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All The JRPGs I Played At E3 2015

Last week I flew to Los Angeles for E3, an annual event in which all sorts of video game people gather to complain on Twitter about how busy they are. At this event, I discovered many Japanese role-playing games. I tried to play—or at least watch—as many as I could. But JRPGs are impossible to…

Smash Bros. Glitch Turns Pac-Man Into Unstoppable Terror

So this is scary. Pac-Man, one of the cheeriest-looking characters ever known in video games, has unlocked what looks like one of the biggest trolls moves in Smash Bros. thanks to a recently discovered glitch. Nicknamed the “trampoline stage drop” by the influential Smash forum Smashboards, the glitch makes the Pac’s opponent fall through through…

Streamer Sethbling is teaching a computer program to play Super Mario Kart, and you can watch the thing learn (and occasionally drive off the road) in real-time on his Twitch. I for one welcome our new Kart-playing overlords.

Project Cars 2 Already Announced, Crowdfunding

After several delays, Projects Cars finally arrived in early May. Just weeks later, developer Slightly Mad Studios have announced plans to crowdfund a sequel. That seems…soon. As with the last game, Project Cars 2 is raising money on the World of Mass Development platform. There’s no stated budget or goal for the sequel, but it…

The Most Expensive Games On GameStop’s New Retro Store

What’s old is new again. Unfortunately, it’s also pricey. GameStop launched its long-discussed retro store today, and most games are available for pretty reasonable prices. $12.99 for Metal Gear? Sure. $6.99 for Sonic the Hedgehog 2? Alright. Even $34.99 for Mega Man 2 isn’t ridiculous, considering what it’s going for over on eBay. It doesn’t…

Catching up with with Final Fantasy XIV’s main storyhas taken its toll on my mouse finger. Still, Shiva’s about to go down, so I’m in the home stretch. Heavensward here I come!

“Yeah, we are making Vita games, but it’s not like we’re making another Killzone Mercenary.” — Sony’s had of game studios Shuhei Yoshida to us at E3, saying new Sony first-party Vita game will likely be digital and cross-platform. “From a first-party standpoint our focus is still on PS4. But we still love Vita.”

Nintendo of America Boss Teases Release of Smaller New 3DS

The smaller version of Nintendo’s more powerful New 3DS line of handhelds may finally make it to North America, thanks to popular demand. At least that’s what we think Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime was hinting to me when we discussed Nintendo’s most capable handheld at E3. “So we’ve got nothing to announce here,”…

We Are Not Free

It’s been a terrible few weeks for the black body. We’ve just been through a stretch of days that unambiguously demonstrate that black people in this country—and one other—can’t move, think or exist as freely as their non-black counterparts. A white woman claims that she’s always felt black on the inside, to the extent that…

Next From The Maker Of Katamari Damacy: Explosions And Poop

Get a bunch of your friends together. Eat some food. Poop out a new buddy. Then, blow them all up in a giant explosion. Yep, sounds like a Keita Takahashi game. Explosions usually bring joy by destroying things. Wattam—the next trippy-cute thing from the man who created Katamari Damacy—has explosions that make people happy by…

Phantom Dust Has Quietly Disappeared

At E3 2014, Microsoft thrilled hardcore gamers by announcing a reboot of the Japanese cult classic Phantom Dust. E3 2015 was somewhat less thrilling: the new Phantom Dust has vanished, and it’s unlikely we’ll see it again. In February, we reported that Microsoft had cut ties with Darkside Games, the studio they’d hired to develop…

Being A Dad Means Playing What The Kids Want To Play

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and what better day to launch the inaugural episode of a series about connecting with my twin boys through the magic of gaming? Before you ask, yes Archer and Seamus are named after characters in an animated program they won’t be able to watch for at least another decade. And yes,…

Free-To-Play LEGO Minifigures Online Goes Pay-To-Play

Well there’s an odd turnabout. LEGO Minifigures Online, Funcom’skid-friendly LEGO Diablo, has finished up its run as a free-to-play game and is relaunching June 29 as a paid experience for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. Used to be you could just hop on to LEGO Minifigures Online anytime you wanted from your web browser.…

Detailed 3D Map Visualizes The Battle of Stalingrad

Russian art group in[visible] studio created a miniature real life version of the bloodiest battle of World War II. They used projection mapping to bring a small-scale model of the city ruins to life with planes and soldiers fighting. The result is incredibly realistic. Projection mapping a popular process where an image is digitally processed…

What Really Happened With Luke’s Hand After His Duel With Darth Vader

Star Wars’ extended universe might have an answer for the fate of Luke Skywalker’s lost hand after the events of The Empire Strikes Back, but cartoonist Doug Savage’s short is just a better one. It’s a bittersweet tale with a Father’s Day spin: To contact the author of this post, write to: [email protected]

When Virtual Reality Is Fucking Terrifying 

At this year’s E3, Capcom had a Project Morpheus demo called Kitchen. It seems scary as all hell. Chris Jager at sister site Kotaku Australia called the demo “the most disturbing gaming experience” he’s ever played. (Read his impressions here.) If that doesn’t sell you, this clip from VRScout might: Or this one from DvLZGaME:…

The 1TB PlayStation 4 Is Now Official

Well, it’s now totally official. Sony is rolling out a 1TB PlayStation 4 that it’s calling the “Ultimate Player 1TB Edition.” More like ultimate storage, am I right? As of writing, the 1TB version is announced only for “select Europe and PAL territories.” It will launch on July 15 and Sony’s PlayStation Blog says to…

Sony Is Making a Slightly Lighter PS4

Sony just officially announced a new, lighter PS4. It weighs 2.5 kg, which is ten percent less than the current model. Also, the console uses eight percent less energy and has a matte hard bay cover. The new CUH-1200 series comes in Jet Black and Glacier White and goes on sale globally later this month.…

Witcher 3 On Super-Low Specs Looks Like A PS2 Game

This is neat! LowSpecGamer(via NeoGAF) used some external programs to tweak the game’s files, reducing the volume and quality of the game’s objects to such a ridiculously low extent that the game can run on a not so great laptop. The proof? The footage captured here was taken on a not so great laptop. Here…

There Is A Sale On Video Games, Apparently

You won’t believe this, because they’re so subtle, but every so often EB Games—the Australian outpost of GameStop— has a sale Like the store in the image above. They’re having a sale believe it or not, the biggest sale ever apparently. But you’d never know unless you actually walked into the store. 7/10 Clearly it…