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That time the Japanese adapted Crash Bandicoot and completely butchered it The classic PS1 game was much different in the Land of Rising Sun, which completely misunderstood the franchise.
If there’s one thing Japan is great at, it’s video games – but that usually applies to video games conceived and developed in Japan. When it comes to localized Western content for a Japanese audience, the results can be mixed. In the case of Crash Bandicoot for the original PlayStation, the Japanese version was unquestionably inferior to the Western version. Crash Bandicoot’s success in the West was because of two very simple ingredients. First, the overall tone of the game is the perfect blend of 90s edge. For example, the titular character is an edgy late Gen-Xer/early millennial with a distinct attitude. Crash may look kind of lame nowadays, but…
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The state of health Nobody wants to die. But were games more fun when we still could?
Under the thumb: the evolution of buttons How the buttons we press daily were formed over many decades.
The best action games of the 2000s Classic action titles that you should make a point of finding some time to try at least once.
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Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack sucks. Play N64 games these 5 ways instead You can pay Nintendo $50 to play N64 games on your Switch, but you shouldn't.
You can now play Nintendo 64 games on your Nintendo Switch with the “Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack” if you upgrade your membership to $50 per year. If there weren’t a million different ways to play old games from 1996, this might have been a good deal. But unless you’re the most extreme Nintendo fanboy or you have no choice but to play games on your Switch, there’s not much of a reason to give Nintendo your money, especially considering how awful this service is. Why You Shouldn’t Buy The Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack Nintendo 64 games were released over 20 years ago, so you’d expect flawless emulation,…
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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...
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?
The best action games of the 2000s Classic action titles that you should make a point of finding some time to try at least once.
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Finish Him! The innovative violence that fueled Mortal Kombat’s success A journey from its start as a failed experiment to re-birth as a predestined success built by the vision and innovation of its Midway Games developers.
We are now almost 30 years out from the 1992 release of Mortal Kombat, perhaps the most famous franchise in the vast genre that is fighting games. The iconic video game series offers endless lessons to developers who would like to take the same path. Get the best computer science help to free some of your time as you focus on developing personal projects. False starts Mortal Kombat started as an experiment that never saw the light of day in the way it was envisioned – a video game adaption of military science-fiction action film Universal Soldier (1992) featuring Jean Claude Van Damme. As Midway Games developers John Tobias and…
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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 dank, sometimes hilarious, world of Steam shovelware Stolen asset valor!
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.
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Gaming’s most persistent myths and urban legends, debunked From blowing in cartridges to Lara Croft nude cheats and the secret Windows95 devil program. I’m sure you believe in at least one of these falsehoods.
Rumors and videogames have gone hand in hand for years now. From school yard bragging about your uncle who works for Nintendo, to the almost constant leaks that seem to plague new releases. We’re all suckers for a lie or myth, and even with a healthy dose of skepticism, I’m sure you believe in one at least of these falsehoods. The Myth: Blowing in Game Cartridges Makes Them Work The Truth: We all know this one. Blowing into game cartridges was meant to clear the dust off the pins, and allow you to continue playing. In reality it was the removal of the cartridge from the console that helped. Blowing…
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What your MMO says about you We've got you figured out.
10 ways to instantly end your streaming career To end—or ignite??—your streaming career, you need to get naked, say naughty words, lie, and cheat.
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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These photographs make video game worlds look real The Continuous City is a book that looks at virtual environments through a different lens.
The above image is not an old photo of a street. It’s Grand Theft Auto V. You may well remember Gareth Damian-Martin’s stunning shots of Metroid Prime, originally taken for his digital zine Heterotopias. Beautiful video game screenshots are ten-a-penny, but Damian-Martin’s work is something quite different – not least in the fact they’re taken using an analogue camera – in looking to capture not just a specific image of a game, but the nature of that place. To catch some of that ambiguity around the edges that, in the memory, hazes over beloved places and almost makes them seem like they exist. Following the production of three issues of…
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The worst (best) ads in early video game history We remember some horrific advertising campaigns in gaming.
Why you pay what you pay for video games We can often feel short-changed when it comes to buying video games, especially in the UK. So what exactly determines what you pay?
69 things you need to do in GTA before you die So you think you’re done with Liberty City? Think again.
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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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How great puzzle games deconstruct our world The Witness, Gorogoa and Baba Is You reflect the societies they come from.
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.
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.
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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 increasing irrelevancy of video game journalists Being good at games is now political. Is this a sign of the end times?
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.
Video game journalism is killing itself Game journalists are killing themselves through political peacocking and attacking consumers.
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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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Eleven years on, Resident Evil 4 is still a masterpiece What makes a game that’s as campy as Rocky Horror shine.
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.
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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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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Meet the whale who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on the MMO Black Desert Online "I love how we just casually talk about spending almost the entire cost of a full ride at Yale university on a video game."
10 Xbox things to remember on Xbox’s 15th anniversary Did you know the console was almost called 'Odyssey of the Mind'? Really.
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.
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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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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.
WATCH: mom rages on livestreaming son having a smelly gamer moment Gamers sometimes need to poop where they sit instead of wasting time going to the bathroom, but this mom won't tolerate gamer moments.
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.
