The Booths Of The Tokyo Game Show 2017

The Tokyo Game Show is underway! Today is the first business day, which means the show isn’t yet open to the general public. The masses of people won’t arrive until Saturday, giving us unobstructed views of the booths. Sony’s and Square Enix’s booths are among the biggest. Capcom’s, as usual, is a standout.  

Here’s the Japanese special edition for Secret of Mana As you can see, it is pretty hot shit. You got your game, your soundtrack, figurines of the three characters, and then a freaking pop-up book with the Mana tree, so you can set the figures next to the tree and recreate the game’s iconic cover…

Game Of Thrones Has Some Beautiful Paintings In The Background

Game of Thrones is shot in some pretty exotic locations, and also has some great CG work, but not everything you see on the screen is a mix of real life and computer wizardry. There’s still room for good old-fashioned matte painting when it comes to the scenic backdrops. Artist Simone De Salvatore has shared…

The latest issue of Heterotopias, a very cool magazine about video games and architecture, is out on September 22. It’s got pieces on bathrooms and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, among other things.

As you get off the train for Tokyo Game Show, you’re greeted by the main characters of every Final Fantasy. It’s an ad for a 30th anniversary art exhibition starting in January here in Tokyo. I went up and down stairs until I found Terra and Bartz. (Well, Tina and Butz.)

Working For Nintendo Used To Be Hell, But At Least We Got Cool Music Out Of It

Super Metroid has one of the most famous themes in video games. If you’ve ever wondered where it came from, you’ve got the nightmarish working conditions of 1990s video game development (and some impromptu one-man karaoke) to thank for it. In an interview on Nintendo’s site, Composer Kenji Yamamoto remembers that during the development of…

Just A Giant Conga Line Of Dishonored 2 Bodies

The real joy of the Dishonored games isn’t in sneaking around. It’s in messing with the game’s systems to do dumb shit like spending four hours lining up every body you could find in a level just…because you can. PCChris95 explains that this is 83 bodies, but not all of them are dead, with around…

Immigration Game Tries To Tell An Important Story, Falls Short

Four Horsemen is a game about immigrants and refugees, and also kinda sorta the apocalypse. It’s a compelling game, written from a place of deep empathy about a topic that is important to consider in our current political climate. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite come together. Things are ending for the four friends you follow in…

Win Or Lose, Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite Multiplayer Battles Are A Good Time

The story side of Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite stumbles in trying to achieve a semblance of order amidst the clashing of discordant fictional worlds, but the multiplayer action is just as intense and chaotic as it’s ever been, with spectacular battles that are enjoyable no matter which side comes out on top. While I played…

XCOM 2: War Of The Chosen, As Told By Steam Reviews

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is a turn-based Shakespearean tragedy generator, and also there are aliens. Steam users have been sharing their tales of devastation, woe, and, every once in a while, victory. I was expecting to enjoy the expansion, but I had no idea just how much Shadow of Mordor-like personality it would…

Rainbow Six Siege Is Having A Lot Of Problems Right Now [UPDATE]

The ever-popular Rainbow Six Siege is having a rough time right now. Some players are reporting that their consoles are crashing after the latest Siege update, leading the game’s publisher, Ubisoft, to scramble to find a fix. Fans are upset at map exploits being used on nearly every ranked map. And a few of the…

A Possible Explanation For Half-Life PS2’s Mysterious Moving File Cabinet

Weird fact: there was a PlayStation 2 version of the original Half-Life. Weirder fact: it contained a file cabinet that would move to face you if you approached it. People have posted videos of this file cabinet for years. The exact cause of it remains unknown, but there have been some compelling lines of speculation,…