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Why Studio Ghibli Didn’t Make Ponyo 2

Famed animator Hayao Miyazaki wanted to make a sequel to the 2008 film Ponyo. It never happened. There’s a simple reason for that. Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki did not want to see Ponyo 2 Miyazaki, who has retired from feature films, is currently working on a short-form CG anime called Kemushi no Boro (Boro the…

Chime Sharp, the sequel to one of my favourite old XBLA games, is now out on Steam. It’s got music by Kavinsky and Chvrches, and is rather good if you’re into games like Lumines

Extreme Skier Killed In Avalanche While Filming For Ubisoft Game

Pro skier Matilda Rapaport has been killed in Chile while shooting footage for Ubisoft’s upcoming sports game Steep The news was announced through her sponsors Red Bull, who told The Guardian “Matilda was an extraordinary athlete, traveling the world to find her passion, ride steep terrain and share her bright smile.” The 30 year-old Swede…

A Few Small Problems With Overwatch‘s Ana

Ana is now available for everyone on PC to play, and like I said in my original assessment, she’s great. After playing her for a bit today on live servers, though, I do have a few issues. Ana is a support sniper. She does the heals and the keels. My biggest issue with her doesn’t…

What goes into a game’s font? A lot, as this blog post from Kongregate’s Doug Stewart shows

Pokémon Go Player Crashes Into Cop Car, Captured On Camera

Don’t Pokémon Go and drive. You’ll do something stupid. Like crash into a police car. The Baltimore Police Department posted this video earlier today, showing a guy—who instantly told the cops he had his eyes down playing Pokémon Go—driving straight into a parked police car. Everyone was OK, and the cops seemed awfully nice about…

ArmA 3 Apex Is DIY Jungle Warfare

I’ve always felt like the ArmA games have been one good overhaul from being true world-beaters. Let me explain. The ArmA games are, from a neutral perspective, hard as fuck. You need to memorise a ton of keyboard shortcuts, controls can be clunky, presentation is terrible and gameplay is utterly unforgiving. If you walk into…

Netflix’s Stranger Things: style over substance, but still a lot of fun. What it is: The streaming network’s latest bingeworthy series, a nostalgia-fest that piles a dozen Stephen King homages on top of a dozen more tributes to 1980s Spielberg, then bonks them together like action figures. What I’ve watched: Watched all eight episodes over…

Actor Terry Crews Livestreams The Joy (And Frustration) Of Building Your First PC

Actor Terry Crews has spent the last week showing the world the process of building his first gaming PC. It’s been adorable to watch. Crews was invited to a Battlefield 1 event at E3, where a bunch of celebrities played against each other, including Snoop Dogg and Jamie Foxx. This clued him into what’s interesting…

Watch Us Play Final Fantasy XIV‘s New Dungeon

Today’s Final Fantasy XIV patch opens up the Palace of the Dead, a fascinating new dungeon that has randomized floors and self-contained equipment and leveling systems. Let’s check it out. Watch Fahey, Cecilia and I take a trip through this new dungeon, seeing how far we can get before Fahey gets stuck in a trap…

Tips For Playing Pokémon Go

Being the very best (like no one ever was) is surprisingly difficult in Pokémon Go. You can’t just grind your way to a strong Pokémon anymore: you’ve got to get out there and explore. We’ve got some pointers to help you make the best out of your journey. From finding monsters out in the wild,…

Overwatch’s new hero, Ana, is now live for PC players. A new patch just dropped, bringing the recent round of major PTR changes over to regular servers. For more on what’s next, check out my recent interview with Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan

Twitch Bans Top Counter-Strike Gambling Streamer

Just a few days after Twitch announced it would be cracking down on folks streaming Counter-Strike gambling sites, one of the most popular streamers, PhantomL0rd, had their account closed by Twitch. “The community has closed this channel due to terms of service violations,” reads a statement from Twitch on PhantomL0rd’s channel. Twitch refused to provide…

Pokémon Go Is Bringing New Yorkers Together

I didn’t think a film about Pokémon could make me sentimental—exempting, of course, Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back, which earned tears only because I was seven and fanatical. Then last Sunday, 18-year-old aspiring filmmaker Alexander Steinberg posted “Pokémon GO: Unite NYC,” a short documentary about the Pokémon trainers camping the southeastern corner of Central Park in…

I Wish I’d Found This Donkey Kong Country Secret As A Kid

Recently, I learned a well-kept secret about Mine Cart Carnage, the eighth level of Donkey Kong Country for the SNES. My childhood memories of playing this particular level are all negative, nothing but frustration and endless, wasted hours. When I found out what the secret was, I wanted to kick myself. It would have saved…

Watch Us Play Videoball, An Elegant Sports Game

If you’re hungry for a quick and quirky couch co-op fix, Videoball is here to scratch that itch. Game designer and former Kotaku contributor Tim Rogers, along with the rest of the team at Action Button Entertainment, have smashed together Asteroids and Pong to make a pretty fun game. Join me for a match as…

Telltale’s Batman Begins On August 2

This first episode of Telltales take on both sides of Bruce Wayne arrives early next month. The release date arrives with the game’s first trailer, hitting all the bat beats comic book fans are familiar with. We’ve got crime boss Carmine Falcone acting like he owns the place, Harvey Dent making questionable choices, Alfred worrying…

Surprise! Kentucky Route Zero Act IV is now available on PC, Mac, and Linux. Check out the (admittedly weird) trailer above.

Gravity Rush 2 comes to PS4 on December 2, Sony announced this morning on the PlayStation Blog. It sure is looking pretty.

Rise of the Tomb Raider will finally come to PS4 on October 11, Square Enix announced today. It’ll come with all the old DLC as well as a new pack, Blood Ties, that will also be sold separately for the Xbox One and PC versions of the game.