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MMO Tie-In Defiance Gets A Third Season

What I was certain would wind up a failed attempt at an ongoing television show/MMO transmedia project after season one, SyFy’s Defiance is returning next year for season three. I guess I’ve got some catching up to do. I wanted to like the first season of Defiance — I really did. I watched each and…

It’s Dangerous To Go Alone. Eat This.

The menu at Fountain City Coffee in Columbus, Georgia is the beginning of an epic breakfast adventure. Brought to light by Kumanoki on Reddit, this listing of purchasable breakfast goods begs the question — should we sacrifice readability and potentially alienate non-game-savvy customers for the sake of a The Legend of Zelda reference? The answer…

The Game Of Thrones Opening Is Much Better With A Man Eating Soup

We’ve seen the iconic opening credits of Game of Thrones remade countless times over the past several years, but none have been as awe-inspiring as this, the “Man Eating Soup” version. Spoilers: It’s tomato. My heartfelt thanks goes out to YouTuber Lexaviane Clickhole (viaNeatorama) for creating this completely random opening credits remix, as it’s been…

I Can’t Get Enough Of This Sexy Sci-Fi Spy Thriller

As the credits rolled for Revolution 60, Giant Spacekat’s science fiction spy adventure for iOS, I felt the familiar pang of loss I feel whenever a great game ends. I’ve been on a real bite-sized iOS game kick lately, favoring short, spastic games that deliver a quick hit — Candy Crush-style puzzlers, CSR Racing-style action…

A Game About Two Girls Gleefully Breaking the World

Remember how playing Katamari Damacy felt? How it seemed like you could roll up nearly everything in sight onto your candy-and-cat-and-house-filled magic ball? One new game shown in New York City last week is sort of like that PS2 classic but with one big difference: you’re slamming yourself into the world as hard as you…

Comparison: The Wii U Gets The “Definitive Version” Bayonetta

After the famously fudged-up PlayStation 3 port of Platinum Games sexy action game, fans were rightly cautious when Nintendo announced the original Bayonetta would come bundled with its Wii U exclusive sequel. Digital Foundry puts those worries to rest. Putting all three versions of Bayonetta through the wringer, Digital Foundry found that while some of…

Saturday Morning Stream: The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter [Stream Done]

According to developer The Astronauts, horror adventure The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is game to be played at night, alone, with the lights out. So I’m playing it in the morning with a group of Twitch friends in my brightly-lit office. It’s not that I’m frightened or anything. It’s just that I don’t want to…

9/22/2014: Should I Tell Him?

Just a few hours after the infamous Loot Cave Death of 2014, I spotted this lonely level 13 waiting patiently to shoot at Hive scum. I didn’t have the heart (or, really, the easy means) to tell him his efforts were going to be wasted. For other (non-Destiny) news and articles from this week, head…

I’m Glad That Vikings Have Taken Over Video Games

Seriously, between Skyrim, The Banner Saga, and now gorgeous-looking 2D brawler Viking Squad, they’ve been killing it lately. And people. They’ve been killing lots and lots of people. Viking Squad is a great-looking brawler coming from the presumably difficult-to-grip folks at Slick Entertainment. It’s got all the traditional staples of a good rough-’em-up-and-take-their-stuff: nice hand-drawn…

How Many American Teens and Adults Play Mobile Games

New research from the Entertainment Software Association suggests that a third of all adults and teens in the United States play mobile games. More than 20% of them said they’d never played a game before, or had stopped some time ago. The fact that mobile games have been attracting new folks has been suspected for…

You Had Me At ‘Assassin’s Creed With Kittens’

Thank you, the Internet. Damn you to cat claw hell for this, but also thank you so much. The face that kitten in green makes when it’s about to catssassinate the first soldier. This face: The horror. And also everything else about this video. Assassin’s Creed Unity might have cool crowd tech and post-just-shanked-a-thousand-dudes fistbump…

​Bungie Is Starting To Fix Destiny‘s Loot

We all figured that Bungie would begin to take steps to fix Destiny’s flawed loot system. Good news: The first big changes come next week. In a new update at the Destiny blog, the game’s developers say that after next week’s 1.0.2 patch, rare and legendary engrams will always decode to an item that’s at…

​Shooters Are Better With Silly Sound Effects

Foley artists spend countless hours doing the thankless job of getting your game sounds — shotguns, plasma rifles and chainsaws — just right. It’s not an easy job. But those games are still fun if you replace all that hard work with dumb mouth noises. Youtube user MrElephante222 made the video above, replacing all the…

The Slapstick Fighting Game That Took Over An Entire Festival

“I think the game is kind of horrifying,” one game developer tells me over drinks. “Its violence… the intent behind it, is a little too real.” His comments strike me as strange, given that Gang Beasts reminds me of watching slapstick comedy from The Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges as a kid. Gang Beasts…

Shadow of Mordor isn’t just a surprisingly good game. It also has the most romantic stealth-game tutorial of all time. We couldn’t help but share this image from the beginning of the game. (Disregard the bottom line of text—that’s just a subtitle.)

​One Small Tweak Makes Vita Remote Play So Much Better

I haven’t been the biggest fan of the PlayStation Vita’s remote play function. It sounds great in theory—use your Vita to stream games from your PS4, play games in bed or on the go! But it never works quite like I want it to. One of the issues for me has been lag, but lately,…

The Biggest Problem With 3DS Smash Bros.

For the last week, one thing has been bugging me about the 3DS version of Smash: the controls. I think, to some extent, this is a question that’s been on everyone’s mind. Does the 3DS version feel good to play? Should you try the game out on the 3DS, or should you just wait for…

There’s Already A New Loot Cave In Destiny

I mean, were we expecting anything else? Bungie may have nerfed the famous Loot Cave™ and several others yesterday that players had discovered would grant them with fast enemy respawns and therefore a higher chance of scraping loot and engrams together, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t others yet to be discovered. Now, this one…

Official Pokémon Card Game for iPad Just Launched On Canadian App Store

The Pokémon Trading Card Game just showed up on Canada’s iOS app store. This means that it’s likely heading to other territories soon too. The Pokemon Company announced it during the Pokemon World Championships last month. For now it’s iPad-only, but it syncs up with the long-running desktop version Here the first details of what…

“Rising game budgets have created breathtaking, cinematic experiences. But not everyone is happy.” The Economist takes a look at the state of the video game industry in the wake of Destiny’s famously pricey launch and provides an interesting overview of where game development is headed in the near future.