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While there are a lot of great custom designs for the Switch popping up every week, the Funtastic N64-inspired ones are my new favorite. Nintendo started releasing translucent colored variants for the N64 back in 1999 with the release of Donkey Kong 64. What console mods currently have you excited?

The Black Friday Backlog Of Shame  

I bought XCOM: Enemy Unknown five years ago and still haven’t touched it. It was Black Friday 2012 and there were deals. Lots of them. The one that hooked me was from Amazon though. The online retailer was offering a number of games that had come out that year at $25 a piece with free…

If Dark Souls Was Animated To Look Like Cuphead 

Dying would look a lot cuter. The mashup was created by the YouTube channel 64 Bits and shows just how limitless the possibilities are for Cuphead DLC. It turns out anthropomorphic cups aren’t the only thing that look cooler when animated. “We just love Cuphead (and Dark Souls!) So we animated you this mashup!” the…

Breath Of The Wild‘s Horses Do The Darndest Things 

It’s been a good year for games. Trying to arrive at a shortlist for the best ones to come out in 2017 is going be tough. But every time I think I’ve finally started to cool on The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild, it finds a new way to warm my heart.…

Bungie Changes Destiny 2 XP System After Players Discover It Was Rigged

Bungie has announced that it’s changing how Destiny 2 handles experience points. The move comes in response to players who have been raising questions about it over recent days, with a growing consensus that the system was rigged. For a while after starting a new character in Destiny 2, experience points (XP) are what you…

What’s Your Favorite Video Game World?

A few weeks ago, Kotaku’s community-run blog, TAY, had a theme week with a question, what is your favorite video game world? I’ve always loved the world of Phantasy Star II. It’s a utopian vision of a future where everything is provided for. A big AI computer called Mother Brain has created peace and harmony…

Conker’s Bad Fur Day Is Irreverent Action At Its Best

I don’t think a game ever made me laugh so hard. Conker’s Bad Fur Day was developed by Rare in 2001 for the N64 and felt like a satirical middle finger to gaming and film that revels in mocking many of its tropes. It could only come from the creator of platforming classics like Banjo…

How Beyond: Two Souls Helped Me To Share A Personal Pain

Every David Cage game is an experience, from the eerie Indigo Prophecy to the twisted murder mystery of Heavy Rain and the flawed but ambitious Beyond: Two Souls. Released in 2013 for the PS3, Beyond is an interactive drama action-adventure game about Jodie Holmes (played by Ellen Page) who has supernatural powers. This is largely…

The Quirky Voyage of StarTropics

The journey of StarTropics was as varied as it was challenging, taking players from the tropical islands of the Coral Sea to the spaceship of an alien conqueror. In many ways, the game is what you’d get if there was an 8-bit version of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker fused together with Indiana Jones,…

Life Is Strange’s Literary References Give Deeper Meaning To Its Journey

Gamers often talk about the convergence of film and games. But in Life Is Strange, some of my favorite moments are the literary allusions because they make the world feel richer and more authentic. That starts with Max’s last name, Caulfield, which is a reference to Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, the…

Gunstar Heroes Is An Exhilarating Ride That Never Lets Up

Gunstar Heroes is side-scrolling shooting sublimated, chaos synchronized into a bullet symphony that makes the game feel very addictive. Created by Treasure, a cove of ex-Konami developers who wanted to develop unique games and follow the philosophy of “anything goes,” Heroes covers the adventures of the Gunstars as they fight against an evil organization that…

Persona 5‘s Real World Is Scarier Than The Metaverse

In Persona 3 and 4, reality outside of the world of shadows was high school life, social links, and excursions that, for the most part, were enjoyable and light-hearted. In Persona 5, every day life is bleak. Warning, spoilers abound. High School Blues From the opening, the main protagonist is threatened, talked down to, and…

A Goat Made Me Cry In Terranigma

There are many scenes in Terranigma that challenged my notions of morality and how even our well-intentioned decisions can impact a society in ways we couldn’t imagine. It’s arguably one of the most compelling JRPGs ever developed because of those ambiguities, standing as the finale in the Quintet trilogy that includes Soulblazer and Illusion of…

Ghost In The Shell Goes VR Multiplayer In Tokyo 

VR Zone Shinjuku, Namco Bandai’s virtual reality arcade in Tokyo, is getting a four-on-four Ghost in the Shell team-based multiplayer shooter. Dubbed Ghost in the Shell Arise: Stealth Hounds, the game straps a PC on players’ backs and outfits them with VR markers, VR googles and an arcade gun. Battles go down in a dedicated…

Ash From Pokémon Sets A New Strength Record 

Earlier in the new Pokémon TV anime series, Pokémon: Sun Moon, Ash was shown as a wimp. He’s always been superhuman strong, so this depiction was a break from tradition. Good news! The most recent episode is a return to form. Herculean Ash is back and stronger than ever. Over the years, the Pokémon anime…

Cabugao Sunset. Ilocos Sur, Philippines. By Martin Tan. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

DialVision is an unofficial app for the excellent X-Wing miniatures game that works as targeting computer, using augmented reality to project firing arcs and range limits onto the table so you don’t have to fiddle with those rulers all the time.

AI Is Learning How To Build Its Own Video Game Worlds

A team of researchers from the University of Lyon, Purdue and Ubisoft have published a paper showing what may well be the future of creating video game worlds: an AI that is able to construct most of its own 3D landscapes. Similar to Nvidia’s work that is able to conjure its own celebrity mugshots, the…

Guy Builds Robot To Grind (Badly) For Battlefront II Loot Boxes

There are two ways to unlock stuff in Battlefront II. You could pay for it, which sucks, or you could build a sense of pride and accomplishment by constructing a robot to grind progression for you. Lowberg has opted for the latter, whipping up this cute lil’ joke robot that obviously can’t play the game…

Super Massive Galaxy In Super Mario Galaxy 2 Is A Loving Tribute To Super Mario Brothers 3‘s Giant Land

Super Mario Galaxy 2’s gameplay is superb, having some of the most creative level design I’ve experienced. Discovering the new rules and parameters of each galaxy is a joy. Yoshi is back. There’s a variety of suits that are available like the Cloud Mario and Rock Suit that mix up the control scheme and the…