I Have Had It Up To Here With Voidlord

There is no objective way to measure whether something in a game is fun or not. But in the context of competitive online gaming, where empowerment for one player sometimes translates into abject misery for another, it’s much more common to encounter a mechanic so demoralizing, so soul-crushingly boring, that you simply know in your…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for binge-watching a PBS Masterpiece Theater show about a WWI department store, because you’re just that cool. It’s also for playing video games. I’m still playing Frostpunk, because I can’t resist restarting when things go pear-shaped (or, well, being forced to restart when my populace overthrows me). I’m also still working my…

Far Cry 5, One Month Later

Far Cry 5 has been out for a month. Its big open world based in a fictional Montana has been picked clean by millions of people. Collectively they’ve caught lots of fish, thrown millions of sticks of dynamite, and been sprayed by a lot of sneaky skunks. Publisher Ubisoft has been contributing weekly live events,…

New Sanrio Netflix Anime Shows The Anger and Despair of Working A Shitty Job

Aggretsuko, the anime about a red panda who hates her office job so much she sings metal karaoke after work as an outlet for her anger, is almost crushingly real. Retsuko the red panda is one of the new Sanrio characters, introduced in 2016. Unlike the other sickly sweet characters like Hello Kitty and Kero…

Steam Spy Is Back, But Not As Accurate As Before

Steam Spy, the PC gaming sales-tracking mainstay loved by some developers and loathed by others, was recently presumed dead by its creator, Sergey Galyonkin, after an update to Steam’s privacy defaults. It is now coming back, but it’ll be different. The old Steam Spy estimated a PC game’s sales by sweeping publicly viewable Steam profiles…

Assassin’s Creed Origins, Six Months Later

Half a year ago, Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Origins. It was in some ways the most ambitious Assassin’s Creed game ever made, and in other ways noticeably less ambitious than its predecessors. In the months since then, Origins has become considerably more interesting. Join me now as we climb into the Animus and travel back…

God of War Players Uncover A Secret Hidden In The Collector’s Edition Map

Players are working their way through God of War’s endgame for every secret and bonus, and one has been found in an unlikely place: a cloth map that came with the game’s two collector’s editions. The map turned out to contain a particularly complex puzzle. If you don’t want to tackle it yourself, it’s all…

Battletech’s Character Creator Is About More Than Just Looks

Battletech’s character creator isn’t really about how your character looks; it’s about who they are, where they’re from, and what they believe. Battletech is a long established property and mainstay of tabletop wargaming. The original game came out in 1984 and there’s been a swath of spin off games like the MechWarrior series, lore sourcebooks,…

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Has One Of Action Gaming’s Most Peaceful Moments

In between the big, satisfying skirmishes in the new God of War, players can put gruff protagonist Kratos and his scrawny son Atreus in a boat and paddle across a lake while the father tells his boy a fable. The moments in the boat are among my favorite in the game. They reminded me of…

The Internet Reacts To Hogwarts Mystery’s Microtransactions

Hogwarts Mystery, a new mobile game based on the popular fantasy books, can be fun, but a lot of its content is gated behind some gnarly microtransactions. Harry Potter fans are not pleased. When I checked out Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery yesterday, I was having a blast living out my dreams of being a wizard……

We Played Shadow of the Tomb Raider, And It Looks Like The Darkest One Yet

At a Square Enix event in London yesterday evening, I played through an hour of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the final game in a trilogy, which comes out September 14 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Though the action felt very familiar, the tone was a little different. The newest Tomb Raider game is…

Nintendo’s E3 2018 Schedule

Earlier this week, Kotaku announced the E3 2018 press conference schedule. At that time, Nintendo had yet to reveal its plans. Now it has. As in previous years, Nintendo is doing a video presentation, which can be watched live at e3.Nintendo.com. It will begin on June 12 at 9 am PT. There will be other…

Dragon Quest X Director Jin Fujisawa Is Leaving Square Enix 

Jin Fujisawa has worked on the Dragon Quest series for around two decades. Today on Twitter, he announced he’s leaving Square Enix. Fujisawa got his start as an assistant for DQ creator Yuji Horii in the late 1990s. He was the scenario assistant on Dragon Quest VII in 2000 and rose up the ranks to…

The City Of Angeles. Los Angeles, California. By Tenshikun. 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! 

Nice View

René Aigner is a concept artist and illustrator who has worked in video games and books. You can see more of Aigner’s work at his personal site and ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the work…