Alpha Protocol Is The Great RPG Of Last Gen

In the “objective video game review” sense, Alpha Protocol is pretty much the worst. It’s super irritating to play, and every time I speak with somebody from Obsidian, the studio that made it, they just shake their head. But on the Phil Owen “Was This A Big Waste Of Time?” Scale, however, Alpha Protocol comes…

Horror Game The Flock Has A Killer Idea, But It Feels Unfinished

The Flock is a multiplayer horror game that ends after too many people die. Cool idea! The game itself? Freaky, but limited. Here’s how it works: you start out as a creepy gargoyle monster, one of the titular Flock. Your goal is to claim the Light Artifact, a fabled instrument from a time of eternal…

Witcher 3 Mods Have Gotten Weird

Juggalo Geralt says hello. Witcher 3’s new mod tools might leave something to be desired, but that hasn’t stopped modders from injecting the game with a cackling dose of fuckweird. Let’s look at a few of the less… expected mods that have come out in the past week. Geralt face fusion This one lets you…

Riot’s Jeffrey Lin has amended his statements about how ranked League of Legends players will be punished for having chat restrictions or temporary bans this season. On Twitter and in a new ask.fm post, he said that only a specific subset of ranked players won’t be eligible for 2015 rewards. Read the full update here.

Pac-Man 256 Is Endless Pac-Man With A Fun, Glitchy Twist

Walls have always been an important part of Pac-Man. Your little yellow guy (or lady) is stuck in a maze with some deadly ghosts. The walls of the maze frame the action and give it structure. So… what if one of those walls didn’t exist, and the maze became endless? That’s the idea fueling Pac-Man…

The Fascinating Story Behind Nintendo’s Biggest Flop

It’d be really nice if it was Friday, right? You’re in luck! Not only is it Friday, but that means another installment of Worth Reading, our weekly roundup of the best games writing around. Hey, You Should Read These “How the F.B.I. Made ‘Winners Don’t Use Drugs’ the Arcade Motto of the ‘90s” by Sean…

Half-Line Miami Is Exactly What It Sounds Like

Do you like to crowbar people? Half-Line Miami really is exactly what it sounds like: a mash-up of Half-Life and Hotline Miami. It’s a fast-ish top-down shooter, but with Half-Life locations and, of course, the gravity gun. Oh, but unlike both of those games, it’s free. Otherwise, it’d be a one-way train ride to Lawsuit…

In Eltingville Club, The Worst Nerds in the World Have Grown Up and It’s Just Awful

They bitch about character changes. They make fun of other fans for not knowing as much as they do. They hate on cosplay. Look in the mirror and pray that you are nothing like the babymen of the Eltingville Comic Book, Science Fiction, Fantasy Horror & Role-Playing Club. I first encountered the four guys of…

The Five Biggest Problems With Twitch

Twitch is a popular service, and there’s a good reason Amazon paid nearly $1 billion for it. But as a streamer and viewer, I’ve come to realize it’s not perfect; there are lots of problems, actually. It’s not an exaggeration to say Twitch is largely responsible for popularizing (and democratizing) the live streaming of games.…

Riot’s Idea For Punishing Ranked League Of Legends Players Seemed Harsh [UPDATE]

UPDATE (5:30 pm): Riot’s Jeffrey Lin has issued a follow up statement to the one this post originally covered, saying that he had made “a huge blunder” in his ask.fm post about the developer’s plans for the 2015 season rewards. While he originally said that all League of Legends ranked player who received any kind…

Arkham Knight PC Is Still Broken And Will Be For A While

We’ve been waiting for Warner Bros. to release a huge patch for Batman: Arkham Knight on PC to address the game’s huge technical shortcomings, but it’s not coming for another “few weeks.” Last we heard, it was supposed to come out this month. If you’re not familiar with what went wrong with Arkham Knight on…

Even If You Don’t Like Football, Watch The Madden 16 Commercial

You might have wondered, after last year’s incredible Madden Season commercial, how EA Sports would top themselves. Wonder no more. For Madden NFL 16, which comes out on Tuesday, EA got a bunch of actors and football stars—miss you Rex—to participate in what might be the most preposterous commercial ever made, complete with dinosaurs, tragic…