Chip’s Apocalyptic Challenge In my youth, I used to play all kinds of crazy games on my uncle’s Mac. Most of these titles are lost to the annals of gaming history, but I do have a distinct memory of checking outChip’s Challenge. I loved how quirky the graphics and soundtrack were, but it took me until the recent re-release of the title (and it’s long overdue sequel) to understand the real appeal of that game....

Super Mario Maker 3DS, Majora’s Mask 3D and Star Fox 64 3D When Nintendo has price drops for first party games, it’s a rarity. There are years-old titles that still go for their full retail launch cost, so when they discount something, it generally matters as ripples will be felt throughout the collection-sphere. The newest “Nintendo Selects” entries are all 3DS-centric, withSuper Mario Maker, Majora’s Mask 3DandStar Fox 64 3Dall hitting the $20 price point for new retail copies....

Yeah, no I think we’re all guilty of underestimating just how difficult a process localization really is. There are reasons why some games never make it out of Japan. We rarely hear exactly why, but it’s probably more complicated than some executive at Nintendo wanting to rain on your parade. Translation is usually what we think about when localization is brought up, as if the process of bringing a game from one region to another were little more difficult than running the script through Google Translate and calling it a day....

The Blue Blur of the Wild Today, Sega and IGNpremiered a big lookat the gameplay of the next Sonic game,Sonic Frontiers. Across seven minutes it shows plenty of rolling around at the speed of sound, but also some strong influence from other open-world games. Sonic Frontiersis set to be the next big game for Sonic, and it’s tackling the open-world genre. In today’s footage, it’s easy to see some influence from games likeThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild....

In terms of ‘high-end quality,’ not market feasability At its$600 launch price, the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset from Facebook (hah) will cost more than the PlayStation 4 console did at launch — and that’s without the expensive computer needed to take advantage of the Rift. In a lengthyPolygonpiece about PlayStation VR, Sony Computer Entertainment vice president Masayasu Ito said, “If you just talk about the high-end quality, yes, I would admit that Oculus may have better VR....

What was that? Last night at E3 with their conference, Sony kind of did the same limping strategy that Bethesda did — make hundreds of people walk into a theater to watch a presentation on stage that didn’t actually take advantage of the stage in any form. I get the “it’s just games” angle, but when so many of them were already known, shown before the conference, or just drizzled in with no explanation (wouldn’t it have been cool if the folks from Supermassive went on stage and explained thatInpatientwas in the same universe as the “critically acclaimed”Until Dawn?...

Folders for days! Sony’s giving the PlayStation 4’s system software a decent overhaul sometime in the coming weeks. Update 4.00 is rolling out soon, and Sony’s John Koller just took toPlayStation Blogto detail all the changes we can expect. The addition that will probably be most welcomed is the inclusion of a new folders system. As Koller puts it “One of the big requests we get is for more options to organize content on PS4....

Praise be to the Discount Gods! If you’ve wanted to check outSaints Row: The Thirdand have been waiting for a price drop, now is your chance: it’s currently going for $16.99 on Steam. The Season Pass is also discounted at $6.79, which comes with three DLC packs. If buying Strategy Guides on Steam is your thing, it’s discounted heavily as well (wut?). The sale itself ends June 4th at 10AM Pacific....

Leave those landlubbers and sea dogs behind Failbetter Games’ sequel toSunless Sealaunches today on Steam Early Access and GOG Games in Development.Sunless Skiesis a top-down RPG with a literary twist — thinkFTLwith more story. It takes place ten years afterSunless Sea, and Queen Victoria has moved the British Empire to the skies. You play as the captain of a locomotive in said skies, or a space pirate on a train. Fight space beasts and other pesty locomotives as you travel to distant ports, where you’ll uncover stories, pick up passengers, and deal in cargo....

Plus a lil’ Game of Thrones Job Stauffer, Telltale Games’ director of creative communications, recently dropped some news regarding some of its upcoming products, includingThe Walking Dead: Michonne. Stauffer kicked off these mini-reveals witha tweetregarding the company’s upcoming Michonne-centric mini-series, indicating a release was close. IGN executive editor of news and Gearbox Software alumnus Andrew Goldfarbpleadedfor a 2016 release date, but was met with a schedule announcement (and an indication thatMichonne‘s premiere won’t run any longer than three hours, if you’re into that sort of thing) that almost reads like an old school mafia style threat....

… a game that really rolls off the tongue [Image credit:Mike Lambert] The idea behindthe best mechanics categoryis to highlight games that you’d love to play even if they had stick-figure graphics, no multiplayer, no music, and no story. Some of them may be filled with complex operations. Others may be simple one-button affairs. Regardless, these are games that keep you coming back again and again, hoping to get all the parts to fit together just a little bit better each time....

Round One… We are a little under a month away from the annual return of the biggest fighting game tournament of the year, EVO, which will once again see some of the greatest players in the world descend upon the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas to throw down in some of the most popular fighting games of today. Signups closed this past weekend, and now organiser Joey Cuellar – better known by the moniker Mr....

Relive Checkout and Drydock Gears of War 4developer The Coalition is wasting no time drawing from the legacy content well. Approximately a month after the game launched, the first two additional multiplayer maps will release — and they’re both fan favorites fromGears of War 3. On November 8, maps Checkout and Drydock (videos below) will be added to the game’s free public playlists, available for all versus multiplayer and Horde mode....