Tag: news

News

Kids use Club Penguin to protest against the president-elect

As an American college student, I’m no stranger to protests. In the past month, I’ve attended roughly two or three per week regarding issues like health care, systematic racism, discrimination against undocumented students, and most recently, our president-elect. After the election on November 8th, protests immediately began appearing all over the country. In Boston, thousands took to the street the very next day. Going out to march in crowds filled with signs saying things like “not my president” and “I’m with her” is one way to exercise freedom of speech and express dissatisfaction, but not always the safest. With these…
News

Here it is, the latest nostalgia ploy for the Tsum Tsum generation

One of my favorite things to see compared are Funko POP! figures (of the United States) with Good Smile’s Nendoroids (of Japan). The two are at once comparable—both being a popular series of uniformly designed figures—but also incomparable. POP!s are chibi (small), cheap, and most of all: ugly. While Nendoroids are also chibi, a bit more pricey, and most of all: actually really cute. When put side by side, the cuter figure is always clear. I’ve always taken it as a sign that my fellow Americans don’t know what cute means. But with World of Final Fantasy, the latest JRPG clout…
News

Karma. Incarnation 1 doesn’t hold back on the psychedelia

In AuraLab’s Karma. Incarnation 1, I’m controlling Pip. Or rather, I’m directing Pip along his journey. Pip is a worm-like creature, but he wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, he was merely a lost soul. After his lover gets captured by an elusive Unknown Evil, Pip ventures off alone into a surreal world to get her back. But then he’s reincarnated accidentally as a worm, not a dragon as originally planned. And now here we are, Pip and I, bargaining with a dancing creature to trade a flower lei for the snowflake-encrusted light bulb I need that’s hanging on…
News

Let’s talk about all the animals in the Red Dead Redemption 2 trailer

We all sat around in hushed anticipation, our hearts racing for our first glimpse at Rockstar Games’s official foray into the current generation of consoles. We could hardly wait, our noses nearly touching our screens we leaned in so close, as if to not miss a single polygon. And then it started, and for one minute and eight seconds, we got our first look at Red Dead Redemption 2.  Which is all well and good, sure. But did you fucking see all those animals?! Let’s talk about that. At merely seven seconds we see our first horse, the Cadillac of the…
News

Beard Blade might be the manliest videogame of them all

Inspired by SNES, Genesis, and GBA classics, Beard Blade is an eccentric 2D platformer that follows the adventures of a farmer as he struggles to rid his town of troublesome imps. After an encounter with a magically-skilled barber, the farmer takes on the pseudonym Beard Blade, and his beard becomes not just a physical manifestation of his masculinity, but also his greatest weapon in battle. The Kickstarter trailer for Beard Blade begins with an animation of the pirate-like imps attacking the farmer’s village with cannonballs, but he saves the day by catching a projectile with his beard and using it to…
Thumper
News

Surprise! Thumper is out now and it’s fast as hell

Originally scheduled to release on October 13, it appears the team at Drool decided to say, “To Hell with schedules,” and release Thumper a few days early for PlayStation VR, PlayStation 4, itch.io and Steam. For the uninitiated, Thumper is an insane “rhythm violence” game that puts players in control of a chrome beetle, firing down its track at breakneck speeds, all the while fighting metal leviathans blocking its way. It’s bright, intense, and kind of hard to stare at, looking less like a game and more like a Hajime Sorayama painting from a neon Hell. “can’t even describe it to someone else” When…
News

Everybody scream! It’s Overwatch on Halloween

It’s probably too early in the day for me to playing Overwatch, being around noon. After all, I have work to do. But I’m ignoring that for now. For a fleeting hour or so, I’m taking a break, because Overwatch’s latest themed event is here. And oh buddy, it’s Halloween. A couple hours spent in Overwatch’s Halloween Terror event and I already feel as if it’s leagues better than the Summer Games from August. Maybe that’s because I’m not into sports, but skulls and pumpkins? I’m 100 percent on board. In the timely update, players can now buy the rare skins…
News

Yo-Kai Watch 2 taught me that emotions are a lie, but ghosts are real

I’ve been playing Yo-Kai Watch 2: Bony Spirits every night since I got it. Why Bony Spirits and not Fleshy Souls (the alternative version of the same game)? Because skeletons are cooler, I guess. At least, that’s my reasoning. Yo-Kai Watch 2 comes only a year after the series’s first localization reached the West, following a lot of people labeling Yo-Kai Watch as being the “new” Pokemon (which was even a descriptor before the series ventured westward). As if Pokemon has been gone in the past few years—it hasn’t, and there’s even a new one coming out pretty soon. All life’s…
News

The Outlast 2 demo made me scream in front of my dad

Red Barrels Studio decided to suddenly release a demo for its upcoming survival-horror game Outlast 2 yesterday. It’s available now, for free, via Steam and the Xbox One and PlayStation Stores. And it’s scary as shit. Outlast 2—as you might have guessed by the name—is the sequel to the relatively successful Outlast (2013). It puts you in the role of Blake Langermann, a cameraman who, after wrecking with his wife Lynn in the Arizona desert, finds himself frantically evading a twisted religious cult. This sequel is set in the same universe as the first game, and still keeps its found footage-style of presentation (i.e. you’re…