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Why Final Fantasy 7 is (still) unstoppable 25 years since its release, the cultural phenomenon is still generating headlines.
Search “Final Fantasy 7” on YouTube and some of the titles coming back at you read “The Life Changing Impact of Final Fantasy VII,” “What Made Final Fantasy 7 A BIG DEAL?” and “Why FFVII Is So Important To So Many People” – and videos along this theme have hundreds of thousands of views. There is no denying the impact of FF7 on its fans. And, in fact, 25 years since its release, the original PlayStation and Square masterpiece is still generating headlines. There is no denying that the game has also made a cultural impact. Apart from the multiple spin-off gaming appearances, movies, remakes and merchandise, the story of…
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The rise and fall of video gaming’s most vocal enemy Over the course of 10 years, lawyer Jack Thompson aggressively pursued video games in the courtroom. This is a history of his career.
Woke at the GDC The Game Developers Conference is now about how games are to blame for every social ill — real or imagined.
A conspiracy of silence: How NDAs are harming the games industry Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) have long been a fact of doing business in video games - but their enforcement can have wide-ranging, negative effects.
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A history of griefing: gamers who ruin your day for kicks Sometimes it’s purely for fun, sometimes it’s to make a point, and sometimes it’s even to make a profit.
You’re in the zombie nightmare of DayZ and about to be eaten by one of the charging undead when suddenly a helicopter appears. Its pilots – and simply owning a helicopter lets you know they’re big shots – gun down your pursuer and offer you a lift. What you don’t know is that instead of flying you to safety, your destination is the tiny, featureless Schadenfreude Island some 15km off the main coast of Chernarus. The only reason they’ve saved you is for the amusement of knowing you’re condemned to stand there until you waste away, and that they were smart enough to fool you. Griefing: it comes in many…
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10 Xbox things to remember on Xbox’s 15th anniversary Did you know the console was almost called 'Odyssey of the Mind'? Really.
The magic of video game cartography Video game maps shift and redraw the borders between real and imaginary.
10 ways to instantly end your streaming career To end—or ignite??—your streaming career, you need to get naked, say naughty words, lie, and cheat.
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Seditionis: Tower Defense reinvents while making love to the classics Seditionis harkens back to classic tower defense games while adding gripping new features—and we can't stop playing.
I’ll come right out and say it. Seditionis: Tower Defense is one of the best tower defense games on the market right now, which is a surprising feat considering it’s from a first time indie game developer in the form of one man. Any good tower defense game must be addictive and rewarding and abide by a few core tropes, but Junson Chan’s game rises above its peers by gloriously reinventing everything else. Yet loading up this game will take you back to a nostalgic past where tower defense dominated the internet and made the other genres hide in piss in pants terror. You see, the game builds on those…
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Forking hell: a decade of Devolver Digital "There was and is no ‘exit strategy' for us, nor for the vast majority of the developers we work with."
Playing with the human side of history Games traditionally present history as monolithic spectacle, but this new breed focuses on the individual experience of simply existing alongside great events.
You’ll never be able to afford these top gaming battlestations MOM! BATHROOM!
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How to improve your online poker game 15 tips to help you get better and start winning.
The World Poker Tour reports there are 100 million poker players across the globe. Pokers’ popularity continues to grow, and here are a few reasons why you and everyone else is hooked: It requires skill: Poker takes strategic thinking and focus. Professional poker players spend years practicing and perfecting their game to win tournaments. This is exciting for players who value games that reap a reward based on their efforts. It’s sociable: Poker games in-person and online offer many opportunities to socialize. Friends, family, and strangers congregate to enjoy the game. And, of course, win. It’s accessible: Poker is now open for everyone to play online. Meaning players no longer…
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‘Cobra Club’: an amazingly weird celebration of dick pics (NSFW) In Cobra Club you play a man stood in his bathroom taking pictures of his penis. It's deeper than you think.
Top 10 licensed songs in gaming There are times when the use of a licensed piece of music is so perfect that it elevates the gaming experience to a new level.
The rise and fall of video gaming’s most vocal enemy Over the course of 10 years, lawyer Jack Thompson aggressively pursued video games in the courtroom. This is a history of his career.
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The ultimate history of fighting games Fighting games have always been around. The first one on this list landed in arcades in 1976!
The Street Fighter games are arguably the best-known fighting titles ever released (only Mortal Kombat comes close), and the series has sold a staggering 37 million copies. Fighting games, though, have been around since the very beginning of the medium. The first one we hit on this list landed in arcades in 1976 – a full 40 years ago! Lace up your gloves, charge up your ki, and let’s write the book on the history of fighting games. I tried to play, either on original machines or through emulation, every single game that could be considered a “fighting game” in the history of video games. I’m going to try and talk…
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Development hell: 12 funny tales from game dev history There was a time when lax employment legislation meant development teams could be locked in the office overnight.
Mortal Kombat has kept a secret for 24 years That's... a long time to keep a secret. Huh.
It’s alive! How the last decade of horror cinema is influencing indie games The cinematic genre's margins are violently expanding and contracting, and videogames are learning from the best examples.
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The weirdest fighting games of all time Most fighting games have some degree of strangeness to them, but there are those who are downright bizarre.
