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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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“Taiwan #1!” AngryPug hilariously trolls Chinese H1Z1 cheater "Japan number two, China number four!"
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.
The untold story of PlayStation Home, Sony’s most successful disaster Plagued by problems from the start, PlayStation Home never officially made it out of beta before it was shut down. But it was also very profitable. This is its story.
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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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The world of video game vinyl Down the video game record collection hole.
Hardware limitations are holding back Final Fantasy’s butt sliders Naoki Yoshida: "You all really like butts, don't you?"
The sex is the saddest thing about GTA V (NSFW) Grand Theft Auto V is an incredible, incredible video game. So why is its sex so terrible?
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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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Youtuber banned after hilarious murder—of female video game character Viral RDR2 video of feminist pixels being fed to alligator pixels was too much for YouTube in latest fiasco.
The lost Call of Duty mode worth saving from extinction 50,000 people used to play here. Now it's a ghost town.
You can now play XCOM in an Excel spreadsheet It’s called EXLCOM, and all you need to run it is a copy of Excel. What a time to be alive.
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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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10 fighting game characters that are definitely furries There are some hardcore furries out there in fighting game rosters, and I've put them on a list.
From EA QA to Pokémon Go and beyond: the incredible career of E. Daniel Arey He's helped design some of gaming's greatest successes, and is just getting started.
The 11 hardest survival simulators Casuals, stay away. These are the survival games that make staying alive difficult.
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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 spooky, gory, and gorgeous worlds of DOOM Sometimes, it pays to shoot pictures instead of demons.
The real reason LEGO Universe shut down: it didn’t anticipate the ‘penis cost’ The challenge of keeping a family-friendly MMO penis-free was too much for Warner Brothers.
Returning to Runescape, over one decade on We’re going back... back to the browser!
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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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We are producing way too many (good) video games There more good games out there than ever before, and they're getting longer. Let's look at the numbers.
The making of WipEout Forget Lara. There was only one true herald of the Playstation generation. Real 3D, real music, real gaming. The future, after years of waiting, was finally now.
Why do Polygon reviewers suck so much at video games? We knew their reviews suffer from political bias, but basic game-playing competence is also a big issue at Polygon.
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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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The story of Second Life’s long-abandoned Duran Duran universe No ordinary world.
Kotaku is killing video game journalism When Kotaku introduced ‘social justice’ to gaming coverage, it all went to hell. Why can't we just play?
“You are not a real gamer” The phrase has become a joke and a cliche - but when someone says "you're not a real gamer," what is it they're really saying?
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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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Woo-Hoo! The making of Stranglehold "There were definitely moments that made you feel like you're in a John Woo movie."
These photographs make video game worlds look real The Continuous City is a book that looks at virtual environments through a different lens.
How to make a good sports game Sports games are unique in that they have to accurately recreate real life. Here are the parts of a sports game that can make or break it.
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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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The sex is the saddest thing about GTA V (NSFW) Grand Theft Auto V is an incredible, incredible video game. So why is its sex so terrible?
The Destiny clan that saved a family Think of the average bunch of guys in an online clan and the word 'heart-warming' doesn't usually spring to mind. But then most clans aren't the Dads Of Destiny, a 30,000 strong group bound by two common themes: parenthood, and not being a dick.
The increasing irrelevancy of video game journalists Being good at games is now political. Is this a sign of the end times?
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The Legend of Zelda was an explicitly Christian game—until Nintendo of America desecrated it Link, a devout Christian warrior? Believe it.
Before The Legend of Zelda became known for its somewhat complicated lore and disconnected story lines, the popular Nintendo series had real-world religious influences with Link originally written as a devout Christian warrior. I wouldn’t blame you if you missed the references to Christianity in the first three Zelda games because the hints were always subtle (especially for children) and it was never explicitly stated by characters in-game. One of the biggest in-game hints of religious imagery was found in the Japanese version of The Legend of Zelda. If you played the English version of the game, you’re probably familiar with the Book of Magic, which had a cross on…
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The 11 hardest survival simulators Casuals, stay away. These are the survival games that make staying alive difficult.
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.
The doomed heroes of Dark Souls Beneath the chivalric castles and lofty cathedrals of Lordran beats the bitter, pagan heart of Beowulf.
