God Damn This Halo Trailer Was Good

Game trailers tend to be forgettable things. Explosive diversions paving the way for a marketing campaign that hits you, tries to sell you something then fades into nothingness as the next hype train takes its place. ODST’s live-action clip, though, lingers long after the game has disappeared off the charts. I watched this the other…

The Mom Who Moderates Her Daughter’s Rowdy Twitch Chat

Anisa Jomha was a so-called “boobie streamer” until last March. Her sizable Twitch following includes ardent fans, horny dudes, toxic trolls, and an unusual chat moderator: her mother. On Twitch, Jomha, known online as Raihnbowkidz, streams League of Legends for her over 200,000 followers, many of whom originally subscribed for something other than her gameplay:…

German Mayor Closes Bridge Just For Pokémon Go Players

While some local government officials are trying to get Pokémon Go out of public spaces, the Mayor of Dusseldorf has taken the opposite approach, blocking off a bridge in the city so that players can catch pocket monsters in safety. The Girardet bridge, a small crossing over the Düssel (a tributary of the Rhine), is…

The Biggest Selling Games In Japan Of 2016 (So Far)

It’s late July. We’re past the half way point of 2016. Now is a good time to look back at what games have been selling in Japan. The latest issue of Famitsu complies the country’s biggest console games between December 28, 2015 and June 26, 2016. Here are the fifty top sellers. You might be…

Some Japanese Pokémon Go Players Have Bad Manners 

The stereotype is that Japan is clean. That Japanese people are clean. Many people are, but certainly not all, including some of the country’s Pokémon Go players. From a young age, Japanese people are taught to pick up after themselves. Kids in other countries are taught that as well, of course, but in Japan the…

Meiji Shrine Torii Gate. Tokyo, Japan. By Timothy Shill. 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!

“The Wii U Has No Games”, A Study

Of all the complaints levelled against the Wii U over the years, the most common one is usually “there aren’t any games”. With Nintendo putting out some lifetime release figures overnight, let’s see how that claim actually holds up. Before we begin: in case you need this spelled out, nobody literally means there are no…

Five Years Later, Fan-Made StarCraft RPG Finally Launches

Once billed as a full-fledged StarCraft MMO way back in 2011, StarCraft Universe ultimately downsized into a less-massive, still-multiplayer RPG that received Blizzard’s approval and picked up $84,000 on Kickstarter. Now it’s finally a thing you can play. Just a reminder: this is the mod that got announced in 2011 as World of StarCraft, ran…

Ten Isometric Action RPGs Worth Trying

They’ve been called many things over the years. Isometric RPGs, hack’n’slash RPGs, ARPGs, Diablo clones. But one thing is certain: They wouldn’t exist if Diablo didn’t come out in 1996. Diablo and its sequels spawned a whole catalog of isometric action RPGs. This piece originally appeared 3/30/16. It’s a catalog of sometimes pretty similar games,…

Lots Of Destiny Devs Have Left Bungie Recently To Make Indie Games

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen a fascinating trend out of Seattle: developers leaving Bungie to make their own games. This shift is not uncommon in the video game industry, of course. The grind of AAA game development has led many people to go independent as they try to get away from the…

Pokémon Go Players Are On A Desperate Quest To Find Ditto

It makes sense that some monsters aren’t immediately available in Pokémon Go: the roster has “legendaries,” and the best way to feel like they are special is to make them rare. But why has nobody found a Ditto yet? This is a question that has been tormenting Pokémon Go players since it became widely known…

Kentucky Route Zero‘s Latest Act Is Everything That’s Great About The Series

Act IV of Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero arrived by surprise last week. You may have heard people talking about this game in hushed, reverent tones. You may have seen it on our list of the best PC games, a rarified honor amid hundreds of worthy contenders. It’s just a simple point and click adventure…