The Internet’s 2001 Hate For One Of The Most Beautiful Video Games Ever

The average person over the age of 13 can no longer proudly stand by all the opinions they expressed 12 years ago. In time, a person simply decides that dirt no longer tastes good. Later, one regrets the pants they wore in middle school or, further into life, feels some shame when recalling the thing…

A team at Maxis is exploring the possibility of making an offline mode for the always-online SimCity, because you demanded it, according to an official update on the state of the game. (But they can’t offer bigger cities; hurts performance.) Previously, Maxis management had said that an offline mode was rejected as inconsistent with the…

Pokémon X And Y Is Everything You Wanted Pokémon To Be As A Kid

Here’s what I like to imagine. Game Freak shipped Black and White 2, and production then started for a new Pokemon game. They didn’t have any specifics yet, but they knew they want to breathe some life into the franchise—make it feel fresh, sure, but still keep the core of what makes Pokemon games so…

Does Saints Row IV Work As A First-Person Shooter? Hell Yes.

They did a first-person mod for GTA IV, so it was bound to happen for Saints Row IV, too. And thank goodness it did. The mod is being developed by a group of modders led by ImmortalSin, who hails from the Saints Row Mods forum. It is currently in alpha—a fact that’s readily apparent in…

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: StygianKnight explains why he’s holding off on getting the PS4, EtchedChamp discusses different ways video games handle death and violence, Leigh Harrison wonders about all the little things you can do in GTA V alongside all the very violent things you can do.

I’m Playing Assassin’s Creed IV Right Now. On My Desk. With Toys.

While the rest of the world has to wait until the end of this month to get their hands on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I’ve got Edward Kenway and friends right here on my desk, ready to pillage, loot, burn, and maybe make-out a little. With three generations of Kenways — Edward, Hatham and…

Let This BioShock Infinite DLC Trailer Convince You Rapture Is Real

In Bioshock, we’ve always been directly in the center, there to witness the world-changing events transpiring in both Rapture and Columbia. But what about the outside world? This short live-action teaser, shot in the style of an old-school documentary series, shows a civilian investigation into the legend of Rapture—the underwater city where Burial At Sea,…

Attack on Titan Has Finished, But the Games Are Just Beginning

Attack on Titan has finished its TV run, and with no second anime announced, many of you are likely already jonesing for your colossus-killing fix. But don’t worry. Not only is there the manga to read, but also no less than seven official games are either out or on the way. Attack on Titan: The…

Pokémon, Sonic, And Mega Man, All Made Out Of… Meat?

Ground meat ain’t just for hamburgers, you know. It’s also for art. Over at Tumblr, a blog called Epic Grinds serves as the purveyor of artistic objects created out of ground meat. The owner’s skill doesn’t stop at meatifying game characters, mind you—there’s a great variety of objects from anime, live-action series, and real life…

Grand Theft Auto Comes to Life in Hong Kong Car Chase

Whenever there’s a car chase, GTA comparisons inevitably arise. But this particular car chase totally looks like Grand Theft Auto. Really! The chase happened earlier this summer, and the footage is taken from an undercover Hong Kong cop car and was recently uploaded by Next Media For twenty minutes, police chased the 33 year-old driver,…

Cosplay Doesn’t Get More Heartwarming Than This

Cosplay is the act of dressing up as your favorite character. Charity is helping others. Japanese businessman Akihiro Tomikawa does both. According to Sankei, the 44 year-old Tomikawa dresses as Japanese superhero Kamen Rider and rides into the Bangkok slums to hand out toys to underprivileged kids. Once every two months, Tomikawa apparently makes the…

Free-to-Play Or Not, The New Ace Combat Looks Pretty Great

Let’s forget about microtransactions for a second and concentrate on what makes Ace Combat great: the gameplay and the atmosphere. These two gameplay videos have plenty of both. The vids were taken from the second and fourth story missions, respectively, of the air combat game’s international version (meaning they’re in English). It may be a…

Let’s see if this makes things better. Rockstar says that the latest title update for GTA V is live for PS3. This is the update that’s supposed to fix some of the issues currently hobbling the Grand Theft Auto Online experience. The publisher says that they’re working to have the same update available for Xbox…

Perhaps President Obama Can Fix the GTA Online Issues

Grand Theft Auto Online is facing post-launch glitches and headaches. Government shutdown shmutdown, the GTA Online issues are bad enough that the President of the United States had to call an honest to goodness meeting to address the issue. Don’t think this is fake or some cleverly re-edited clip. It is incredibly real. So instead,…

I Want To Catch These Pokémon Hanafuda Cards

Nintendo started in the 19th century as a hanafuda maker. To this day, Nintendo still makes hanafuda cards in Japan. But is it making these Pokémon hanafuda cards? As pointed out by Gigazine, a mysterious Pokémon hanafuda site just went up in Japan. The site states that more details will be made available on October…

Legendary Arcade Shooter Ikaruga Is Getting A PC Version

After the vertical shoot-em-up’s arcade debut in 2001, it was ported over to several home consoles: the GameCube, the Dreamcast, and even the Xbox 360 via the Live Arcade. Heck, there was even an Android port released this January. Now, it’s the PC’s turn. Over at Steam’s Greenlight, an entry popped up overnight for Ikaruga—specifically,…

If You Need More River City Ransom in Your Life, Try Kunio-kun SP

When I was a kid, I loved playing games on my NES. In fact, the only thing I loved more was playing co-op on the NES (this is a by-product of being an only child). Luckily for me and my next-door neighbor, there was always River City Ransom—part of the Kunio-kun series, which is still…

A Town-Building Game Where You’re A Shoemaker. Who Fights Monsters.

We all know the story. Boy wants to be a knight. Boy grows up. The king’s army arrives, looking for soldiers… but what if our boy, now a man, isn’t chosen? What if he’s left behind, forced to make ends meet as a shoemaker? And what if his village is attacked while the army is…

Gainax’s Newest Anime Is Cute Girls, Airsoft Guns, and Little More

I get excited whenever Gainax puts out a new anime. Whether it’s a psychological exploration of humanity like Evangelion or a dirty, hilarious comedy like Panty & Stocking, Gainax’s anime tend to play on your expectations to make something both surprising and magical. Their newest, however, is definitely an exception. Note: This review contains spoilers.…

Let China Show You What Crowded Really Means

If you plan on going sightseeing right now in China, you might want to reconsider. That is, unless you like huge crowds and being pressed up against strangers. If so, go now. And quick! It’s “National Day Golden Week” in China, which is a seven-day holiday that kicks off every year on October 1, the…