Culture

If You Didn’t Vote For The Sims Arts And Crafts Pack Then I Swear To God

The Sims 4 just had its first survey for another community-voted Stuff Pack, with features voted on by players who partake. If you all didn’t vote for Arts and Crafts I will be so fucking mad. There are three tiers of Sims 4 expansions, and Stuff Packs are the lowest tier. They’re cheap and come…

Grid On Stadia Runs Well And Reminds Me What I Love About Racing Games

I’ve been flirting with the idea of playing a racing simulation again, so when Stadia finally launched with Grid, I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone: test out how smooth the game runs on Google’s new streaming platform and satisfy my motorsport craving. Turns out both are super effective. I remember fondly the…

Google Says It’ll Give Refunds To Anyone Who Bought Stadia’s Free December Games

The Stadia launch games Tomb Raider and Farming Simulator 19 will be free to Pro subscribers of Google’s streaming platform in December, the company said yesterday. This would have been a raw deal for anyone who has purchased either game since Stadia went live, on November 19, but Google added last night that it will…

Inside The Long Dark

“I never feel like The Long Dark is done,” Hinterland Studio founder Raphael van Lierop told me of the Canadian studio’s long-in-development wilderness survival game. The Long Dark first appeared as a Kickstarter campaign in 2013, with the earliest gameplay video showing just a small clearing, basic survival mechanics, and a wolf. Since then, the…

New No Man’s Sky Update Lets You Upgrade Your Ship

Tomorrow, No Man’s Sky will get a new update, called Synthesis, which incorporates long-asked for features and almost 300 bug fixes. It’s not as huge as the last update, but it will make changes to ships, the terrain manipulator, and building. The last No Man’s Sky update, Beyond, overhauled the game, especially multiplayer. “Beyond was…

Track: Ride Me Back Home | Artist: Willie Nelson | Album: Ride Me Back Home

The Shot. Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan. By Ben Lo. 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!

Our Favorite Cosplay From BlizzCon 2019

BlizzCon 2019 had a different feel to previous years, as big game announcements shared the weekend with protests against the company’s political actions. One thing that remained constant, though, was the quality of cosplay that fans brought to the show. Maybe it’s the focused nature of the con, maybe it’s just the fact that Blizzard’s…

Sorry Forgot My Keys

Chander Lieve is an artist based in New Zealand who most recently worked on Path of Exile 2. You can see more of Lieve’s stuff at his ArtStation page

Look At This Beautiful Game Of Pathfinder

A group of Australian friends just wound up an epic game of tabletop RPG Pathfinder, and I mean, I already said this in the headline, but just look at the thing. Overseen by DM Paul Houlihan, who also did all the painting (the terrain is a mix of stuff, most of it from Dwarven Forge),…

There Was An F-Zero Novel, And Its Art Sure Was Something

In January of 1992, a novel—not a manga, a novel—was released in Japan based on F-Zero. And anyone used to how the series looked and felt on a console will notice it’s quite…different. With a title roughly translated to F-Zero: And Then, To The Gods Of Speed, these scans and info were all uploaded by…

Valve Is Not Making Any More Steam Controllers

We are gathered here today to bid farewell to the Steam Controller, the little gamepad that could in some cases, but couldn’t in others, because it made people’s hands hurt. Its haptic pads are tickling the fingers of angels now. Currently, Valve’s maiden foray into the world of long-distance game manipulation is on sale for…

Twitch Loophole Is Still Inflating Views

Saqib “Lirik” Zahid, who has 2.5 million followers on Twitch, is the last streamer to need a viewbot. Nevertheless, over the last couple of days, his fans and followers wondered whether he’d somehow succumbed—this week, his average 27,000 viewer count for November shot up to a huge 76,000 for no discernable reason. Zahid felt the…

Dota 2 Gets Total Overhaul

I’ve spent over 1,000 hours playing Dota 2 and reading through the game’s latest set of patch notes is breaking my brain. The game’s Outlander’s update went live today, adding not just two more heroes but upending massive aspects of the game, including item delivery, teleportation, late game advantages, and item progressions. The base game…

Valve Removes 1,000 Games From Steam As Punishment For Abusing Tools

There are more than 30,000 games on Steam. When Valve removes the odd offender for breaking the rules by, say, being a low-effort meme masquerading as a low-effort game or by being low-effort porn masquerading as a low-effort game, it’s like siphoning a drop from a bucket. Yesterday, Valve removed over 1,000 games from Steam.…

Facebook has purchased Beat Games, the studio behind virtual reality rhythm game Beat Saber. The developers will “continue to work on Beat Saber across all currently supported platforms”.

Experts Say Geese Aren’t Actually As Bad As Untitled Goose Game Suggests

I love being a goose in Untitled Goose Game. I love to waddle, honk, and flap at people. But how much of what you do in Untitled Goose Game is true to goose life? I spoke to some waterfowl experts to get a read on how true to life Untitled Goose Game actually is. Isabella…

Some Call Of Duty Players Find Themselves Spawning In Mid-Air

Call of Duty matches can be fast-paced slaughterhouses, which is why the game usually respawns you away from other players and, uh, on the ground. Recently, players have been noticing that’s not always the case. “Incredible, just incredible,” Reddit user McNugg2710 said in a November 22 post of a video showing them respawning out in…

How Fighting Game Developers Can Improve Online Play

Netcode, the set of technical protocols that determine online play in video games, is especially important in fighting games. Decisions are often split-second, with just a few frames determining whether or not a punish lands or a combo finishes the job. Netcode is often the main concern of competitive players looking for their next game.…

This Is What Happens When I Explore Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order‘s Amazing World

Oh, cool. I found a secret area in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, everyone. I wonder what kind of reward I’ll find here. This place is way off the grid, so there’s got to be something incredible hidden in these chambers. I discovered this place because I spotted a little green icon on my map,…