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Metroid Prime like you’ve never seen it before An extract from the new issue of Heterotopias.
There are spaces that haunt us. Our childhood homes, the halls of educational institutions, the apartments of lost lovers. They sit in the memory, ready to be evoked by the correct arrangement of forms, the right quality of light, a significant configuration of walls. Some of these spaces aren’t even real. Metroid Prime’s Tallon IV is one of those spaces. Even as I call it by its name, the name of a planet, a name that evokes something vast, unfamiliar, open, I feel like I’m failing to describe it. That’s because in reality, Metroid Prime’s “planet” is made up of a rabbit warren of interiors, joined by improbable and illogical…
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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.
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.
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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Why video game movies fail as adaptations What are movie makers doing wrong?
There are few film genres worse than the video game movie. Throughout the years, we’ve been graced with the likes of Resident Evil, Hitman, Warcraft, and most recently, Assassin’s Creed — uninspired, spiritless films. It’s a trend that’s not likely to change so long as filmmakers don’t know how to adapt video games to the silver screen. There’s a lot that’s wrong with video game movies, and a large reason for why they’re universally mediocre is because of why they’re made in the first place. With a long history grounded in theater, good movies are usually produced for artistic reasons. And if not for art, then certainly for entertainment. A…
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The game dev who cried wolf Indie developers feel it’s hard to get noticed, but trying to stir up fake scandal sets a terrible precedent.
“You will suffer beyond imagination!” WoW Classic player fights girlfriend while streaming Annoy this WoW nerd and you will suffer beyond imagination, you will see the punishment.
The making of Until Dawn The story behind one of the best horror games of recent times.
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Are your kids experimenting with Minecraft sex? YouTube is brimming with videos of Minecraft sex targeted to kids.
I have two young cousins, and whenever they’re not playing Minecraft, they’re watching Minecraft videos on YouTube. Many kids spend all day sifting through videos of low quality Minecraft content, making it a big business for many YouTubers. But as with all things on the site, there’s a seedy underbelly to an otherwise harmless activity. In this case it’s the copious amounts of Minecraft sex videos floating around YouTube, which many kids are clicking on. Like the Spiderman and Elsa videos I’ve written about before, these videos are often so nonsensical, no adult could ever derive pleasure from them. But they use sexual thumbnail images to get clicks from kids. Some…
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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?
Metroid Prime like you’ve never seen it before An extract from the new issue of Heterotopias.
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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Don’t share Watch Dogs 2’s (very real) vaginas or Sony will ban you (NSFW!) Turns out there are vaginas in Watch Dogs 2, but if you share a picture of them then Sony will ban you.
So, it turns out that Watch Dogs 2 has fully modeled vaginas on some female characters – something that slipped through certification. However, if you take a picture and share it to prove that these vaginas do in fact exist then Sony will temporarily ban your account. So, here’s a little Public Service Announcement from me to you: don’t share Watch Dogs 2‘s vaginas. Over on NeoGAF, Goron2000 tells how he was sent his copy of Watch Dogs 2 early and claims he has discovered that some of the female character models had fully textured genitals: I received my copy of Watch Dogs 2 on Saturday evening due to a mistake…
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No, game journos, Grand Theft Auto doesn’t make you sexist False interpretations of already worthless and pseudoscientific studies. But hey — narrative.
5 plot twists that would have made great games even better When done right, a twist can be truly spectacular. Here's what they should have done...
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?
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Video game journalism is killing itself Game journalists are killing themselves through political peacocking and attacking consumers.
Game journalists used to be the only source consumers could turn to for gaming advice, purchasing decisions, and informed opinions about video games. Their time is almost up, and it’s not simply because other sources of information became available through the rise of social media and video streaming platforms. It’s mainly because they made themselves irrelevant. Even as gamers themselves have risen to become trusted voices in the scene, to take up the positions once filled by professional reviewers, game journalists have adopted an elitist approach that has both alienated and angered their audience. “Gamers are over,” wrote Leigh Alexander in an article that sparked the GamerGate movement. “Gamers don’t…
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The Many, Bizarre Emotions of FIFA 15’s Emotion Engine Thanks to FIFA 15’s new Emotional Intelligence, all 22 players on the pitch can now employ 600 new emotional reactions. It's... not always the most natural-looking thing.
Back on the flight deck: an interview with Wing Commander’s Chris Roberts Why he got into game development, why he left, why he's ready to come back, and much more.
Metroid Prime like you’ve never seen it before An extract from the new issue of Heterotopias.
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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.
