Playing Super Mario Bros. With A Live Band Doing The Soundtrack Behind You Must Be Nice

While you or I would play Mario with the game’s original soundtrack chirping out of TV speakers, George Salazar got the chance to play recently with a “full sized jazz big band, orchestra, and choir” providing the tunes. The death music is wonderful

Steam Developer’s Catastrophic Mistake Has A Sort-Of Happy Ending

A little more than a week ago, Steam developer HyperReuts was at rock bottom. The studio had given out 10,000 free keys for its multiplayer arena space game Evolvation, only for scammers to snap up a chunk of them. In response, HyperReuts tried to delete the offending keys, but in the process, it accidentally zapped…

A 1:1 Scale Zelda Bike For Nintendo Labo

We’ve seen some ingenious Labo designs lately, but this one from an Australian contest winner takes the cardboard cake. Not content with building something small and cute that sits on a desk, Jordan Booth from Australia won Nintendo’s local Labo competition with this life-size replica of Zelda’s Master Cycle Zero, complete with moving handlebars, rocking…

We Love How Stupid The Venom Movie Is

Three decades ago Marvel Comics debuted one of its most popular anti-heroes, Spider-Man arch-enemy Venom. Now Eddie Brock and his slavering black and white symbiote pal have gotten a solo, Spider-Man free shot at the big screen. Did that turn out to be as bad an idea as it sounds? Chris Person, Ethan Gach and…

Ubisoft Explains Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s Microtransactions And Some Of The Math Behind Them

The presence of microtransactions in a big video game can poison the player’s experience, leaving them to wonder if things have been designed in a way to drive them to pay extra. So it goes with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, a very good $60 game that launched with at least $80 in microtransactions. Odyssey’s optional microtransactions,…

Major Win Gives Peruvian Player An Outside Shot At Tekken World Tour Finals

Last weekend, a Tekken 7 player from Peru shook up this year’s Tekken World Tour standings with a big win that gives him a shot at the international finals later this year. Tekken Extreme Tournament is a longstanding event in South America, and this year they were chosen as a Master-level event on the Tekken…

Someone Did The Math On Which Dice Are The Best In Super Mario Party

Curious to find out which of the new character-specific dice in Super Mario Party was the best, a math teacher in Ohio decided to research their underlying statistics. While he found that some characters are better for rolling higher numbers on average, the game is overall too random for character choice to always matter. In…

Bayonetta Destroyed By Toon Link, Of All Characters, At Smash Major

While Leffen was busy spiking his controller in the Super Smash Bros. Melee finals, last weekend’s The Big House 8 tournament also hosted a high-level Super Smash Bros. for Wii U competition. A former Evo champion competed alongside 280 other players in Detroit, but even with the supposed strongest character, he found himself on the…

Sources: Microsoft Is Close To Buying Obsidian

Microsoft is finalizing a deal to acquire the independent development studio Obsidian Entertainment, according to three people briefed on the negotiations. We don’t know if ink is on paper yet, and plenty of major acquisition deals have fallen apart in the final hours, but those close to the companies believe it is all but done.…

New Sims Expansion Adds A Grim New Job: ‘Influencer’

The Sims 4 next expansion will be called Get Famous. It’s set to release November 16th, and your Sims will be able to, you know, get famous. Get Famous comes with a new world, the Hollywood inspired Del Sol Valley, and two new careers: acting and the nebulously named “influencer” career. The Sims’s team has…

Did you know EverQuest II has averaged at least one expansion pack a year since its 2004 launch? Today Daybreak announced EQII’s 15th expansion, Chaos Descending, goes live on Tuesday, November 13. Players can explore new elemental planes and start gearing and leveling up their mounts. Weird.

Death To Fall Damage

One of the things I love about Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, a game full of things to love, is this: You can’t die from fall damage. No matter what. From the start of the game, your main character (Kassandra, or Alexios if you’re basic) will take reduced damage from leaping off mountains or buildings, no matter…

Inside The Mind Of A Viral Comedian

Gabe Gundacker, the comedian and musician who crafted the nonsensical earworm “Zendaya Is Meechee,” wrote his Wii Sports-inspired album by accident. “I thought I was writing a new song,” he said over the phone. “It was really good, I was like ‘oh, this melody’s awesome.’ Then a day later I played it back and I…

We Debate Whether Super Mario Party Is Actually Evil (And Whether That’s Bad)

Hello, Mario Partiers and haters alike. Last week, Nintendo released Super Mario Party, a four-player digital board game about playing cute mini-games and destroying your friends. I reviewed the game. I liked it a lot. It was a great take on a classic formula, in my opinion, but it’s certainly not just about me here.…

Smash Champion Takes Out Loss On His Poor Controller

It’s normal to be frustrated after a loss, but some fighting game competitors take things a step further by demolishing the controller they were using to play just moments earlier. The latest player to join this illustrious club alongside notables like Sanford Kelly and Runitblack is reigning Evo champion William “Leffen” Hjelte, who spiked his…