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3 CommentsTwitch-banned dick pic game returns in high-def, completely for free
A revamped version of provocative indie game Cobra Club, described by its designer as a title about "body image, privacy and dick pics," is now available as a free download on Windows PC, Mac and Linux. Although creator Robert Yang is hosting Cobra Club HD on his personal itch.io page, which usually offers "pay as you want pricing," he won't allow customers to pay anything for the game whatsoever.
That's because, as he outlined in a talk at Game Developers Conference 2016, common payment processing sites like PayPal ban sellers from distributing "certain sexually oriented materials or services." Video games typically fall under PayPal's offensive materials, discouraging Yang from using the service — or any payment service at all — to sell his sex-oriented projects.
Yang's works, like C...
News
134 CommentsDisney is ending its Infinity video game line, shutting down Avalanche Software
Disney announced today that it would be discontinuing its Infinity video game line and shutting down its internal studio, Avalanche Software.
In a statement, Disney's chairman of consumer products and interactive media, Jimmy Pitaro, said they have changed their approach to console gaming and would be transitioning "exclusively to a licensing model." Part of that change means that Disney would be closing its Avalanche Software studio, putting close to 300 people out of work, but Pitaro said it was a decision the company did not make lightly.
"This was a difficult decision that we did not take lightly given the quality of Disney Infinity and its many passionate fans," Pitaro said.
Must Read
Disney Infinity leak details bold cross-platform gaming...
Cover Story
Issue
18
May 2, 2016
Their future is Epic: The evolution of a gaming giant
Find out how one of the industry’s biggest developers is changing its approach.
Read moreStreaming
6 CommentsAs streaming grows, would Disney ever separate and compete with Netflix?
Disney Movies Anywhere. Remember that?
When Disney first launched its digital marketplace, giving audiences the option to stream titles, there wasn't too much hype surrounding it. Rather, there wasn't as much hype as there should have been for a service that promised users the option to stream their favorite Disney movies. And for good reason. To stream these movies, people still had to purchase the titles before they were added to a library of titles that could then be streamed from an account across different devices.
Although these movies could technically be streamed, it didn't abide by the new standard of streaming that companies like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon had popularized. It wasn't subscription based, for example, and was more akin to how iTunes users could access and stream...
News
3 CommentsWatch a Destiny player kill Oryx by himself — on hard mode
One Destiny player achieved a seemingly impossible feat last week: killing Oryx, The Taken King, in a fireteam of one.
On hard mode.
The player in question, who goes by the moniker esoterickk on Reddit, said that figuring out how to pull off this incredible feat took 20 to 25 hours over the course of a week. Esoterickk added that the challenge was "definitely a big step up" from accomplishing the same task on normal mode, which another player managed to do in early December. That person was one of five people whom esoterickk thanked for contributing to the solution for soloing Oryx on hard mode, so it was a team effort, even if esoterickk got there first.
So how did esoterickk do it?
It turns out that this was only made possible by a hotfix released shortly after Destiny's April...
Report
0 CommentsFig still can't collect from some investors, four months after Psychonauts 2's campaign
In just a few hours equity crowdfunding platform Fig will conclude its fourth successful campaign. Consortium: The Tower, a science fiction game being funded in part by BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk, will bring in somewhere around $350,000. But only a portion of that money can be collected, because Fig is still working with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on key parts of its business model.
Now, as the company treads water well beyond the period of time they originally expected to have to wait for SEC approval, Fig itself has brought on additional investment from famed developer Cliff Bleszinski.
Fig burst on to the scene earlier this year with a fairly transparent vision for an open equity crowdfunding model. Its first campaign, for a game called Outer...
From Vox.com
0 CommentsEvery Marvel movie from Captain America: Civil War to Iron Man, definitively ranked
Iron Man 2 comes in last place, but where do the other 12 movies fall?
News
1 CommentStyle Savvy: Fashion Forward will let you dress like Mario this summer
Stye Savvy: Fashion Forward, the third game in Nintendo's fashion-themed franchise, is coming to retail on Aug. 19. Nintendo quietly announced the game's stateside launch date in a press release.
The Nintendo 3DS game will include amiibo functionality, allowing players to scan their figures to unlock outfits inspired by Nintendo characters like Mario and Samus. These pieces — just the latest example of gaming's intersection with high fashion — represent a tiny amount of the more than 19,000 clothing items stylists will have access to in Fashion Forward.
The third entry in the boutique ownership simulation series is the second Style Savvy game to hit 3DS. Style Savvy: Trendsetters came West in 2012. Nintendo released Fashion Forward in Japan and other territories in 2015.
Last week,...
Meta
29 CommentsWe're hiring a video editor
Polygon is growing once again, and this time we're looking to add a video editor to our ranks. We need a fast, efficient editor to take recorded gameplay and turn it into cool, polished videos for our site. Unlike our producer roles, this job will be more behind-the-scenes than in front of a microphone.
We're taking applications until end of day Monday, May 16. You can check out the full details of the job and apply over at our job board.
Latest Reviews
News
8 CommentsDoom developers explain the campaign's progression system
Doom's single-player campaign will let you customize your skills to suit your play style, and in a new developer diary, the game's developers at id Software discussed the options that the system offers.
You can modify your guns, turning the up-close-and-personal shotgun into a mid-range weapon with an alternate fire mode. According to Doom creative director Hugo Martin, weapon customization will determine how you tackle the enemies that the game throws at you, since you'll have to use specific guns for certain foes. This also applies to the player character.
"We kind of have this whole upgrade system that allows you to play in a lot of different ways and use your own strategy in how you approach the different arenas, and even tweak that as you go through the game," said executive...
