merritt k May 23, 2022. 2 minute read
How to Get New Trials Gear Early in Destiny 2 Season 17
I’ve gotten surprisingly into Trials of Osiris over the last few weeks, as the new Freelance playlist in Destiny 2 has made it more accessible than ever. As a result, I’ve been accumulating a lot of neat gear, and I’m looking forward to snagging some of the new armor and weapons that…
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GUIDES
merritt k May 20, 2022. 3 minute read
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate is the Real Battle Chess
Remember Battle Chess? Remember how despite sounding cool as hell, it’s just an extremely slow version of Chess with canned animations for each kind of capture? Well, there’s a new Battle Chess in town, and it’s called Shotgun King: Final Checkmate. It’s a turn-based roguelike that addresses the obvious problem with the original…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 19, 2022. 2 minute read
Throwback Thursday: Stair Dismount Was a Physics Landmark in Games
If I asked you to tell me what the most important physics-based video game of the last 20 years was, you might say Half-Life 2. And you would be wrong. The correct answer is Stair Dismount, a game released by Finnish demoscene group tAAT in 2002, a full two years before Gordon…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 18, 2022. 3 minute read
Explaining All of the Fake Games From Wayne’s World on the SNES
Say it’s the 1990s and you’ve been hired to make a video game based on the 1992 smash hit Wayne’s World. Well, it’s going to be a platformer, because it’s the 90s. But what’s the structure for the game? Maybe you just have Wayne and Garth traveling through areas inspired by…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 18, 2022. 2 minute read
Deathtrap Dungeon is One of the Strangest Games I’ve Ever Played
What do you get when you cross a popular 1980s gamebook with what seemed like the cutting edge of video game graphics in the 1990s? You get Deathtrap Dungeon: The Interactive Video Adventure. Released a couple of years ago, the game slid under my radar until recently, when a friend pointed…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 17, 2022. 2 minute read
Draknek & Friends Announces New Voices Grant for Puzzle Game Devs
Draknek & Friends, the developer/publisher behind titles like A Monster’s Expedition and A Good Snowman is Hard to Build, have announced that they will be distributing grants to creators working on puzzle games. Called the “Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant,” the program is aimed at creators from groups and backgrounds who are “under-invested-in,”…
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NEWS
merritt k May 17, 2022. 2 minute read
30 Years Later, Super Mario Land 2 is Still Weird and Wonderful
When I was a kid, my cousins had a Game Boy. The handheld seemed like magic to me — a private little window into another world decades before the term “smartphone” even existed. I later got my own Game Boy at a yard sale, but I never owned a copy of…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 16, 2022. 3 minute read
The 10 Most Upsetting Magic: The Gathering Cards I Remember
I haven’t played Magic: The Gathering in a long time. The last time I was really into it was over a decade ago, back during the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor cycle, when I tormented my friends with my faerie deck (casting things on your own turn is for chumps). But my fondest and strongest memories of…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 13, 2022. 4 minute read
What Your Favorite Destiny 2 Subclass Says About You
Between its three classes of Warlock, Titan, and Hunter and its four elemental options of Void, Arc, Solar, and Stasis, Destiny 2 now offers twelve distinct subclasses for players to choose from. Players may gravitate towards one or another subclass depending on its current state in the meta, as occurred this season…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 12, 2022. 2 minute read
Throwback Thursday: Scorched Earth Was the Pinnacle of a Genre
One of the oldest genres of computer game is “artillery,” in which players take turns inputting power and angle for a shot and watching the results of their calculations play out. Something like Gorillas is the simplest version of this concept, but even in the early 90s more complex variants were emerging.…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 11, 2022. 2 minute read
Dude, Bouldering is the Ultimate Gamer Sport
Indoor rock climbing was all the rage when I was kid in the 90s — it was right up there with laser tag as one of the most popular activities for sporty/rich kids’ birthday parties. As a decidedly non-sporty/rich kid, I didn’t really take to it back then. In fact,…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 11, 2022. 2 minute read
A Proposal for Standardizing Color Language in Video Games
Color is a tremendously useful tool in game design. Players come to associate certain shades and hues with different mechanics and systems, which can obviate the need to label them in more intrusive ways. But there’s a problem — even as some conventions have been established, nobody has proposed a…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 9, 2022. 2 minute read
Destiny 2’s Freelance Experiment Actually Had Me Enjoying Trials of Osiris
I am not a big Crucible player in Destiny 2. But for better or worse, Bungie seems to want everyone to dip into every mode the game has to offer. So it was that this weekend, I hesitantly stepped into the Trials of Osiris with the intent of gritting my teeth…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 6, 2022. 3 minute read
7 Games to Check Out in the Devolver Digital Sale
Devolver Digital’s got a huge sale on Steam right now — it runs until the 16th, and a ton of their titles are marked down. If you’re looking to pick something up, here are some games you should consider. Some of these made huge splashes when they were released, while…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 5, 2022. 4 minute read
Wick & Skull Candles Review: Better Than Cursing the Darkness
Video games are a multi-sensory experience — visual, auditory, and tactile. But despite the efforts of our greatest minds, no way has yet been devised to smell a video game. Maybe that’s for the best, but for those who want to get as close as possible, there are gaming-based scented candles…
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REVIEWS
merritt k May 5, 2022. 2 minute read
Throwback Thursday: Video & Arcade Top 10 Was Twitch Before Twitch
A previous version of this article stated that the Video & Arcade Top 10 theme song was written by Nicholas Picholas. It was composed by Nicholas Schnier. Video games weren’t nearly as much of a part of the culture back in the 90s as they are now. Seeing someone playing a game…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 3, 2022. 2 minute read
The Spider is Hanging Out in the Last City in Destiny 2
The Guardian Games are here once again in Destiny 2, and in addition to some friendly competition between classes, a new SMG, and a confusing playlist, they bring us some new lore. In particular, the class items tied to the Guardian Games each contain a little bit of lore about…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 3, 2022. 2 minute read
I’m Writing This So I Can Claim a $450 Disco Elysium Jacket on My Taxes
For a long time, apparel based on video games wasn’t particularly well-designed. That didn’t stop some of us from lusting over it, though — I remember staring longingly at an Ocarina of Time pocket watch in a Nintendo Power catalogue that was never to be mine. Things started to change when…
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FEATURES
merritt k May 2, 2022. 2 minute read
Dandy & Randy DX is a Cute Co-Op Homage to Goof Troop on SNES
I adored Goof Troop on the SNES as a kid. The game is a top-down Zelda-like title that focuses on solving puzzles to advance, based on the earlier Capcom title Pirate Ship Higemaru, and it’s one of the best co-op experiences on the system. Evidently, I’m not the only one who fondly…
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FEATURES
merritt k Apr 29, 2022. 1 minute read
The Xur Report for Destiny 2 — April 29, 2022
Xur is on Nessus in the Watcher’s Grave Tonight, and he’s packing heat. The general rule with Xur is to grab anything you don’t have for Collections purposes, but for those of you who want a quick rundown of the highlights, here’s what’s up. And let me tell you, it’s kind…
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GUIDES