News

We Happy Few thinks you should maybe go off your meds

Among the many titles shown off as part of Microsoft’s press conference on Monday was We Happy Few by Compulsion Games. The demo opens with the player character looking up from a candy apple red microfiche reader and straight into a giant clock that reads FRI 9 OCT 64. Meanwhile, he is muttering in an English accent over what sounds like remembered screams and emergency announcements. All of this is to say very quickly that We Happy Few is set in a dystopian England with a strong Fallout-esque retro-future vibe. To top that off, I was delighted to learn that the…

Feature

Does eSports Have a Drug Problem?

This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. In the aftermath of one professional player’s admission to using Adderall, the Electronic Sports League (ESL) is cracking down on performance-enhancing drugs by instituting a new set of standards and tests, positioning the league as a role model for professional sports leagues of all stripes. When Oakland Athletics homerun slugger Jose Canseco released his tell-all biography Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big in 2005, it landed like a bombshell. The book sparked one of the largest drug scandals in the history of professional sports.…

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What effect do different drugs have on the Mario Maker levels you create?

Let’s face it, Mario doesn’t make much sense. He’s an Italian plumber living in a fantasy mushroom world which is populated by living toadstools and constantly under attack from a turtle dragon. Fans usually excuse this psychedelic setting out of an appreciation for the series’ gameplay and an exhaustion with how often it’s brought up by jokesters, but that doesn’t mean the topic isn’t worthy of discussion. Many have attempted to explain Mario’s weirdness through careful dissection, but others prefer a different approach. Perhaps the series’ most iconic power-up, the super mushroom allows Mario to grow larger and take an…