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The New Stellaris Update Can’t Fix A Boring Game

Stellaris didn’t launch as a bad game, just a game that hadn’t figured out what it was. While the new Heinlein patch helps Stellaris become more coherent, it still doesn’t quite work. There’s a host of small improvements that do make the game easier to parse. When you’re beefing up your military, the ships fly…

Rockstar Cracks Down On GTA Online Cheaters, Deletes Trillions Of ‘GTA Dollars’

Grand Theft Auto Online players who amassed mountains of in-game money through exploits and mods woke up today to gargantuan deductions from their virtual bank accounts. Rockstar Games started the day with a new offensive against players who break the game’s terms of service to their advantage. On forums for the game, players who freely…

Overwatch’s Third Competitive Season Will Make Skill Ratings More Fair

If you began Overwatch season two as a high-tier hotshot, only to plummet into silver or bronze as time went on, don’t worry: you’re not alone. Season two completely overhauled the occasionally loved, often loathed skill rating system, but players still aren’t satisfied. Many don’t love the feeling of plateauing at a certain skill rating…

The Creators of Pokémon Explain Why Sun and Moon Has Ridiculous Monster Designs

Haunted sandcastlePokémon. Dugtrio with luscious hair. Garfield’s shitty blue cousin. Maybe you’ve noticed, but Sun and Moon’s creature design is actively absurd, sometimes bordering on troll-like. All of that is intentional, according to the creators. Earlier this month I spoke to Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda, producer on Sun and Moon, as well as Shigeru Ohmori, director…

Destiny’s Festival Of The Lost Returns With Some Goofy Secrets

Destiny’s Festival of the Lost is underway once more, bringing with it a heaping helping of masks, mirth, and microtransactions. Also, you can ride a broomstick. As with last year’s festival, you can get started by visiting Eva Levante in the tower or, this year, Tyra Karn in the Iron Temple. Eva’s quest is the…

The Best Dungeons & Dragons Adventures Keep Things Simple

The little-known secret to an extraordinary Dungeons & Dragons session is the tired cliche “less is more.” It’s true, although it may not seem that way to a tabletop culture that traditionally relishes in crowded mechanics and bloated narratives. In a game where veterans trade war stories of arduous, endless dungeons full of idiosyncratic traps,…

A BDSM Game That Let Me Explore A New Type Of Sexual Experience 

Ladykiller in a Bind is a visual novel by Christine Love. It’s about affection, sex, consent, manipulation, and expression. Video games can often be a vector for experimentation and escapism. Playing Ladykiller in a Bind has taught me a surprising amount about myself. WARNING: This article contains images that are Not Safe For Work. There’s…

World Of Warcraft‘s Return To Karazhan Update Is Live

Now that we’ve had nearly two months to get used to the World of Warcraft: Legion expansion, Blizzard heaps on a massive helping of new dungeon, raid and quest content in Update 7.1: Return to Karazhan. Here’s all the new stuff players can do today. The centerpiece of the Return to Karazhan update is the…

World Of Final Fantasy‘s Ridiculous Mirage Manual Is Worth Reading

One of the best reasons to collect all of the mirage creatures in World of Final Fantasy is to fill out the Mirage Manual, a catalog of creatures with some very colorful flavor text. Here are some of the best to get you started. The Mirage Manual can be found in Lann and Reynn’s room…

The Division‘s Rocky Road

Ubisoft’s third-person shooter The Division has been one of 2016’s most interesting successes and one of its worst fiascoes. The people who make it now hope it can also be the year’s best comeback story. On Tuesday, the game’s developers will issue a major patch that is designed to do nothing less than overhaul a…

The Nintendo Switch Dog Brought To Life

Look. At. This. Those Nintendo Switch comparisons to a little cute dog have been made real. Twitter user TheAnnaTheRedhas created this darling little plushie:  Here’s what inspired Switch dog. Adorable! Nintendo should totally embrace this little dog character.

Purple Flowers. Wageningen, Netherlands. By Aiman Ishak. 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! 

I am a simple man who takes pleasure in simple things. Like how Will Smith’s Switch is such a good/dumb fit with Nintendo’s debut Switch trailer. Via Tiny Cartridge, @stoppableforce

A Tip For An Annoying Civilization VI Issue

Over the weekend, a bug popped for many Civilization VI owners resulting in the game seemingly locking up during loading screens. Thankfully, there’s now a fix for it. As turdas points out, it seems like the problem was related to Windows Defender, with the program wanting to scan Civ VI every time you booted it…

Watch Dogs 2 Makes Fun Of Donald Trump

Somewhat unlike its predecessor, Watch Dogs 2 has a personality! I would even go so far as to call it feisty. Warning: minor Watch Dogs 2 spoilers ahead. The embargo dam on Watch Dogs 2 preview footage recently burst, and some interesting tidbits have surfaced. Tonally, the game seems to take some cues from Grand…

GTA V Player Sinks A Yacht With 100 Bodies

Ah, yes, Grand Theft Auto V: where destruction is crowd-sourced. Recently, GTA V player RZED was curious about whether over a hundred people could sink a yacht in-game. With admirable scientific rigor, RZED collected a mass of bodies onto the bow of a large boat. He used a mod to make it drivable. What happens next is…

Black Mirror‘s Newest Season Explores The Horrors of Social Media

The finale to this season of Black Mirror, “Hated in the Nation,” is a tight police procedural that opens on Jo Powers, a controversial journalist, being murdered after people mob and harass her on Twitter. While each twist and turn is telegraphed, the episode is best at showing how viciously efficient social media is at…

Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel Is Fun, If A Little Unsatisfying

Dark Souls speaks its own distinct language. The more you play, the easier that language is to understand. Dark Souls 3’s new Ashes of Ariandel DLC doesn’t really teach us many new words, but it’s still nice to have a new chapter. I’m no Dark Souls expert, but I do speak the language well enough.…

For Five Years, One Woman Chronicled Her Boyfriend’s Fixation With Slender Man On YouTube

On July 29, 2011, a YouTube channel named “Tulpa Effect” uploaded a vlog where a woman named Marissa explained that her boyfriend, Roger, had acquired a new obsession: Slender Man. “He reads these forums, and he looks online, at the YouTube videos…and originally, he was talking about wanting to make a Slender Man video,” Marissa…

The (Possible) End Of Nintendo’s Magnificent Two-Screen Gaming Era

The fact that Nintendo’s next video game machine, the Switch, is built for single-screen gaming is a dark lining on a silver cloud. The Switch should be great, and it’s a Nintendo system worth being excited about. It will make home console games portable, letting users choose between outputting a game’s graphics on their TV…