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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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What Frostpunk could learn from real-life survival stories If you’ve idly wondered about the everyday lives of your little survivors, Ernest Shackleton’s failed Trans-Antarctic Expedition may prove a treasure chest of enrichment.
15 underrated N64 games the world forgot about Celebrating the weirder side of the N64.
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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Hardware limitations are holding back Final Fantasy’s butt sliders Naoki Yoshida: "You all really like butts, don't you?"
The director of Final Fantasy XIV says hardware limitations are keeping characters’ bums smaller than their players want. In an interview with Gamespot, Naoki Yoshida explained the work that would have to go in to butt customization. The issue dates back to FF14’s Nier: Automata crossover, where a character outfit based on 2B had a larger behind than other characters, which caused clipping problems with certain animations. That model had its butt shrunk down, but community backlash caused Yoshida’s team to reverse its decision. Additional information about the 2B outfit in FFXIV, it fucking increases the size of your character's ass. Taro you madman. pic.twitter.com/WatsfMIDmj — Buttons Montgomery (@HBJohnXuandou) October 29, 2019 pic.twitter.com/WShEmjawV4 — Dace…
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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.
Why video game movies fail as adaptations What are movie makers doing wrong?
The ultimate history of fighting games Fighting games have always been around. The first one on this list landed in arcades in 1976!
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The heartbreaking story of how one man spent $16k on Final Fantasy and nearly lost his family Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius' combining of characters that people love with gacha-esque monetization can end up going very badly.
Everyone knows that Square Enix’s favorite activity is milking Final Fantasy. And fair enough, the fans love it too — for the most part. Personally I find the ‘extended universe’ of Final Fantasy a bit of a turn-off, and I suspect others do too, which is why Square Enix increasingly focuses on bringing its most iconic characters into any new title – such as the announcement, a few days ago, of Cloud coming to Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. Good old nostalgia, eh? Thing is, when you combine characters that people love with a gacha-esque monetization model, which is what Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius does, it can end up going very…
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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.
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.
The state of health Nobody wants to die. But were games more fun when we still could?
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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.
Heidi met John playing Final Fantasy XIV. They were part of the same Free Company, and would often help each other out with quests. Getting to know each other, the pair soon realized they had plenty in common, and began to spend more time together. “Seeing his name light up when he logged on brought a huge smile to my face,” says Heidi. John later tells me that he spent weeks carrying his laptop around at work or college on the off-chance she signed in. Eventually, John drove from Tennessee to North Carolina to meet Heidi in person. They spent a week together in which time they realized they weren’t…
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The games players love more than critics We use statistical analysis to shine some light on the divide between video game players and critics.
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.
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.
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Year in Review: 2016’s biggest freakouts over video games A shortlist of all the video games moral crusaders lost their minds over in 2016.
From sexy clothing to political references, no video game is without sin when you’re on an eternal search for content to be outraged by. The moral crusaders, who embed themselves firmly within the games press, blast their outrage to millions in the form of “hot takes” across social media and video game publications. Here are some of the many things they lost their minds over in 2016. Tracer’s Pose in Overwatch Given that Overwatch has one of the most diverse casts in any game, you’d think social justice warriors would love it. They do, to the extent that people who shoot at health packs can enjoy a video game – but…
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Swearing at the screen: a history of rudeness in text adventures Much effort went into providing responses to inputs quite removed from an adventurer's staple activities of bashing heads and examining stuff.
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.
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.
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Are Final Fantasy XV fans sexist pigs? Check your ‘toxic masculinity’ at the door, gaming fans.
Like many other popular, highly anticipated games, Final Fantasy XV is no stranger to controversy. First announced in 2006 as a spin-off title to the Final Fantasy cycle, it was repeatedly delayed and endured a complete overhaul before a demo was released last year. As the first Final Fantasy to feature an all-male main cast, Final Fantasy XV has suffered through no small amount of outrage and criticism. The upcoming title features four male leads who go on a road trip and fight fascist stormtroopers along the way. Dressed up like members of an edgy, leather-clad J-Rock boy band, the four must discover what it means to become heroes and…
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The magic of video game cartography Video game maps shift and redraw the borders between real and imaginary.