Movies
2 CommentsGodzilla 2 delayed, Godzilla vs Kong gets release date
While Warner Bros.' upcoming mega-monster movie, Godzilla vs Kong, finally has a release date, the sequel to Gareth Edwards' 2014 Godzilla has been delayed.
Godzilla 2, which was originally supposed to be released on June 8, 2018, has now been pushed back to March 22, 2019. Godzilla vs Kong will be released a year later, on May 29, 2020. Edwards, who also directed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, will return to helm the sequel to his movie, although there haven't been any actors cast as of yet.
The studio also moved one of its unannounced DC films, which many believe will be the stand-alone Green Lantern Corps movie, from June 19, 2020 to June 24, 2020. Warner Bros.' hasn't confirmed that the movie will focus on Hal Jordan and his team of warriors, but the studio has said its interested...
Opinion
6 CommentsDead parents, Steven Universe and processing grief
Steven Universe is a show known primarily for its bright colors, fantastic music and handling mature themes about love, gender and consent with a surprising deftness for an action cartoon series aimed at a young audience. But when folks are listing the Cartoon Network hit's virtues, there's one that doesn't get nearly enough attention.
A lot of Steven Universe is about presenting how its characters deal with grief.
Throughout the Crystal Gems' adventures, their familial foibles and attempts to relate to the humans around them, there is a continuous, quiet acknowledgement of loss. The empty space left when their former leader Rose Quartz "gave up her physical form" — died — in order for her half-human son, Steven, to be born, is ever-present.
To Steven's family members, Rose was a...
Opinion
35 CommentsThe invisible gamers
I grill my friends relentlessly about their gaming habits.
I have a pretty good network of close friends and acquaintances, and they share many traits that make them attractive to the gaming industry. Most are in their mid-30s, and they have a pretty good disposable income. They may game for an hour or two a night after the kids go to sleep. They upgrade their PCs every few years, and buy two games or so a month.
And they're completely invisible to the industry outside of their gaming purchases.
How many of them are there?
It's tricky to track the number of these "invisible gamers," but my gut says there are way more of them than there are of us. And by "us," I mean people who read gaming news on a daily basis, and talk about games on our social networks. We read reviews the day...
TV
14 CommentsHere's hoping The Flash wrote Kevin Smith a big fat check
Whatever amount of money CW paid Kevin Smith to direct last night's episode of The Flash, it wasn't enough. The man responsible for Clerks (and everything that's followed in its wake) single-handedly pulled the show out of a narrative tailspin the likes of which haven't been seen on television since the second season of Heroes.
Now it's up to the show's core team to follow through and finish on a high note. Here's how it went down.
When we last left our hero, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), he'd been rendered incorporeal. Thanks to the well-intentioned efforts of Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), a blast in the STAR Labs particle accelerator had smashed him into smithereens. It also injured both Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale) and Jesse Wells (Violett Beane), sending the latter into a...
Watch the first trailer for Netflix's Voltron: Legendary Defender
The first trailer for DreamWorks Animation and Netflix's new Voltron series, Voltron: Legendary Defender, has arrived.
The 22-episode series, which debuts on the streaming service June 10, is based on the popular cartoon from 1984. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, executive producers Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery said their goal was always to make a version of the show that would appeal to the original fans of the series, while also correcting some of the major problems it suffered from.
"The nostalgia for the original show is what has carried it through to this point," Dos Santos told Entertainment Weekly. That's a sentiment that Montgomery echoed. She added that they wanted to make the fun show people remember from being kids rather than "the mess" it turned out...
News
8 CommentsPhoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 6 takes to the stand stateside this fall
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice is coming West later this year. Capcom will release the Nintendo 3DS game, the sixth starring the titular lawyer, as an eShop exclusive this September.
The company hasn't given a specific release date beyond the September launch window; it first confirmed a Western release at last year's Tokyo Game Show. Instead, Capcom offered up a new English-language trailer for the game, which fans can check out above.
Joining Phoenix Wright in his latest courtroom drama is his fellow defense attorney Apollo Justice, as well as other colleagues. The game will take place in the fictional land of Khura'in, a mystical kingdom that will require Phoenix and Apollo to get in touch with their spiritual sides — since its court system typically uses...
News
21 CommentsReport: Lionhead Studios had 'multiple buyers' lined up to save the company
Multiple companies were reportedly interested in purchasing the recently closed Lionhead Studios, according to Kotaku UK. People familiar with the company told the site that these included some of gaming's biggest names.
Citing confidentiality agreements, Kotaku UK's sources were unable to detail who these potential buyers included. The talks took place during the mandatory consultation period that preceded Lionhead's closure late last month. That six-week period is required by British law; parent company Microsoft used the time to help transition employees into new jobs before ultimately shutting down the veteran game studio, founded by Peter Molyneux 20 years ago.
Among Lionhead's best known and most beloved franchises was the Fable series. One person familiar with the studio...
News
0 CommentsRory McIlroy PGA Tour gets another new course and update to its career mode
Another title update to Rory McIlroy PGA Tour adds a new course and brings in a long anticipated feature to the career mode: Major tournaments will now alternate their venues, instead of playing at the same course every season.
First, the new course: Banff Springs (pictured), located in Canada's Rocky Mountains, joins the game for free with the new update and will be added as an event in the career mode. Banff was a mainstay of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series that preceded Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, which launched in July last year. Several dramatic elevation changes help make Banff an extraordinarily difficult course. It is the 14th real-world course in the game, the 16th available in the career mode, and 19th overall.
As for major tournament rotations, the U.S. Open will swap between...
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