Wipeout is a central part of The PlayStation Success Story. Its licenced music and in-club promotion are held up as the keys to attracting the post-pub generation. Play it now, however, and you’ll see a contradiction. Often regarded as the originator of gaming’s move towards the cool and the casual, it actually pointed the other way: towards bare-bones gameplay and aggressively clean styling. It was the perfect ambassador for Sony’s understated PlayStation powerhouse – all style, all substance. It is somewhat ironic, then, that the origins of video-gaming’s most famous trendsetter were in the resolutely unfashionable grid-based strategy game Matrix Marauders, which featured vehicle designs uncannily similar to those in Wipeout. The…
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When nightmare mode isn’t enough: 5 ways to add difficulty to your game If you haven't sent a controller hurtling through the air straight into the middle of your flat screen TV, you aren't being challenged enough.
You’ll never be able to afford these top gaming battlestations MOM! BATHROOM!
What to make of Star Citizen Star Citizen’s most vociferous detractors claim that it’s all a scam; its defenders maintain that everything is totally fine. The truth, as is so often the case, is not so simple.
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How No Man’s Sky generates life The game generates its universe and the many possibilities therein from a relatively small set of assets.
Programmer Greg Waste has been tinkering around with No Man’s Sky, and in a post on his 3DDevBlog goes into detail on how the game is procedurally generating the inhabitants and features of its world. One of the game’s achievements is generating its universe and the many possibilities therein from a relatively small set of assets. The above image, taken using Waste’s own 3D model viewer, shows the opening stage of a 3D model – essentially the psychedelic mess above is the cluster of possible forms the creature could take. As the blogpost goes on to explain, with examples of the code used, the game then chooses ‘main’ features which set…
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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.
“You will suffer beyond imagination!” WoW Classic player fights girlfriend while streaming Annoy this WoW nerd and you will suffer beyond imagination, you will see the punishment.
Actual news outlet reports girl was virtually raped in GTA V News outlet claims modders are hackers, and they're "staging violent attacks" in Grand Theft Auto. Evidence: a crazy female games journo.
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The craziest things people ever did to persuade parents to buy video games Kids can be very creative when they want something.
Editing a feature on loved-but-forgotten N64 games earlier this week brought back all kinds of memories for me. Getting games consoles when you’re a kid is often an absolute saga. The N64 didn’t even come out in Europe until six months after the US launch, almost a year after it arrived in Japan. When March 1997 finally rolled around, I had to wait ANOTHER five months until my birthday before I finally got my hands on Mario 64. To an 8-year-old this was an eternity. It had actually taken years of begging before my parents would get us any kind of games console. We got a SNES in 1996, for…
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10 great adventure games everyone must try From the games we grew up with to the best modern examples of this wonderful genre.
How No Man’s Sky generates life The game generates its universe and the many possibilities therein from a relatively small set of assets.
Inside the troubled development of Star Citizen After five years, more than $124 million in fan funding and nothing close to a finished game, Star Citizen has become a lightning-rod for controversy. What’s really been going on?
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15 underrated N64 games the world forgot about Celebrating the weirder side of the N64.
The N64 recently celebrated its 20th birthday in North America. We had to wait until March 1997 before it came out in Europe (remember the days when we’d have to wait actual years for games?), but that’s 20 years since the last of the cartridge home consoles first appeared on western shores; 20 years since platformers exploded into the 3D realm with Super Mario 64; 20 years since we played the latest games with virtually no loading times; 20 years since we first prodded at that curious ‘analog stick’ thing in the middle of that dinosaur-claw controller, like apes at the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. But enough of…
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Don’t share Watch Dogs 2’s (very real) vaginas or Sony will ban you (NSFW!) Turns out there are vaginas in Watch Dogs 2, but if you share a picture of them then Sony will ban you.
How Fable Legends took down Lionhead An in-depth look at the development of a legendary British studio's final, unreleased game.
The 24-year feud that has dogged Star Citizen The story of two men, several ambitious space games, and an ongoing feud that has rocked a community of over a million fans.
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What to make of Star Citizen Star Citizen’s most vociferous detractors claim that it’s all a scam; its defenders maintain that everything is totally fine. The truth, as is so often the case, is not so simple.
For the last week or so we’ve been publishing the fruits of an in-depth investigation into Star Citizen, one of the most successful crowd-funding projects of all time – not just in games, but in anything. The series has included articles on all aspects of this game, from a variety of perspectives: developers, directors, ex-developers, the CEO of Cloud Imperium Games, backers, and vocal critics. It is a fascinating subject for several reasons. Star Citizen has raised a total of nearly $125 million, over 1.5 million individual people have backed it, and it is by any measure one of the most ambitious games ever envisioned. (Just scrolling down the long list…
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10 anti-gravity racing games like WipEout and F-Zero While futuristic anti-gravity racing games aren't extremely popular these days, there are still a few good titles that you might have overlooked.
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?
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.
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