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.
15 underrated N64 games the world forgot about Celebrating the weirder side of the N64.
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The only way to save Final Fantasy was to change it: talking FF with XV’s Hajime Tabata Final Fantasy XV’s director Hajime Tabata talks about his approach to the series, the necessity of change, and reading the comments.
Final Fantasy is in the midst of a comeback… though of course one shouldn’t call it that. Final Fantasy XIII sold millions and Square-Enix has been doing gangbusters with its various mobile and handheld releases (and re-re-re-releases), but the series’ reputation took a steep dive after XIII and the original version of XIV left fans disappointed. Since then, Square-Enix has taken a rather odd decision for a studio of its size and pedigree and changed things up, making cuts and moving the people around in order to restore the name of Final Fantasy. The key moment when everyone realized Square-Enix was listening to people came back in 2010, when Naoki…
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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.
15 underrated N64 games the world forgot about Celebrating the weirder side of the N64.
How 007: Everything or Nothing left other third-person games shaken and stirred "Everybody knows who he is and — like him or not — everyone has an idea of what he should be. Your Bond and my Bond — not the same Bond."
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Sitting down with World of Final Fantasy director Hiroki Chiba We sit down with the man behind the gorgeous-looking Final Fantasy monster collecting game.
At E3, Square Enix unveiled World of Final Fantasy, a monster-collection RPG based on the Final Fantasy series. As a huge fan of Final Fantasy, this is a game I’ve been dreaming of for a long time, and I’m honestly quite surprised it hasn’t happened before now. With the outrageous popularity of games like Pokémon and Yo-Kai Watch, and Final Fantasy’s impressive roster of recognizable critters, it seemed inevitable. I had a chance to sit down with Hiroki Chiba, the director of World of Final Fantasy. Previously, Chiba held scenario writer and event planner roles on the likes of Final Fantasy Type-0, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, and Final…
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Video game journalists are a joke Gamers don’t have a problem with challenge. Game journalists do, because they're lazy hacks — and because challenge itself engenders fundamental problems for their ideology.
Does the C64 Mini’s games library do the Commodore 64 justice? The real reason it trumped the Speccy and Amstrad was breadth and quality of software.
Ventrilo Harassment: Arnold ruins a clan meeting Mission objective: Infiltrate and harass.
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10 biggest influences on video game history Marquee moments that have helped gaming get to where it is today, and laid the groundwork for what we'll hear about in the future.
Gaming, embedded in our culture as it might be, is still a relatively new phenomenon. Invented in 1947, the first videogames weren’t realized in any real way until 1971’s release of Galaxy Game – the first ever arcade machine (first color arcade game? Color Gotcha). This was followed up by the formation of Atari and the release of the Magnavox (the first ever home console system), both in 1972. From there, things moved at an ever increasing speed, while the industry steadily gained attention, notoriety, and value. In the forty years since, gaming has become one of the most important facets of the entertainment industry, with sales expected to tip…
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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?
The secret to the success of the greatest MMO of them all Vanilla World of Warcraft fed on the blood, toil, tears and sweat of its players, testing their patience and resolve - but that was part of its magic.
The best (worst) Watch Dogs multiplayer trolls Watch Dogs online has been designed to drive you nuts and here's a compilation of some amazing moments.
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Video game romance: a lost cause? You can't force love, especially not when it comes to western games.
Not too long ago, I was thinking about Mass Effect 3. In fact, it seems we were all thinking about Mass Effect 3, not least in terms of how we wanted to string it up by its eyes and feed it to half-starved crocodiles because of its ending. Times change and the story of Mass Effect 3’s ending has itself acquired an ending, one that’s easier to understand and more satisfying than the ending to the series’ story: most of us hate it and the developers have said sorry. So let’s move on and talk about love. Mass Effect 3 offers you ten potential love interests. Ten. That’s the equivalent…
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25 most heartbreaking moments in Nintendo history Sadness and spoilers within...
Mario and Sonic: a tale of two mascots Super Mario Odyssey and Sonic Mania reflect the histories of their star characters almost too well.
69 things you need to do in GTA before you die So you think you’re done with Liberty City? Think again.