The fighting game genre is one of the biggest in the industry, but even the most die-hard fan will admit that it can often times be somewhat… odd. Serious fighting games like Street Fighter feature characters that can launch projectiles from their hands, emit electricity, or stretch their limbs to unnatural lengths. The Virtua Fighter series, which is praised for its realism, also has its fair share of goofy characters. Most fighting games have some degree of strangeness to them, but there are those who are downright bizarre. We’ve rounded up some of the most outlandish, eccentric, and unconventional fighting games to ever be released. We’ve only picked games that…
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The incredible career of writer and game designer Flint Dille He’s worked on everything from Transformers to Diablo to Pokemon GO, and can tell you all about Vin Diesel’s D&D character.
Why Super Mario Bros. 3 is still a masterpiece Before Mario had a World, he had the biggest stage on Earth – and played the part to perfection.
Making a living in Minecraft We speak to James Delaney, who's trying to turn Blockworks' work into a sustainable business.
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The 11 craziest video game feats ever captured on video These 11 videos show people taking ordinary video games and making them truly extraordinary.
Video games: how much do we love them? Enough to inspire us to devote a good chunk of our lives to them, at the very least. The incredible world of electronic gaming has something for everybody, from the base casual to the most hardcore multi-monitor Eve Online sock-pooper. We’re going to be talking about the upper echelon of gamers in this piece: the men and women who don’t stop at mere enjoyment and instead fight for utter mastery. These are people who squeeze every last byte out of their games, twisting them under their mental strength until they crack. These 11 videos show people taking ordinary video games and making them truly extraordinary.…
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11 franchises that need to rip off Pokemon Go Already popular video games, movies, and other stuff that could—should—jump into the alternate reality world and make bucketloads of money.
Development hell: 12 funny tales from game dev history There was a time when lax employment legislation meant development teams could be locked in the office overnight.
Could Watch Dogs’ smart city ever become a reality? A smart city, driven by the Internet of Things. Is Watch Dogs merely a sci-fi vision, or a real glimpse at the future?
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10 hilariously offensive Steam games you aren’t allowed to buy any more In memoriam the best of the worst banned games in Steam's storied history.
Long gone are the days of Steam Greenlight, where users could launch games into the highly lucrative Steam marketplace through sheer vote brigading. Gone too are the wild west days that followed in those glorious glasnost days of literally anyone being able to publish literally anything – as long as Gabe got his $100. It’s current year and Steam has embraced its mainstream status by doing what reputable platforms are supposed to do: adopting a Heckler’s veto editorial line guided by the illuminated coastal principles of NPR. So here it is, our memorial page to the most hilariously offensive games in Steam’s storied history. If you want to play any…
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Before Old Kratos, there was PSP Kratos How Ready at Dawn humanized Kratos a decade before the recent God of War did.
The artists and paintings that bleed through Bloodborne The aesthetic roots of a masterpiece.
The secret history of G.I. Joe and Transformers We’re going to look at the many times in the past the two franchises have collided.
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They really did that?! Little known games from big developers Before Naughty Dog made Uncharted, it made the wacky comedy game Keef the Thief.
Whether it had to start somewhere, ran low on cash or had a crazy one-off idea, almost every big games studio has worked on some surprising games. A football JRPG, a Shrek tie-in, various kinds of licenses, these largely forgotten titles often reflect periods of uncertainty, when talented studios needed a project to keep the lights on and would work on whatever was going. Some of these games are, of course, terrible. Others, like Irrational’s Tribes Vengeances, are cult classics that have come to be regarded as highpoints for their series. Whatever the story though, they’re all surprising. Wayne Gretzky Hockey (Bethesda) Watch this video on YouTube These days the idea…
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The ultimate history of fighting games Fighting games have always been around. The first one on this list landed in arcades in 1976!
Video game romance: a lost cause? You can't force love, especially not when it comes to western games.
Seditionis: Tower Defense reinvents while making love to the classics Seditionis harkens back to classic tower defense games while adding gripping new features—and we can't stop playing.
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The psychology behind your backlog of unplayed games As games become ever cheaper and ever longer, we must necessarily accrue ever bigger piles of unplayed titles. Feel bad about it? Psychology can explain.
The ‘gaming backlog’ is a concept almost every gamer will be familiar with – a huge pile (possibly digital) of games that you have amassed, but have no hope of ever playing your way through. 2015 saw a slew of releases that each required dozens if not hundreds of hours of play time, leading to the question of how on Earth we’re supposed to play all these bloody enormous games. At the same time, games are cheaper than they’ve ever been thanks to cutthroat competition among internet retailers, digital distribution, Steam sales and the enormous secondhand market. It’s no wonder that we are developing a bit of a backlog. But…
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Turn your Excel spreadsheet into an RPG with Arena.Xlsm Just because you’re stuck in Excel all day doesn’t mean you can’t do some questing.
The artists and paintings that bleed through Bloodborne The aesthetic roots of a masterpiece.
Love in a time of Warcraft Sarah found herself cast as the Yoko Ono of WoW, being blamed for the dissolution of what has been a successful raiding guild.
