional…

Dark Souls Is Presumably Easier With Assault Rifles

A crossbow is an elegant weapon for a more civilized age, but it also lacks the stopping power of, say, an M16. Via PC Gamer, this mod called Modern Firearm by Forsakensilver does what it says on the box: it replaces a bunch of Dark Souls’ ranged weapons with “modern” (though some examples are stretching…

Last Of Us 2 Developer Condemns Online Harassment Of People Who Worked On The Game

The Last of Us Part 2 developer Naughty Dog put out a statement over the weekend condemning harassment and threats made against those who worked on the game as director Neil Druckman and others shared some of the vile messages they’ve received following the game’s release. “You can love or hate the game and share…

Growing Up As A Taiwanese-American Gamer Was The Best Of Both Worlds

Early September, 1999. Britney Spears dominated the airwaves, fear of the Y2K bug hung in the air, and my teenage mind was still wrestling with whether or not Phantom Menace was good. It had been about a week since I had returned from a summer trip to Taiwan to my home in Atlanta. A couple…

How An Accountant Earned 132,000 Gamerscore In One Month

It reads like a typo. “Gamerscore Leaderboard. Rank One With +132,000 This Month.” Surely, there must be some mistake. 132,000 achievement points in a month? There’s no way! There’s gotta be a hidden decimal point somewhere, right? From every angle—physically, chemically, intellectually—the math just doesn’t add up. You’d need to average about 4,000 points a…

A Controller Built For Xbox Game Streaming

Planning on using Xbox Game Streaming to play games on your Android phone or tablet? Third-party controller makers 8BitDo have a gamepad for that. The SN30 Pro is a pocket-sized Bluetooth Xbox One controller built with Xbox cloud gaming in mind. As cool as it is to carry around a full-size Xbox One controller to…

Fans of over-the-top shooting and stabbing rejoice, Shadow Warrior 3 is coming in 2021. While we’ll get our first look at gameplay for Flying Wild Hog’s latest game during this weekend’s Devolver Direct stream, a cute bunny gets bloodied in today’s teaser trailer, which should hold us over until then.

Ubisoft Employees Have ‘Grave Concerns’ Over Toronto Studio’s Misconduct Allegations

There’s a story some people tell at Ubisoft Toronto, the studio currently finishing one of this fall’s bigger planned releases, Watch Dogs: Legion. It goes something like this: Maxime Béland, one of its co-founders and, until last week, a 20-year veteran of Ubisoft, allegedly choked a female employee at a work party. Some heard it…

Microsoft is holding another next-gen showcase on July 23, the company announced on Twitter this morning. Unlike the first event in May which focused on third-party games, this event is set to highlight first-party games like Halo: Infinite. It’s scheduled to begin streaming at 12:00 p.m. ET.