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All Games Should Unlock Every Level Right Away

Super Mario 4D Universe—or whatever the next one will be called—should come with every single level in the Mushroom Constitutional Monarchy unlocked. The next Grand Theft Auto should make all of its missions immediately playable in the very first minute. Uncharted 4 should let me jump into the middle of Nathan Drake’s adventures as soon…

How Nintendo Made The NES (And Why They Gave It A Gun)

Video game history could’ve gone a totally different way if Nintendo’s corporate headquarters were somewhere else. “If Nintendo wasn’t located in Kyoto, I wouldn’t have been there,” the man who lead the design of the Nintendo Entertainment System said last night. Good thing Masayuki Uemura’s parents never relocated to another part of Japan. It’s entirely…

With Hearts of Stone, The Witcher 3 Continues To Get DLC Very Right

A month or so ago, I would’ve told you I was done playing The Witcher 3. Turns out that’s not the case. This week, The Witcher 3’s first paid downloadable expansion, Hearts of Stone, came out. While CD Projekt Red already demonstrated their ability to confidently expand The Witcher 3 with those 16 pieces of…

That Time A German Hacker Leaked Half-Life 2‘s Source Code

Players have been waiting a while for Valve to release another Half-Life game. It’s taken long enough that it’s easy to forget all the drama that circled Half-Life 2’s development. You know, like a hacker leaking an early version of the game in September 2003, more than a year ahead of its actual release date.…

Pokemon Stadium can be utter bullshit, and here’s proof—a montage made by GRsmash showcasing 10 times the infamous Smash Bros. stage screwed over a pro player.

One Unexpectedly Awesome Week With Metal Gear Online

I’ve spent the last week playing through the multiplayer portion of Metal Gear Solid V—and I gotta say, despite the initial launch hiccups, I’m pretty sure I like it better than the base game. Let me explain. Metal Gear Online is everything that makes Metal Gear Solid V so damn good—the wonderful tension of sneaking…

The Town That Inspired The Silent Hill Movie Has A Real (And Tragic) Story

Is that an air raid siren signaling the arrival of terrible monsters? Naw, it’s announcing Worth Reading, our weekly roundup of the best games writing. Hey, You Should Read These “Survival Horror” by Duncan Fyfe Duncan Fyfe digs into the complicated fandom of Silent Hill, which intersects with the tragic history of a real-life American…

League Of Legends’ Trolliest Game Mode Returns, Teemo Immediately Gets Banned

Riot just reintroduced one of its whackiest creations back into League of Legends, the company’s inexplicably popular team-based multiplayer game where angry little gerbil things do battle against gigantic, vicious dragons. Only this time it’s missing everyone’s favorite bloodthirsty fuzz monster Teemo. “One For All” is a special alternate game mode that Riot first put…

Downwell Is the Best Three Dollars You’ll Spend on a Video Game This Week

Falling down in video games is usually a bad thing. Spikes wait for you at the bottom of many a playfield, along with bottomless pits, pools of lava and other instadeath hazards. But, falling down is a joy in Downwell. The deeper you go, the better—and harder—it gets. Developed by Ojiro Fumoto, this vertically-oriented roguelike…

Damn you, Walk a Bigger Eight (A3D9-0000-009C-D845). Watch the whole video here. Contact the author at [email protected]

A Simple Option That Can Help Stop Streaming Takedowns

The battle between video game streaming and copyright law is a nightmare, starring heartless YouTube robots, takedown notices and threatened livelihoods. If only there was a quick and easy way around this. Oh wait. There might be. One of the biggest—and most incidental—problems facing streamers is the use of game music in their clips. If…

The newest cinematic version of Batman and the Batmobile from the upcoming Batman v. Superman movie will be coming to Arkham Knight next month. There’s a full rundown of the remaining DLC—which says the big Season of Infamy add-on will hit in December—here. Contact the author at [email protected]

The popular PC gaming YouTuber John “Total Biscuit” Bain told his fans yesterday that his cancer has returned and that life expectancy may be 2-3 years. We wish anyone who suffers from this terrible disease all the best and encourage everyone to talk to their doctor about when to get screenings. I’ve enjoyed chatting with…

Prison Architect Devs Wonder if Their Game Should Have Looked Less Like America

People are interested in Introversion’s very good sim Prison Architect because it tries to model the complexities of life inside a penal institution. People also seem to be tougher on Prison Architect than they are on more frivolous games, for the very same reason: it attempts to simulate the complexities of prison life. How do…

Report: Nintendo’s Next Platform NX Combines Console And Handheld In Some Way

Nintendo’s new gaming platform will encompass a console and a handheld according to a report in today’s Wall Street Journal According to the paper: The exact shape of the NX hardware isn’t yet clear. People familiar with the development plans said Nintendo would likely include both a console and at least one mobile unit that…

A Dark Souls Poster with Some Familiar Faces

See if you can spot your favorite character. Or least favorite. Since, y’know. Dark Souls. The poster, called “Prepare to Die,” can be seen in its full glory here: It was drawn by Shane Hillman, an illustrator from Canada, who wanted to do a poster featuring his own favorite Dark Souls characters—or at least some…

The most imbalanced StarCraft unit isn’t in StarCraft. It’s this Colossus, recreated in Besiege, by TheAmazingTwist. It’s imbalanced… in a different way: Pumped up the power of the balloon in the middle to about 60, otherwise it would crumble under its own weight. The downside is that it makes everything bouncy. I started off wanting…

Nintendo Is Nerfing a Bunch of Splatoon Weapons

For those who didn’t like how some of the Rollers and Blasters were balanced, good news. Nintendo will fix that in an update. For those who did like the way they are now, well, sorry! The 2.2.0 Splatoon update hits on October 20 and recalibrates weapons that do seem overpowered, such as the Carbon Roller…

This is Wanderer, “an episodic 2D adventure game blending cinematic platformer and RPG”.

The Obvious Choice For The Next Smash Bros. Character

The Super Smash Bros. Ballot has been closed for a while, and still, no announcement from Nintendo on who the fan’s choice for the next Smash DLC will be. In the absence of official word, then (though fans feel like that’s coming soon), it’s left to parody accounts and solid jokes to fill the void.