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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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“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?
Former jewel thief reviews GTA 5’s jewelry heists A former jewel thief has taken Grand Theft Auto 5’s heists to task, and explains how he would have done it instead.
‘Experiment 12’: the disturbing result of 12 indie devs taking turns to make a game Our look inside the strange chaingame made by 12 different indie developers.
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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 making of Firewatch The story behind one of 2016's most unusual, human and thought-provoking games.
The game journo echo chamber: suppressing dissent and vilifying gamers Apart from a few comments sections, gamers are often defenseless to the torrent of accusations against them by ivory tower weirdos.
J. B. Harold: the 20-million-selling game series you’ve never heard of With their labyrinthine plots and adult themes, the J.B. Harold games drummed up huge sales in Japan. But despite their success, they never made it to Europe.
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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 World of Warcraft legacy server that is no more In closing Nostalrius, Blizzard finds itself the bad guy despite having the law on its side.
Returning to Runescape, over one decade on We’re going back... back to the browser!
Mint condition Super Mario Bros. 3 cartridge breaks all records—sells for $156k Super Mario Bros is once again the most expensive video game ever sold. It's-a more money than sense!
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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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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.
Blizzard employee reveals demoralization & drama inside “out of touch” company in massive leak Chaos and widespread demoralization inside dev of the formerly "too big to fail" MMO World of Warcraft.
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 lunatic blogger.
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Under the thumb: the evolution of buttons How the buttons we press daily were formed over many decades.
I’ve been delighted with Nintendo Switch, not just because Breath of the Wild is probably now my favorite game ever, but because the Joy-Cons really make the hardware feel special. Even more so if you were fortunate to get hold of the neon red and blue version. It may be because no other controller has ever had so much versatility, either for a single player or for the instant sideways turn into two stand-alone controllers. It shakes up a lot of other controller preconceptions, too, and in doing so made me think about all the controllers I have used. How over time that knowledge of where to move your thumb is accumulated,…
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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.
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."
Leave me alone: speaking out against the rise of co-op The once separate worlds of singleplayer and multiplayer are merging – but there's nothing wrong with playing alone.
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80 years before X-COM, H.G. Wells designed ‘Little Wars’ H.G. Wells' contributions to modern pop culture can hardly be overestimated, and even video games haven't escaped it.
Having popularized concepts such as time travel and invaders from Mars, the contributions of English author H.G. Wells to modern pop culture can hardly be overestimated. Often described as ‘the father of science fiction’ thanks to seminal, genre-defining works such as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds and When the Sleeper Wakes (all three published between 1895 and 1899, a testament to his unerring productivity) Wells’ influence is everywhere, even if you’ve never picked up one of his books. Video games are no exception. In fact, when designing one of gaming’s earliest and most recognizable icons, Space Invaders creator Tomohiro Nishikado plumbed Wells’ imagination to stoke his own. “The…
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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.
40 memorable nude gaming moments This article should not be viewed by anyone... anywhere... ever.
Four reasons you’re wrong about Pokémon Red and Blue The original Pokémon games aren’t particularly interesting or special, they were just the first.
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The making of Virtual Springfield: a journey through the Simpsons at its peak Remember when The Simpsons was good and VR was futuristic?
Here’s a pitch for you: an interactive experience in which players are free to explore Springfield, the bustling hometown of The Simpsons, in virtual reality. In spite of the series’ steady decline over the past 15 years or so, I’d wager that more than a few of you would be queuing up to buy such a game were it launched tomorrow. Just imagine, then, how tantalizing a prospect this would have been back in the series’ mid-90s peak – with classic episodes such as Homer Badman, Who Shot Mr. Burns?, and The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show still fresh in the memory. This was effectively what Fox Interactive served…
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One person’s long, arduous quest to restore the first color arcade game Ed Fries, a former Microsoft executive, has restored part of gaming's history in his garage.
The Lost Arcade: a rose-colored look at the last arcade in NYC, the legendary Chinatown Fair From Times Square to Coney Island you could find people playing arcade games all day and all night, but it wasn’t meant to last.
Why Zelda dungeons are so great Let's dig into how the dungeons work so well with Mark Brown's great crash-course.
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‘Adventure Mario’: the making of The Legend of Zelda We’re going back to the mid-80s to look at the creation of one of gaming's longest-running and most-loved series.
The Legend of Zelda is one of those games, of course, that is so garlanded it’s sometimes hard to see clearly – pioneering in many respects, an instant classic, and the instigator of one of gaming’s longest-running and most-loved series. So to get some idea of what the game actually was, we’re going to go right back to the mid-80s and look at the original development. It was the morning of February 1, 1985, and Nintendo needed a hit. Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, and Toshihiko Nakago were working on the first Mario game for the Famicom, and Super Mario Bros. would be finished and released by September of that year.…
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The people obsessed with uncovering gaming’s deepest, darkest secrets For some, playing a video game to completion isn’t enough. They want to reveal the secrets behind its creation.
Former WoW Team Leader: “This won’t stop. WoW gamers are leaving for good. “ Mark 'Grummz' Kern acknowledges explosive leak and writes about failures of AAA culture and why World of Warcraft is dying.
Former jewel thief reviews GTA 5’s jewelry heists A former jewel thief has taken Grand Theft Auto 5’s heists to task, and explains how he would have done it instead.
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The Mission: the most bizarre soccer game ever made "Once you have acquired the ball it is used as your main weapon against the Ninjas."
Of all the ways a British child could have their Christmas ruined in the late ’90s — sherry-fueled arguments after dinner, a sibling raging because they didn’t get what they wanted, a burned turkey — there is a special place in yuletide hell reserved for crappy soccer games bought by well-meaning family members. For the contemporary gamer, soccer more or less means the slugfest between FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer. But before this heavyweight title card came to dominate, back in the era of the original PlayStation, the soccer games jostling for position more closely resembled a royal rumble. And much like in the WWE’s yearly 30-man brawl, the majority…
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Ventrilo Harassment: Arnold ruins a clan meeting Mission objective: Infiltrate and harass.
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 world of video game vinyl Down the video game record collection hole.
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How great puzzle games deconstruct our world The Witness, Gorogoa and Baba Is You reflect the societies they come from.
Games often reflect everyday suppositions about how the world works, whether or not they’re set in a version of reality. They are, after all, made by people who live in the reality as everyone else, exposed to the same opinions and language, and their creative expressions are embedded with society’s dominant ideas about success, duty, relationships and countless other subjects. Equally, however, games are well-suited to challenging the ‘common sense’ status of many notions. While they reproduce the operations of daily life, they also provide us with ways to imagine and interact with the world differently. Regardless of any explicit political commentary, games can stimulate us to think more critically about our…
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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."
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.
The games players love more than critics We use statistical analysis to shine some light on the divide between video game players and critics.
