25,363 community articles
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Note: This article contains some spoilers for Saint's Row The Third and major spoilers for Saint's Row IV. When you've spent your career making games with over-the-top plots and one day you manage to release a game with the most over-the-top plot possible, where do you go from there? It's a question that Volition Entertainment had to ask themselves after they released Saint's Row IV in 2013. Sa...
chuck@giantbomb.com (Premium member)
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I've always considered myself eclectic when it comes to video games, bouncing between multiple genres to take in the wide range of mechanical diversity that this medium commands, but I'm also cognizant that my tastes aren't quite as broad as I'd like to purport. I think this illusion of being a more well-rounded gamer (in several senses) is borne from the time I've spent here, at Giant Bomb. No...
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Oh boy, was I not ready for Rakuen . Rakuen, created by To The Moon composer Laura Shigihara , is similarly an adventure game developed via RPG Maker software with a strong narrative focus. It concerns an unnamed boy currently undergoing treatment at a hospital who is regularly visited by his mother, and spends his time talking to a lonely boy called Yami who visits his ward after dark and read...
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If you follow me on Twitch , I'll be coming back to regular streams starting on Monday. The plan is to stream Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons GMT+1. I'm in the EU now, so that means for you American folks I left behind...I am so sorry. We will probably never see each other ever again. I really wish I was kidding, but I don't have a compatible schedule to stream in the evenings right...
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Versus Fighting Cup [Premier Event] First of all, a shoutout to Michael Martin for traveling down to Brazil to help with the English commentary. I'm sure Mad Reis and KidMagia appreaciate the help. While English commentary isn't something I necessarily need to enjoy watch these fights, it takes down a barrier for English speaking viewers who might not tune in otherwise and thus gives the LATAM...
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As indie games chart ever-more experimental territory, we've found much of the conventional wisdom about what a game is and what a game can be falling by the wayside. It is the nature of any advancing medium that the number of inherent attributes to it is continually proven to be smaller than we believed previously and that creators are capable of taking more choices in their work that we ever...
chuck@giantbomb.com (Premium member)
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No time for intros this week! I'm bailing because it's Extra Life and the mod team are on full deployment for six straight days of chat supervision. Kind of a wild time of year that doesn't leave much time for blogging, but it's for the kids so it's all fine and good. That said, I did manage to write a few blogs before the madness began, and I have a few Addenda items worth mentioning too. All...
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After watching Ben's Soul Calibur Custom Creation Contest on Extra Life, I wanted to share the ones I submitted! First up... The Pest Inspiration: Moveset: Maxi Next... Helmut Kruger Inspiration: Moveset: Voldo Finally... Big Bo Inspiration: Moveset: Cervantes I hadn't really dived into the character creator before the contest, so big ups to @benpack for putting this on! It was fun and yes... I...
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I spoke about this a few weeks ago with Aarklash Legacy , but there's a tendency with Indie RPGs to narrow down the focus to the barest essentials because there's often simply not enough time and resources to cover every aspect of what is often the most feature-rich genre. With Aarklash, everything outside of the combat took a hit, and Cat Quest instead focuses more on the exploration and side-...
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I should start with the normal disclaimers that come with discussing older PC games, which is to say that in spite of all the efforts and polish CD Projekt put into the Enhanced Edition of the Witcher it still crashed on me kind of more than you want a game to crash (particularly because it did not choose to start crashing until chapter 4, when the plot is cooking and maybe if you're me you don...
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He's remarkably swole for being in prison for so long. Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In thi...
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The SNES Classic had a sterling assortment of games from Nintendo's 16-bit star console, but it's hardly all that system has to offer a modern audience. In each installment of this fortnightly feature, I judge two games for their suitability for a Classic successor based on four criteria, with the ultimate goal of assembling another collection of 25 SNES games that not only shine as brightly as...
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Canada Cup [Premier Event] Video starts at the second game of Grand Finals, but it's the best available as of this post. Also, all Japanese commentary. Placing Player Lost to Global Points Global Rank 1st Tokido Xiaohai 4161 (+700) 1 (-) 2nd Xiaohai Justin Wong, Tokido 1270 (+270) 13 (+6) 3rd Justin Wong Tokido, Xiaohai 1911 (+200) 6 (+2) 4th Fuudo Tokido, Xiaohai 2301 (+160) 4 (+1) 5th Fujimur...
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Welcome to “Gaming Memories,” a blog series where I reminisce about my favorite video games . I will slowly but surely get to every game on the list, and speak to why each holds a special place in my heart. That not only means I’ll talk about why I think each is a great game that speaks to my tastes, but also where and how it affected me in a larger context. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for rea...
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Note: The following article contains major spoilers for Watch_Dogs. Hacking is an activity that has long captivated writers and the public because the aesthetics of the pursuit match the ends to which it's often used. Hacking is about breaking the limitations of software, often while remaining undetected by computer security, and it's used in fiction by counterculturalists working from the shad...
chuck@giantbomb.com (Premium member)
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Naturally, as we're only a few days from Halloween and I've spent a sizable portion of this month watching horror game LPs, I've been thinking about survival horror and its aberrant status in terms of genre and its codified conventions. What we accept as "survival horror" usually boils down to running around exploring dilapidated structures while solving inventory puzzles and evading or fightin...
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You know the drill (or wrench): If a new Indie spacewhipper shows up, I'm going to find a way to play it eventually. Iconoclasts - a rare case of me playing a game the year it came out - is the newest game from Noitu Love developer Joakim Sandberg and his Konjak label, and like his previous games sorts of balances a hyper-animated Metal Slug / Gunstar Heroes Saturday morning cartoonishness with...
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We’ve been on a roll recently here in the NamCompendium, covering some positively mythical games released by Namco in wild hot streak that lasted from 1980 to the end of 1982. Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, Bosconian , Pole Position, Ms. Pac-Man (if you’re counting games Namco didn’t actually make), and the Rally-X series (if you like crap) all emerged in this period. We’re not even necessarily done...
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Here's a piece I've been meaning to write for a long time. CING Inc. was a game developer that worked primarily on adventure games back during a dark period where the future of the genre was uncertain, years before Indie developers like Wadjet Eye and King Art Games would effectively revitalize point & clicks and others like Campo Santo , Fullbright and Love Conquers All Games would take games...
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JAM Festival [LATAM Ranking Event] Placing Player Lost to Ranking Points LATAM Rank Global Points Global Rank 1st Itabashi Zangief - - - 683 (+150) 24 (+6) 2nd Arthuro-Ray Itabashi Zangief x2 140 (+70) 12 (+5) 140 (+70) 79 (+37) 3rd Stunner Itabashi Zangief, Arthuro-Ray 131 (+40) 13 (-) 131 (+40) 86 (+18) 4th Keoma Itabashi Zangief, Stunner 170 (+20) 7 (+1) 170 (+20) 63 (+8) 5th Pr3da Arthuro-R...
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Note: This article contains major spoilers for Watch_Dogs and Watch_Dogs 2 and minor spoilers for Grand Theft Auto V. Throughout the 2010s, Ubisoft made a name for themselves as a dev house that loved to bring up political subject matter in their games and suggest that they were making political statements, but which couldn't be swerving much harder to avoid them. It happened with Far Cry 3 as...
chuck@giantbomb.com (Premium member)
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Another short intro this week, because I went on and on again in the Addenda section. I wanted to talk a little about Indie RPGs and design prioritization, since it relates to this week's Indie Game of the Week. RPGs are some of the most expensive games to produce: not only are there a lot of systems to create and balance, from equipment to character and enemy stats and skills to elaborate comb...
