Culture

Portal 2 Fans Are Making An All-New Campaign

Desolation is a Portal 2 mod, though that descriptor really sells it short. It’s closer to a full-blown, fan-made sequel to Valve’s series. Set a few hundred years after Portal 2, and in a part of Aperture Labs that dates back to the 1980s, its star, Diana, “is fitted with Aperture’s BRACE cybernetic system, featuring…

ESA Halts Political Donations After U.S. Capitol Storming

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) plans to stop political donations in the wake of the storming of the United States’ capitol building by a right-wing, insurrectionist mob hellbent on keeping Donald Trump in power, GamesIndustry.biz reports “Given the events and actions that led to the violence at the U.S. Capitol, we are pausing contributions from…

It’s 2021, There’s Still A Pandemic Going On, Be Careful Playing Pokémon Go

Pokémon Go made over $1 billion last year, which means loads of you are still playing it. Which is great! But hey, just remember, we’re still somehow in the middle of a global pandemic, and so going outside isn’t always the smartest idea. Pokémon Go to its credit knows this, which is why the game…

New Nintendo Switch Is In Mario Colors And Looks Fantastic

Yeah, the Switch originally launched in red + blue, but this new colour scheme for the console is even more red + blue. Announced earlier today and out next month, and part of Nintendo’s 35th birthday celebrations for Super Mario Bros., the Switch itself and both Joy-Cons are red, while accessories have a blue trim.…

Cyberpunk 2077, One Month Later

After multiple delays, reports of mandatory overtime at the studio, and a years-long, nauseating hype train inescapably intertwined with edgelord marketing tactics and transphobia, CD Projekt Red finally released Cyberpunk 2077 into the world at the tail end of last year, and almost every day of its existence since has been utterly wild and often…

Twitch’s Pogchamp Removal Was Never Enough, And Now It’s Turning Into A Disaster

It’s not every day you hear about an enormous platform like Twitch swatting the face of one of its most popular emotes clean off and rendering the president’s account indefinitely inert, as it did in the aftermath of last week’s Capitol Building insurrection. But Twitch does do similar things from time to time, on a…

Razer’s Project Hazel Is A Translucent Face Mask With RGB Lighting

If you’ve got to wear a mask (and you do), it might as well be a super-cool, high-tech mask with a translucent plastic front, voice-amplification tech, and RGB lighting effects. Every year at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, gaming hardware maker Razer demos conceptual projects that may or may not wind up becoming real. This…

Grand Theft Auto V Actors Recreate ‘Lamar Roasts Franklin’ Scene

Grand Theft Auto V, now available across two platform generations with a version for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on the way, refuses to die. The game’s latest contribution to the online zeitgeist is the brief scene where side character Lamar Davis roasts protagonist Franklin Clinton, which has become the basis of an exceedingly…

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Now Runs at 60 FPS On PS5 And Xbox Series X/S

2019’s excellent Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order now looks a little bit better on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S thanks to its latest update, though the improvements aren’t as dramatic as some other games have seen. Jedi: Fallen Order’s new optimized version runs at a crisp 60 FPS on all three next-gen consoles, but at…

Oh No, He’s Hot

A new trailer for the Nintendo Switch version of Super Mario 3D World arrived earlier today featuring a first look at Bowser in Bowser’s Fury and y’all…damn. Bowser’s hot. Super hot. Bowser-Jr.-ain’t-the-only-one-calling-me-daddy hot. There’s something undeniably sexy about a dangerous creature. Bowser’s hit the gym and gotten bigger and more muscly since last we saw…

Machine Games Is Making An Indiana Jones Game

Bethesda studio Machine Games is making a new Indiana Jones game, the publisher announced in a short teaser on Twitter today. The game will feature an original story and be a collaboration between Machine Games and Lucasfilm Games, with Todd Howard as the executive producer on the project. Bethesda didn’t reveal anything further about the…

It’s Giant Cat Mario Versus Kaiju Bowser In Bowser’s Fury

With a month remaining until its February 12 release, Nintendo gives us a peek at what the new Bowser’s Fury portion of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury looks like. They had me at Giant Cat Mario. In Bowser’s Fury, Bowser’s gotten big. Too big. So big that Bowser Jr. and Mario team up…

View from Ebisu Tower, 2016. Tokyo, Japan. By Patrick Lehrmann | Flickr

A Full Throttle Movie Script Has Been Written By Moon’s Director

Duncan Jones, director of movies like Warcraft and Moon, has spent his time in lockdown better than most of us. He’s written a full-length “fan script” for classic 1995 adventure game Full Throttle It’s pretty good! While it deviates in some parts and whips up some new material in others—the original game is a lot…

Japan-Exclusive Yakuza PSP Game Gets Fan Translation

The popularity of the Yakuza franchise has exploded in the United States over the last few years, but we’ve mostly been getting games in the main series. Japan, on the other hand, has enjoyed a fair few exclusive spin-offs since the first game launched in 2005, one of which just got a fan translation for…

The Lucasfilm Games Name, At Least, Is Back

LucasArts is dead, but for some reason, the powers behind The Brands have decided that the company’s previous name—Lucasfilm Games—is something that needs to be resurrected, so will now be on the box and the ends of trailers for every Star Wars game going forward. The announcement of the brand’s return means it is “now the…

Sony Gives Release Windows For Project Athia And Other PS5 Games

The 2021 Consumer Electronics Show began today—virtually, of course—and during a video presentation Sony revealed new release date information about half a dozen games. But it didn’t announce these dates as you might expect. Instead, all the new info came from text that appeared at the bottom of the screen for only a few seconds…

Spanish Streamer TheGrefg Obliterates All-Time Twitch Viewership Record

For years now, Twitch’s record for most concurrent viewers on a single streamer’s channel has been hotly contested, with streamers topping each other in slow-building increments. Today, however, Spanish streamer TheGrefg made everybody else look like they’d been wrestling for discarded peanut shells. As of writing, he topped out at nearly 2.5 million—a new all-time…

Nier: Automata Dumped Me And I’m Okay With It

I finally finished Nier: Automata and I don’t think I’ll ever play it again. I don’t mean that in an, “Oh thank god the game is over, I am free now,” way that I felt finishing The Last Of Us 2—a game hellbent on holding on to you long after what any normal, non-sadistic storyteller…

Breath Of The Wild Player Snipes Guardian From Over 1,400 Meters Away

Although The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out almost four years ago, folks continue to pull off incredible feats in the game. Case in point: this player nailing a Guardian with an arrow from over 1,400 meters away. Neko is a Breath of the Wild player from Japan with an extensive resume…