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  Culture

  Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance Returns To Consoles Tomorrow

  While fans of hack-and-slash RPGs await the June 22 release of the all-new Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, Interplay’s releasing the 2001 classic that started it all. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance will be available for PlayStations, Xboxes, and Switch tomorrow, complete with support for 4K scaling on capable consoles. Released two decades ago for the…

  By Mike Fahey Published May 6, 2021
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  CultureOdds and Ends

  An Ode To Google Chrome’s Dinosaur Game

  This morning, I faced a problem you can probably relate to: my internet went out. As many of us working from home would, I scrambled to let my co-workers know and restarted my router hopefully. But, just as my heartbeat started racing, I was met with a familiar dinosaur friend. As you might know, when…

  By Lisa Marie Segarra Published May 6, 2021
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  Culture

  These Are Your 2021 World Video Game Hall of Fame Inductees

  After sifting through a field of finalists including classics like Guitar Hero, Pole Position, Portal, and…FarmVille, the Strong National Museum of Play has announced the 2021 inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Let’s hear it for StarCraft, Animal Crossing, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and Microsoft Flight Simulator Each year…

  By Mike Fahey Published May 6, 2021
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  Culture

  The Nintendo Download: Lo-Fi Skateboarding And Pretty Girls Poker

  It’s Nintendo Download day, the day when we get a look at the *checks list* 30 new games coming to the Switch eShop over the coming week. This week’s activities include chilling on a skateboard and playing poker with those boom anime babes that make you think the wrong thing. My personal highlight of this…

  By Mike Fahey Published May 6, 2021
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  Culture

  Last Year Was Nintendo’s Most Profitable Ever

  In 2020, Nintendo saw huge profits, likely boosted by people quarantined at home, playing video games. According to the company’s newly released financials, which cover the period between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, Nintendo saw a 34.4 percent increase in sales to 1.76 trillion yen ($16.1 billion) and an 85.7 percent spike in net…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published May 6, 2021
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  Culture

  Sony Sued For Restricting Its Digital Game Sales To PlayStation Store

  Two years ago, Sony stopped selling digital download codes for its games through retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. And now the gaming giant has been hit with a class-action lawsuit. Bloomberg reports that the proposed suit—Caccuri v. Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC in a San Francisco U.S. District Court—alleges that limiting the digital purchase…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published May 6, 2021
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  Kotaku EastJapan

  Made In Abyss Game Gets Slapped With Adults-Only Rating In Japan

  Surprised to see the game based on Made In Abyss receiving an adults-only rating? If you’ve seen the anime, you might not be. The video game adaptation has just been given a CERO-Z. That’s Japan’s adults-only, 18-years-old-and-up rating. While the screenshots look fairly cute, the original anime does have its share of blood and gore—a…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published May 6, 2021
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  Culture

  Illumination Founder And Despicable Me Producer Joining Nintendo Board

  Today, Nintendo announced that Chris Meledandri will join the Nintendo board as an Outside Director as of June 29. This, the company adds, will become effective dependent on approval at the upcoming shareholders meeting that same date. Previously, Meledandri produced CG movies including Ice Age and Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who! before founding Illumination…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published May 6, 2021
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  Culture

  Super Mario 64 On PC Looks Like An Entirely Different Game

  We’ve taken a glance at Super Mario 64’s PC port before, as recently as February, but this very extensive look by Digital Foundry shows just how damn good the thing can look when given the right amount of love and attention. Everything difference from the original game you see here is thanks mostly to two…

  By Luke Plunkett Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  Outriders Is Finally Giving Some Players Back Their Lost Gear

  Of all the many (many) issues to plague Outriders since its early April launch, few have caused more pain than the insidious inventory-deletion bug. As of today, affected players should start to see lost gear return, developer People Can Fly announced via the game’s subreddit. Shortly after the loot-shooter launched for basically all the platforms,…

  By Ari Notis Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  Huh, The New Fable Runs On The Forza Engine

  The next installment in the Fable franchise is being built with the ForzaTech engine, which as the name implies, is the foundation beneath Xbox’s popular Forza racing games. This detail was first spotted by IGN in a Microsoft job listing for Turn 10 Studios, the Xbox Game Studios subsidiary that’s developed the core Forza series…

  By Ian Walker Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  Apple To Epic: What’s A Kotaku?

