Culture

Metacritic Will Now Make Users Wait 36 Hours Before Posting Reviews

Weeks after The Last of Us Part 2 was review bombed on Metacritic, the video game review aggregation website now requires people to wait more than a day after a game’s release to submit their personal reviews. Metacritic publicizes two review scores for any game: the Metascore based on critic reviews and the User Score…

GameStop Will Require All Customers To Wear Face Masks [UPDATE: But Employees Can’t Enforce It]

GameStop will require all customers to wear face masks in its United States locations starting on July 27, the company announced via press release today. “We believe this is the right thing to do to ensure the health, safety and well-being of our associates and customers from the growing spread of COVID-19,” said GameStop CEO…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for no longer being sure exactly how the weekend differs from the week, but being excited for it nonetheless. It’s also for playing video games. I’m going to be playing some Ghost of Tsushima, but it’s also eating at me—as it periodically does—that I never got very far in Hollow Knight. I feel…

Nintendo Veteran Explains Some Of The Restrictions Around Creating New Paper Mario Characters

Last month, Nintendo revealed that some of Paper Mario: The Origami King’s boss fights would be against office supplies instead of traditional Mario villains, and a new interview sheds some light on why. “Since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it’s no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the…

Track: Fly Me to the Moon | Artist: Tony Bennett | Album: N/A (Live At Home) 

Rainbow Bridge. Odaiba, Japan. By Pawel Sitnik | Flickr | Instagram  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!

Mecha Pikachu Chooses You

Guillaume Tiberghien is an artist based in Canada who has worked on stuff like Assassin’s Creed, Fortnite, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, Thief and Deus Ex. You can see more of Guillaume’s stuff at his ArtStation page

Hey Let’s Watch Henry Cavill Building A Gaming PC

The Witcher isn’t back filming yet, so noted heartthrob/PC gaming nerd Henry Cavill has some time on his hands. Enough to get to work building a new gaming PC, filming it, setting it to sexy music then letting us all watch. Note from the blurred logos that this isn’t a sponsored video. It’s just a…

Ghost Of Tsushima‘s Loading Times Are So Good That They Had To Be Nerfed

Ghost of Tsushima, out tomorrow, features some of the fastest loading times I’ve seen in a modern game despite its beautiful, expansive environments. They’re so short, in fact, that it’s often hard to read more than one or two of the gameplay tips the developers included as filler between gameplay. But it was almost even…

Yoshi’s Tax Fraud Story: A Hardboiled Detective Tale

He came into my office, shadows trailing in behind him like he was being followed by the specter of Death. He was a short, squat man; Italian, by the look of him. Honest guy, works with his hands for a living. My guess: plumber. I don’t see too many plumbers on my beat. It’s mostly…

Microsoft Is Already Stopping Production of Xbox One X

Microsoft is stopping production of the Xbox One X and Xbox One S All-Digital Edition consoles, it told The Verge today. It will continue to produce the standard Xbox One S. The news comes after many would-be Xbox owners have had trouble finding the consoles at stores. “As we ramp into the future with Xbox…

Twitch Forces U.S. Army To Stop Tricking Viewers With Fake Giveaways

The U.S. Army has a Twitch channel that it uses to fish for potential recruits. Last week, it came under fire for issuing bans to viewers who asked about war crimes. This week, a report by The Nation dug deeper, pointing out, among other things, that the channel had a habit of running fake controller…

A Link Between Worlds Is Still A Zelda Like No Other

I’m a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but I hadn’t played all the way through its direct sequel on the Nintendo 3DS, A Link Between Worlds, until recently. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like it more than the original. At first glance, A Link to…

Destiny 2‘s Big Beyond Light Expansion Delayed Until November

Destiny 2‘s next annual expansion, Beyond Light, has been delayed until November 10, Bungie announced today. Originally set to arrive in September, the studio said Beyond Light’s release date has been pushed back nearly two months due to work from home requirements implemented during the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. “The past few months have been a…

Red Dead Online Players Dress As Clowns To Protest 7 Months Without An Update

After seven months without a significant update, Red Dead Online players have decided to send in the clowns. The hope among many is that dressing up as clowns will get Rockstar’s attention and encourage the developer to bring a new update to the game a little faster. Plus, it’s something to do. The last big…

How’s It Going?: Cake Edition

Welcome to Thursday, which is basically Friday if you’re ambitious, and welcome back to our daily open thread. I know cake and things that are not cake are all the rage lately, but I got a bunch of cherries in my CSA that I am thinking of incorporating into a layer cake. The last time…

Game Pass Ultimate Is Getting Video Game Streaming In September

Today Microsoft announced that its video game streaming service, Project xCloud, will be available to anyone who subscribes to Game Pass Ultimate later this year. Currently in beta, Project xCloud lets you stream Xbox games to phones and tablets. Come September, anyone with a Game Pass Ultimate subscription, which bundles Game Pass and Xbox Live…

Space Gets Scary In Next No Man’s Sky Update

No Man’s Sky is generally a pretty chill experience, but that’s about to change with the next major update. Desolation, available today, allows players to plumb the depths of the mysterious, derelict freighters that have dotted star systems since April’s exo-mech update “Being a small dot amongst the stars can bring a sense of awe…

Weeks Later, Dr Disrespect Says He Still Doesn’t Know Why He Was Banned From Twitch

In his first public interview since being suddenly banned from Twitch last month, Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm, one of the platform’s most popular streamers, claims he still doesn’t know why. “Honestly, we just don’t know,” Beahm told the Washington Post in a new interview published today. “It was a total shock. Imagine showing up to…

Track: Neko to Arerugii | Artist: Kinoko Teikoku | Album: Neko to Arerugii