Elizabeth Henges

“What’s your favorite video game?” As a gamer and as a games writer, this question comes up countless times. It usually is an easy enough question to answer. A gamer’s favorite video game doesn’t change very often. My favorite? Super Mario World. However, there comes a time where you have to think about your cherished memories. Is this brand new experience actually better than your current favorite? How much of your choice is driven by sheer nostalgia? Does it really matter when it comes to your feelings?

The new God of War title released last month, and it had many gamers talking about a subject that’s not brought up often in the gaming sphere–fatherhood. It’s for a good reason, too, as the tale of Kratos and Atreus is an amazingly told tale. But as Kratos learns to build bonds with his son and deals with the loss of his wife, I can’t help but think of a lesser-known gaming father and his tale. His wasn’t a story of redemption, though, but of sacrificing everything for your child.

EA just held finished up its conference for E3, officially launching off the annual conference’s festivities. While many were interested to see more about Anthem or the surprise release of Unravel Two, one of EA’s smaller announcements really stuck out to me near the beginning of the conference. In the info dump about EA’s latest shooter, Battlefield V, the publisher revealed that there will not be any loot boxes, nor even a premium pass for one of the company’s bigger titles of the year.

Two employees were fired from ArenaNet that stemmed from a Twitter altercation. The long of short of it is, a group of Redditors saw a relatively mild, if slightly rude, comment from a game developer, and saw it as a great opportunity to attack the developer and ArenaNet in general. Of course, this is regardless of the feelings of the person whom the developer’s original comment was aimed at. As a result, Jessica Price and Peter Fries lost their positions at ArenaNet, the first for the comment itself and the second for defending her.

Pokémon GO recently released a big update to its popular app. After being asked for and promised for years, players can finally add fellow trainers as friends, and play together while they hunt for more pocket creatures. However, there are some annoying caveats to this new feature–besides some of the more important features of the Friend system being local only (no trading internationally here), players must hit level 10 before they can start adding Friends. Given all of the other limitations that is placed on the system, it leaves me with one question… why?

There’s no mincing words here: 20XX is an unabashed Mega Man X clone. This indie title feels just a lot like the classic series, and it’s not trying to hide its inspiration. But in a world where it’s been over a decade since the last Mega Man X title and only a collection of the older games to look forward to, 20XX can be a very welcome addition to any series fan’s collection… especially with its unique mechanics that help keep the game fresh.

Have you ever wondered how it might be working as an oracle in an office environment? How about in a world where magic is normal and demons engage in hostile takeovers of businesses? No? I didn’t either, but Fortune-499 is an interesting RPG tackling that very scenario. While the game is simple in story-telling and gameplay, it proves to be a fun experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome.