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In case you missed me playing some Lovely Planet 2 and putting my barely elementary-level Japanese to the test, here’s the YouTube archive. Follow us on Twitch for daily streams too!

Cult Classic Alpha Protocol Removed From Sale On Steam

Obsidian Entertainment’s 2010 spy-thriller Alpha Protocol has been removed from sale on Steam at the “request of the publisher.” According to a Sega representative, rights to publish the cult-classic RPG have expired. While players who previously bought a copy can still access and download the game, it’s unclear when or if it will go back…

I’m back in the Goblin Bunker playing some Lovely Planet 2 live on our Twitch channel. Come join me in the chat.

Body-Bending Dancers Do A Mean Mortal Kombat Routine On America’s Got Talent

A four-man dance squad called Adem Show from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan put on a breathtaking Mortal Kombat-inspired routine on last night’s episode of America’s Got Talent. The Raiden-like leader manipulating a trio of contortionist ninja is stunning (and often painful) to watch. Judging from the production and staging of the clip posted…

Phil Spencer On Xbox’s Unusual Strategy, Working With Sony, And More

Xbox chief Phil Spencer has heard from the skeptics. They think that what he’s doing with Xbox means that Microsoft is giving up on consoles, or even going third party. That’s all wrong, he told me during an extensive interview in Los Angeles last week, where we discussed his vision for Xbox, the recently announced…

Children of Morta has a free demo on Steam today through June 22. We sat down with publisher 11 Bit Studios earlier this month

Rare Replay is coming to Xbox Game Pass. Subscribers will be able to download the 30-game collection when it arrives June 20, alongside Resident Evil: Revelations.

Pokémon Go developer Niantic’s next augmented reality mobile game, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, launches on June 21 in the U.S. and United Kingdom. Players will cast spells, battle creatures, brew potions and uncover wizarding secrets hidden in the real world, while muggles look on in confusion. Silly muggles. 

If You’re Going To Play Mario Maker 2, You Should Probably Get A Stylus

Super Mario Maker 2 is coming on June 28, the latest in a growing line of Wii U games to get repurposed (and in this case, substantially enhanced) for Switch. I was a bit apprehensive about how Mario Maker would handle the move, since it was originally designed for a resistive touchscreen and the Switch…

As reported earlier this February, Japan’s first Nintendo Store will open this fall. But when? It’s been recently announced that the store will open in November on the sixth floor of the new Shibuya Parco building in Tokyo. Pokémon Center Shibuya and Capcom Store Tokyo will also open in Parco on the same floor.

Why Katamari Damacy‘s Creator Left Japan

On March 18, 2004, Katamari Damacy was released on the PlayStation 2. The game was unlike anything else, and a sequel soon followed a year later. In 2009, Katamari’s creator Keita Takahashi released Noby Noby Boy. A year later, he left Bandai Namco and shortly after that, Japan as well. I’d always wondered why Takahashi…

Service is ending for massively multiplayer online role-playing game Monster Hunter Frontier Z in Japan. Monster Hunter Frontier launched in Japan in 2007 on PC, and a big update in 2016 changed the game’s name to Monster Hunter Frontier Z. Twelve years is a good run, no?

Japanese Man Arrested With Wario Drugs

A 27 year-old man has been arrested in Tokushima having been found with 50 MDMA/ecstacy tablets in his possession, most of them shaped like Wario. As Asahi report, it’s the third time this year the man, Satoshi Kishimoto, has been caught with narcotics, the other two being for dried cannabis and LSD. Kobe Customs told…

Elite Player Took Some Beautiful Screenshots Of His 18-Week Journey Across Space

Earlier this year, a group of Elite: Dangerous players set out on an expedition that would take them across the entire Milky Way, all 130,000 light years of it. The journey took months, and some of its most beautiful and bizarre sights have been captured by Aurum_32 in this collection of screenshots. There are shots from…

Overwatch just kicked off a new themed challenge event, this one focused on combat medic Baptiste. Inspired by the “What You Left Behind” short story Blizzard released yesterday, the Reunion Challenge offers new Baptiste cosmetics—including a special skin—to players who win games from June 18 to July 1. You can also unlock additional cosmetics by…

Modder Builds The Only Smash Controller You’ll Ever Need

There’s a lot of buttons in Smash, but really, there’s an argument that you only need one. Especially if you main with the spam-tastic Ness or Simon. Insert Controller Here built this controller to feature only two things: an input for a nunchuk, so you can actually move around, and a single giant button. Marvellous.…

Bloodstained Is Goth Fun In An All-Too-Familiar Package

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a very good solution to a problem we haven’t really had for years: a dearth of side-scrolling exploration games with role-playing bells and whistles. The long-gestating, Kickstarted return of celebrated developer and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night mastermind Koji Igarashi, Bloodstained, does fans of haunted cathedrals and combat whips…

Telltale’s Minecraft Currently Costs $700 On Xbox 360 (But You’re Not Supposed To Buy It)

If you really think about it, all video games—dazzling feats of technical mastery assembled over the course of countless man hours—are priceless. But if you think about it even harder, you probably still won’t want to pay $100 for a single episode of the soon-to-be-delisted Minecraft: Story Mode Currently, each episode of the eight-part narrative-driven…

Breath Of The Wild Is Getting A Sequel Because The Team Had Too Many DLC Ideas (And Other Info From Zelda‘s Producer)

Breath of the Wild is getting a sequel because the team had too many ideas for downloadable content, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma told me last week in Los Angeles. We also talked about how the Link’s Awakening remake came about, why Zelda games haven’t offered button remapping, and work conditions at Nintendo. Aonuma spoke…

Fortnite Competition Hosts Help Deaf Teen Player Feel Welcome

During last weekend’s Fortnite Summer Block Party, 13-year-old Deaf streamer Soleil “Ewok”Wheeler played in the event’s Celebrity Pro-Am and met some of her favorite streamers. While it was cool to see a young player have an awesome time, it was even cooler to see a high-profile example of accessibility in gaming. As reported by Dexerto,…