  Today, as part of the ongoing Epic v. Apple court case, Apple counsel Rich Doren, while cross examining Epic engineer Andrew Grant about a Minecraft Earth-related email chain between Epic employees, asked a very important question. “Are you familiar with that website?” Doren asked in reference to a confusingly named website called Kotaku, from which…

  By Nathan Grayson Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  Nintendo Just Very Quietly Announced A Brand New Game

  Nintendo doesn’t always need a big Direct to announce a new first-party game. Sometimes they can just drop a trailer and say, hey, here’s a new thing, which is exactly what just happened with Game Builder Garage Coming to the Switch in June, it builds off the company’s recent work with everything from the Labo…

  By Luke Plunkett Published May 5, 2021
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  CultureOdds and Ends

  Resident Evil Village Mod Does Something To Lady Dimitrescu, But I Can’t Put My Finger On What

  PC modders have done something to Resident Evil Village’s resident tall lady, Countess Alcina Dimitrescu, but I can’t figure out exactly what. Can you? Take your time. I know: It’s a real head scratcher! Alright so, I just got off the phone with experts at the intersection of tall ladies and trains, and they’ve informed…

  By Nathan Grayson Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  Returnal Patch Aims To Reduce Crashes, Increase…Corpses? [UPDATE: Save Corruptions Reported, Patch Pulled]

  Update: May 6, 9:45 a.m. ET: Housemarque released patch 1.3.4 overnight. Here are the notes Update: May 5, 5:20 p.m. ET: The latest patch for Returnal has been pulled and the game reverted to the prior patch, developer Housemarque announced via Twitter. “We are fixing the issue now and a new patch will be published…

  By Ari Notis Published May 5, 2021
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  CultureOdds and Ends

  BRB, Making My Own Mass Effect Legendary Edition Logo

  BioWare must have sensed that I had thoughts about the Mass Effect companions on my spirit today, as it released a new tool that lets you pick and choose among the Mass Effect companions to make your own version of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition logo. Would-be custom logo recipients answer a handful of questions…

  By Ash Parrish Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  Humble Bundle Rethinks Unpopular Charity Split

  Two weeks ago, Humble Bundle announced a controversial plan to remove sliders that allow users to customize what percent of their game purchase goes to charity. Today, Humble announced that it’s rethinking that plan. “We’ve heard everyone loud and clear and apologize for the way these changes were rolled out,” the company wrote in a…

  By Riley MacLeod Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  Flashback Getting A New Sequel For Its 30th Birthday

  With its gorgeous hand-drawn backgrounds, stunning (for its time) rotoscoped animation, and engaging science fiction storyline, 1992’s Flashback is one of gaming’s all-time greats. Now original game designer Paul Cuisset is back, supervising a team of developers creating Flashback 2, coming in 2022 for consoles and PC. There’s not a lot of information on the…

  By Mike Fahey Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  GamesCom Wises Up, Goes Fully Digital

  GamesCom 2021 will be a fully digital event this year, GamesCom officials announced in a press release today. The move is a reversal of earlier plans for a semi-live event, inadvisable given the, y’know, roiling pandemic that’s still an ever-present aspect of everyday life. Held annually in Cologne, Germany, GamesCom is one of the more…

  By Ari Notis Published May 5, 2021
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  Culture

  Latest Outriders Bug Is Killing Players Instantly

  To follow Outriders’ post-launch journey is to watch an Olympic game of whack-a-mole. Developer People Can Fly will stamp out one issue, only for another to pop right up. The latest: Some players are apparently getting instantly killed by attacks that otherwise would not cause instantaneous death. “We are aware of the issue whereby damage…

  By Ari Notis Published May 5, 2021