It all started at The Game Awards 2017 when Hazelight Studios director Josef Fares said, “Fuck the Oscars” to an audience of millions of viewers. It was a funny and sobering moment in an otherwise advertisement-heavy show. After his profanity-filled yet otherwise innocuous speech, the show introduced a new gameplay …
Read More »'Marvel Rivals' Is a Chaotic Mess and One of the Year's Best Games
It’s a great time to be a shooter fan, no matter what kind of experience you are looking for. Between a new Call of Duty, Overwatch 2, Counter-Strike 2, Valorant, Apex Legends, and Fortnite, the field is more crowded than ever. With new contenders popping up seemingly every other week, …
Read More »'The Great Circle' Lets You Become Indiana Jones — For Better or Worse
At his core, Indiana Jones is a character of conflicting traits. On most days, he’s a professor teaching archaeology at a fictional university in Connecticut, where his students sit either bored or enraptured (depending on how much of a crush they have on him). At other times, he’s called to …
Read More »'Among Us': Everything to Know About the Kids' Game Luigi Mangione Played in 2020
Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old man arrested and charged with the Dec. 4 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has many hobbies. Friends of his say he led a book club in Hawaii, where he lived, regularly rock-climbed at a gym in the city of Kaka’ako, and, according to NBC News, …
Read More »How the Creators of Xbox's 'South of Midnight' Made a Southern Gothic Fantasy
Compulsion Games, the studio behind indie titles Contrast (2013) and We Happy Few (2016), has been under the Microsoft umbrella since 2018, but their upcoming action-adventure game, South of Midnight, isn’t your average Xbox title. Aside from providing the budget, Xbox has been relatively hands-off as Compulsion works on its …
Read More »'Path of Exile 2' Feels Like the True Action RPG Successor to 'Diablo'
Many studios have tried to match the success and legacy of Diablo II over the years. The 2000 action-RPG (ARPG) by Blizzard Entertainment has long been considered the gold standard for fantasy dungeon crawlers, and is generally thought of as one of the best games ever made. Choosing from multiple …
Read More »How 'Marvel Rivals' Turns 85 Years of Comics into the Next 'Overwatch'
Marvel is no stranger to games. From turn-based tactical RPGs to fast-paced card battlers for phones, Marvel’s roster of heroes and villains has been brought to life across genres. Some, like Marvel’s Spider-Man, are among the best ever of their kind. However, with Marvel Rivals (out Dec. 6), NetEase, the …
Read More »'Infinity Nikki' Is 'Zelda' Meets 'Pokémon' — But Make It Fashion
Overlooking a dozen little blemishes is much easier when the final piece captivates the imagination, a truism that applies quite well to the new dress-up game Infinity Nikki. Infinity Nikki is the start of a new era for developer Papergames. It’s the first game published under their international brand, Infold, …
Read More »How 'Arcane' Went Global for Its Big Season Two Soundtrack
It’s official: Netflix’s League of Legends adaptation, Arcane, has come to an end. But just as with the intervening years between Seasons One and Two, fans can relive the series’ emotional highs and lows with its new soundtrack, composed entirely of original music inspired by the grounded fantasy world of …
Read More »'Critical Role' Cast Teases Its Future and a Potential 'Passing of the Torch'
After 50 years creeping from the margins of popular culture into the mainstream, Dungeons & Dragons is now bigger than ever. Evolving beyond its roots as a pen-and-paper tabletop RPG (TTRPG), D&D has inspired countless imitators, novels, movies, video games, and — most importantly — generations of storytellers and creators, …
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