Splatoon Was Originally A Game About Rabbits

“You’re a rabbit now; you’re a kid now” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but Splatoon almost went there. Nintendo’s stylish shooter once starred bunnies, and before that, tofu blocks. During a panel at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today, Splatoon producer Hisashi Nogami gave a presentation on how he and…

I Fed A Neural Network 1200 Video Game Names

A lot of the time, video game names sound like they were generated by a machine. So, I decided to see if I could teach a neural network to name a game. Sometimes it’s hard not to groan at some video game names. There was a period of time when I kept confusing Absolver for…

Microsoft Executive Is Open To Putting Banjo In The New Smash Bros

Banjo and his partner Kazooie haven’t been in a Nintendo game since 2005’s Banjo-Pilot thanks to complicated intellectual property rigamarole that cropped up when Microsoft acquired Rare in 2002. With a new Smash Bros. coming to the Switch, there’s plenty of speculation about new fighters. Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Gaming seems completely fine with…

Sea Of Thieves Servers Weren’t Prepared For So Many Players

It was anything but smooth sailing for yesterday’s global launch of Sea of Thieves, as the game’s servers struggled to keep up with a massive influx of new pirates. Players were plagued by problems connecting to the game, random disconnects, matchmaking errors and more. At one point, developers had to temporarily suspend new players joining…

My Xbox One Is Reminding Me Of The Last Console Generation’s Excellence

I had reason (research for a colleague) to play my Xbox 360 copy of Red Dead Redemption on my Xbox One earlier this week. I hadn’t touched the 2010 game probably since it came out. I try to keep up with new games, but now I’m thinking about some last-gen ones I miss or just…

It seems like every time a new celebrity reveals their love of anime, the internet immediately gets flooded with hot takes and old-school anime fans demanding receipts. But anime is just another form of culture that’s been popular for a couple of decades now. I sat down with Gita Jackson to discuss why watching anime…

Japanese Pop Star Says She’s Already Played Monster Hunter: World For 400 to 500 Hours 

Maki Goto, a former member of J-pop group Morning Musume, is a Monster Hunter super fan. She even appeared in Monster Hunter Portable 3rd commercials back in 2011. She loves hunting monsters. In 2013, Goto claimed on TV that she would play for up to thirty hours straight and that her total Monster Hunter playtime…

Twitch Prime Fortnite Skins Are Getting Resold On Ebay

Fortnite: Battle Royale most’s popular streamer broke Twitch records last week when he teamed up with Drake, and the game’s audience continues to grow now that a mobile version is in beta. And thanks to the game’s Twitch Prime loot, there’s now a small black market for Fortnite skins on Ebay as well. In February,…

What The Golf is my favorite game of GDC so far. Its developers assert that golf is boring, so they’ve made tons of tiny levels that turn the sport on its head. The game is riotously funny. In one level, I scored a “hole-in-one” by launching a typical golf hole into a giant 1-shaped crater.…

The Best Shantae Game Is Now On Switch

Two years before developer WayForward Technologies went all super-sharp sprites with 2016’s Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero, they de-powered their magical maven and turned her into a pirate. Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse is one of the most satisfying 2D platformers going, and it’s out today on Switch. If you’ve not played Shantae and the Pirate’s…