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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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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 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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Is true next-gen Cyberpunk 2077 worth the wait? Cyberpunk 2077 releases on all platforms in one month, but the next-gen upgrades for the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions won't be out until 2021.
The launch lineup for PS5 (November 10th!) is looking pretty impressive, but fans of one of the most anticipated games ever now face a dilemma: the Cyberpunk 2077 scheduled for release on December 10th isn’t a real next-gen product. We have important news to share with you pic.twitter.com/qZUaD6IwmM — Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) October 27, 2020 A later upgrade to Cyberpunk 2077, taking full advantage of the next-gen hardware, will be available for free. — Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) June 19, 2020 While technically you can play Cyberpunk 2077 on your shiny new PS5, it will essentially look and feel exactly like the Cyberpunk 2077 in your PS4. The upgrades that allow…
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10 beautiful 2D games exclusive to the PlayStation (PS1/PSX) The future of gaming was 3D, but the PlayStation had several beautiful 2D exclusives.
When the original PlayStation hit store shelves in 1995, it unlocked new possibilities in 3D gaming, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a ton of beautiful 2D games on the PS1. The fifth generation of video games includes the PlayStation as well as the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64. Out of those three consoles, it’s often assumed that the Sega Saturn had the best 2D games, considering its limitations with 3D. But the PlayStation had a giant library with a ton of great exclusives. Here are 10 great 2D games that you can only play on the original PlayStation in no particular order. 1. Alundra Watch this video on YouTube…
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Sony reveals next-gen PlayStation 5, confirms backwards compatibility, raytracing and 8K 2020 at the earliest.
Fans of Sony’s leading games console, the PlayStation 4, have long awaited a successor to the popular platform that’s delivered everything from Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us to last year’s smash hits, Spider-Man and God of War. They will soon be getting their wish as Sony made a surprise info dump revealing their “next-generation plans” for the gaming world, which fans are unofficially referring to as the PS5. In an exclusive interview with PlayStation’s lead architect Mark Cerny, Wired got the first word of Sony’s plans to take their gaming endeavors to the next generation. The bad news is that it won’t be out this year, but the…
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BioWare’s Anthem is broken and bricking PlayStation 4s Uh oh.
BioWare’s latest – and worst rated – shooter, Anthem, is facing more than just bad reviews: it’s also bricking consoles. According to redditors, the game often crashes and occasionally takes the system down with it. And in some cases, the system never starts back up. One complaint thread by ForTheMasters has prompted over a thousand upvotes. This is the only game that causes a complete PS4 shutdown from AnthemTheGame ForTheMaster’s complaints were echoed by other users. “Happened to me as well,” wrote Terry2Toke. “The worst part is when it shuts your console off, it does it as if you pulled the power plug out of the wall. The console has…
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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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Console wars are becoming an Apple-style rip off These days buying a console sets you on a dark, dark path.
Oh guys, guys, what happened? You used to be cool. There was a time when buying a console got you onboard with a world of gaming that could reasonably be expected to last a generation (in silicon terms). Fanboys would argue until they were blue in the face as to why their console was the clear and obviously superior machine and nobody liked the rich kids who smugly proclaimed that they had all of them. These days buying a console sets you on a dark, dark path. Gone are the days of plug and play gaming. Now we live in an era of always online, advertising on your frontend (in…
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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.
The world’s introduction to PlayStation Home was technically at the Game Developers Conference in March of 2007, but most of us will remember it from Sony’s E3 conference that same year, where it featured in one of the most legendarily cringeworthy presentations in E3’s long history. The conference opened with a virtual version of Sony America executive Jack Tretton – stiff, weirdly animated, with a strange face and a dour expression – walking slowly towards the screen, showing off the new Home Square, which was sparsely populated with other avatars. “G’morning ladies, looking good,” says the incredibly nervous real Jack Tretton, with palpable awkwardness. Ten minutes later, showing off his…