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New York Comic Con is many things: long lines, shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, panels, cosplay, and, of course, merch...so much merch. Eric and I took a few trips around the floor this year to get a load of all the random knick-knacks, art, statues, and cosplay items that were proudly on display, and Comic Con 2023 did…
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Diablo IV’s vampire-infested new Season of Blood goes live on October 17. In addition to new quests and gear, season 2 also promises a big overhaul of how XP and damage are calculated. The math can get pretty complicated. Even Blizzard’s own trailer got it wrong, which the studio ended up pulling after it was roundly…
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The church in the slums, the Gold Saucer date, the slap-fest atop Junon’s Sister Ray cannon—Final Fantasy VII has a heaping helping of memorable setpieces. And few among them are more iconic than Square Enix’s own Rashomon—the Nibelheim Incident.
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A new Spider-Man 2 launch trailer debuted just ahead of its October 20 release, and it’s got a brief clip that has anime fans going wild. The trailer, which shows off villains like Sandman, Mr. Negative, and Venom, also has what looks to be an attempt at an iconic move from the beloved 1998 anime film, Akira.…
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“Music is healing,” the late musician Prince once said. Bandcamp co-founder Ethan Diamond told NPR in 2020 that the point of the independent digital music platform he was building was to bring that power of healing to everyone. Many current Bandcamp employees are going to need it. Epic Games, which acquired Bandcamp…
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Announced during Minecraft Live 2023, Mojang’s massively popular survival crafting game has now sold over 300 million copies worldwide since its initial release in 2009.
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Sure, Microsoft Flight Simulator is a robust and impressively realistic video game dedicated to recreating the feel of flying an airplane around the world. But what if you flew by some sick-looking hills or ramps and wanted to hit them in a dune buggy? Well, now a new DLC from a third-party developer can help.
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Callous, crunch-heavy work culture keeps shaking the games industry, but it seems like some developers are at least trying to safeguard against it. Colin Walder, a CD Projekt Red engineering director with over a decade of AAA audio programming experience, discussed game industry leadership during Inven Game Conference…
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Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the latest 2D platformer from the masters of the form at Nintendo, is due out this week, on October 20. So it’s unfortunate news for both the Japanese gaming giant, and everyone who wants to avoid spoilers, that it’s already leaked online.
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Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, the upcoming spinoff in Sega’s Yakuza series, is set to release on November 9. But unlike several recent games in the franchise, it will not launch with an English dub version. Instead, English audio will come to the game in a post-launch update. Sega has yet to…
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Analogue, maker of retro consoles for games from the SNES to the Game Boy, are back with their most ambitious project yet: a Nintendo 64-compatible machine called the Analogue 3D.
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Bethesda publishing head Pete Hines is retiring from the Starfield developer after 24 years, he announced on Twitter (or X) on October 16. Hines’ decision comes only a few days after Microsoft, which owns Bethesda Game Studios, was rubber-stamped to complete its $69 billion Activision Blizzard buy.
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Being Spider-Man never gets old. The rush of swinging like a pendulum through Times Square, the thrill of pirouetting through a high-stakes crime bust, the satisfaction of watching a chorus of tiny Spidey gizmos wrap up another band of bad guys with elegant ease—even after completing everything there is to do in Marvel…
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On September 28, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam opened its doors with an exciting new display inside. That day, visitors would delight in new, featured artwork based on Vincent Van Gogh’s iconic paintings, but with a Pokémon twist. Or at least, that was the idea. However, rather than fans happily enjoying the…
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Today at New York Comic Con, it was revealed that voice actor Matt Mercer, perhaps best known as the Dungeon Master of popular actual-play webseries Critical Role, will be starring as gunslinger Vincent Valentine in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second chapter in Square Enix’s ongoing remake of the classic ‘90s…
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As Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s February 29 release date grows ever closer folks are getting antsy about seeing beloved characters like Cait Sith (pronounced “Kate Sihth,” apparently) Vincent Valentine, and Cid party up with Cloud. Although creative director Tetsuya Nomura has already confirmed that the aforementioned…
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Grand Theft Auto Online’s latest update unleashes ghosts across the world of Los Santos, letting players track down and photograph them for rewards. And one of these ghosts might look kinda familiar if you’ve played GTA IV’s Lost and the Damned DLC…
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The Wii U was certainly not the most successful console Nintendo’s ever released, and while some may fondly remember it in 2023, at least one person actually bought a brand new Wii U from a store as if it was 2013 all over again.
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At New York Comic Con on October 13, Crunchyroll announced Kaiju No. 8, a popular Shonen Jump sci-fi monster fighter series, will come to the anime streaming service exclusively next spring.
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Earlier this week, Sony officially revealed the smaller and sleeker PlayStation 5 “slim.” Sure, the console looks a hell of a lot thinner than its gargantuan predecessor, but the PS5 slim’s white void-ass production shot doesn’t do gamers any favors in guesstimating exactly how much space they’d save by purchasing the…
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On October 13, Microsoft completed its nearly two-year-long process of consuming Activision Blizzard King. And while it will take months and years for Xbox and all the parties involved to sort everything out and start bringing past Activision Blizzard games to Game Pass, for now, we can tally up everything Microsoft…
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A Starfield player on Reddit noticed recently that the temperate, agreeable planet Schrodinger III is “made of XP,” something the sci-fi role playing game’s players are increasingly stumbling upon on their own. The planet—and the entire Schrodinger system it belongs to—is heavy with resources, making it a great place…
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If you haven’t heard the news already, Xbox finally closed its Activision Blizzard acquisition deal to the tune of $69 billion. With this move, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is getting ousted at the beginning of the year, all while getting a golden parachute of $400 million. Well, at least the silver lining in all this…
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Sonic Superstars has developer Sega journeying all the way back to the beginning of the Sonic franchise, remembering when it was born in 1991 in the 2D tropics. Like nostalgic platformer Sonic Mania did in 2017, Superstars devoutly walks the same path as Sonic the Hedgehog and its early ‘90s sequels. But unlike Mania,…
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Forge, Halo’s in-game map creator, has appeared in every mainline Halo game since Halo 3, allowing fans to bring back beloved older maps, fashion creations of their own, or just create unique, quirky experiences within Halo’s timeless and tweakable sandbox. Once season five of Halo Infinite launches, however, players…
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Anyone surprised by what manages to become popular on YouTube clearly hasn’t been paying attention. From magnet fishing for trash, to trampolining off high platforms, there’s a channel with over a million subscribers for everything. So it shouldn’t shock anyone that when it comes to watching other people open Pokémon…
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Longtime Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick, is almost gone, but not quite yet. Nearly two years after over 1,000 of his employees called on the controversial executive to resign, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirmed that Kotick will remain the head of the Call of Duty publisher until the end of 2023, to…
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Another weekend draws near, this time preceded by a Friday the 13th, in October of all months. Spooky vibes for sure, but if you’re looking to ward off some bad luck, might I suggest playing some video games?
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The video game industry just got a lot smaller. The long and winding saga of Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard has finally come to a close with the companies announcing the completed merger today following one last greenlight from regulators in the UK. Call of Duty is now part of Xbox and the…