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Mass Effect Is Back, But It Seems Like Morality Meters Are Gone For Good
28.5.2021
Will you save the orphans or eat them? Will you blow up the planet or give it renewable energy and free healthcare? Will you hug Leonardo Da Vinci or let his outstretched arms wither? For a minute there, it felt like games were characterized by binary choices like these—even if their prevalence...
Half-Life: Alyx Almost Had Enemies Who Reacted When You Flipped Them Off
21.5.2021
Hands. You wouldn’t have human civilization without them, meaning you wouldn’t have video games, either. Or, like, houses. But even though hands are front and center in many games, we don’t talk about them all that often. On this week’s episode of Splitscreen, we stop keeping hands at arm’s length....
Pikachu Just Got Arrested On The Pokémon TV Anime
21.5.2021
Things sure got real on this week’s episode of Pocket Monster, the latest Pokémon TV anime series.Read more
F*ck, Marry, Kill: Mass Effect Party Member Edition
14.5.2021
It certainly says something about the video game industry that the most anticipated release of the year so far is a remaster of a sci-fi RPG trilogy from a decade ago. Mass Effect has some memorable characters—and a lot of less memorable ones, a fact that many people have fittingly forgotten....
Resident Evil Village's Lady Dimitrescu Was Worth The Wait
7.5.2021
After the internet spent months pining and meme-ing, she’s finally here: Lady Dimitrescu—and also Resident Evil Village, I guess. But was she (and, I suppose, the game) worth all the hype and marketing-driven hoopla? On this week’s village- (and Village-) themed episode of Splitscreen, we find...
Don’t Worry, You Can Still Make-o The Mako Horrible In Mass Effect Legendary Edition
7.5.2021
If there’s one universal truth about the original Mass Effect, it’s that the Mako is the worst. Or the best? I don’t know, I’ve never played the first Mass Effect, so I will think whatever you want me to think—which puts me in lockstep with developer BioWare. In the upcoming remaster, you’ll...
Scorbunny Is The Build-A-Bear Pokémon I’ve Been Waiting For
6.5.2021
After a seemingly endless parade of less palatable Pokémon, Scorbunny’s fluffy white bunny butt has finally shown up at Build-A-Bear. I’m a little mad it took so long, but incredibly pleased with his little jammies, so it balances out. Read more
Sometimes You Just Have To Let Backlog Games Go
23.4.2021
Most of us will probably never play every game we own right now, let alone all the others we’ll buy or download in the future. In that sense, backlogs are like the universe: infinitely expanding and confounding to physicists. Sometimes you just have to make peace—or force yourself to make...
Why Video Game Loot Is So Addictive, According To The Creators Of Diablo
16.4.2021
Colors mean different things to different people, but very specific colors mean the exact same thing to everybody who plays video games. You know the ones: gray, green, blue, purple, and gold. You covet the latter and revile the former. Loot is a universal language at this point, but it wasn’t...
In 2007, Video Game Memes Took A Dark Turn
10.4.2021
Memes. These days, they’re everywhere. They are the pillars upon which internet culture—and by extension, pop culture—stands. But once upon a time, memes dwelled in the internet’s dankest sewers, traded in the darkness by geeks, nerds, and outcasts. On this week’s Splitscreen podcast, we examine...
Pokémon's Intro, Remade With Stock Footage
8.4.2021
Pokémon’s status as a worldwide phenomenon means that you can break it down to its essential parts and folks will still recognize what you’re referencing. You show somebody an electric rat and, nine times out of ten, they’ll understand you’re talking about Pikachu. But can the franchise survive...
Hunting for Pokémon Cards Has Become a Different Kind of Game
7.4.2021
A few weeks back, during a particularly unremarkable late night of insomnia-fueled doomscrolling, a notification slid its way onto my phone’s screen that quickened my pulse and dilated my pupils. For the next few minutes or so—there was no way to be sure for how long—the long out-of-stock Pokémon...
Single-Player Games Are Finally Making A Comeback, Sort Of
3.4.2021
Once upon a time, Shigeru Miyamoto famously said, “A delayed game is eventually good. A bad game is bad forever.” It’s a statement that felt like it would never fall out of fashion, until it did. Modern games are never finished. Bad games become good. Good games become bad. Games of all stripes...
Man Arrested Following Daring Pokémon Card Robbery
29.3.2021
A 28-year-old Tokyo resident has been arrested for allegedly breaking into a trading card shop atop a six-story building to steal Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, after climbing over the side of the building with a rope.Read more
Where Did Gamer Snacks Come From, Anyway?
27.3.2021
There are snacks, and then there are snacks for gamers. Through chalky chemical combinations of dubious repute, they will somehow make you aim better in Fortnite. How did we reach the point where snacks for a hobby that takes place primarily on the couch are basically workout supplements? On this...
Finally, A Video Game About The Boat
26.3.2021
You’ve no doubt heard by now about (literally) the largest story in the world. Three days ago, the Ever Given, a 1,300-foot freight liner, grounded on both shores of the Suez Canal, blocking any passage for any other boats. Despite the best efforts of engineers, tugboats, and one very determined...
Where To Find All of Your Childhood Favorite Pokémon Toys
24.3.2021
This year, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Pokémon. We’ve already started it with a bang thanks to Post Malone and his Hootie & the Blowfish cover. I’m still not sure why that happened, but I’m grateful nonetheless. Fans will get a more traditional celebration later this year when...
Magic: Legends Open Beta Is Go
23.3.2021
Cryptic Studios’ free-to-play Magic: The Gathering-meets-Diablo action card-playing game has launched into open beta via Arc Games and the Epic Games Store, giving players all over the world the chance to play the game Kotaku’s Ash Parrish said several nice things about. Read more
Video Game Companies Keep Coming Up With New Ways To Take Our Money
19.3.2021
Video games are expensive. They have been expensive for a very long time, and they keep getting more expensive. To an extent, it makes sense: Game developers need to eat! But after a certain point, it gets excessive. Loot boxes, gacha, and now NFTs are signs of that excess. On this week’s...
How Plague Inc Evolved Once A Real Global Pandemic Came Along
13.3.2021
Somehow, horrifyingly, it has been nearly a full year since most of us went into lockdown to wait out covid-19. And while there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a slowly, confusingly distributed vaccine, we’re still in the thick of it. On this week’s episode of the Splitscreen...