March 2021

Madden NFL 22 will have a better Franchise mode than its predecessor, or that's at least what EA Sports is aiming to achieve with this year's game. The promise came from executive producer Seann Graddy, who also spoke about the final update to Madden NFL 21's Franchise mode, which is launching this week with a number of notable changes. It's a mode that wasn't particularly well-received.

For Madden NFL 22, Graddy said in a blog post, "In Madden 22, work is well underway. We're collecting input from a number of resources to ensure that we deliver a Franchise experience that our fans want. This includes feedback from you, the community; [and] of course our Game Changers, and the many passionate Franchise fans that work on the development team."

"The Franchise community continues to be incredibly important to us. On behalf of the entire Madden NFL team, we can't wait to share with you what we're working on for Madden NFL 22, so please, stay tuned," he added.

Wednesday’s Best Deals | Kinja Deals

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Hu Tao is finally available in the new Genshin Impact banner, allowing players to spend wishes or primogems to take a chance and try to add one to their party. Yes, it's a gacha-style system, but players can save up currency over time to spend their primogems and wishes to get the characters they want. The issue is, there are probably a lot of characters that you'd like to have.

In this respect, while Hu Tao seems amazingly cool, she's almost certainly a "primogem sink" because if you've been playing Genshin at all so far, you probably have a high level, high power Xiangling in your team already, who fills the exact same pyro polearm combination. Sure, Hu Tao can push out some massive burst damage and also has a cute ghost sidekick, but is she really worth dumping your hard-earned currency on?

Well, I sure thought so. I mean, she has a ghost. Seriously. Oh, she also has a unique "blink" effect on her dash, so that's likely to be highly useful during fights, I'd love to turn it into my own personal invincibility-frame Dark Souls roll. Anyway, so I decided to hit up my wish bank that I've been saving for a while (Sorry Xiao, I never got around to spending wishes on you...) and take a chance. What happened? You can check it out in the video below!

Encountering a Divine Beast

One of the best things about Breath of the Wild is how open the setting is for exploration. While there are parameters and guidelines in place to help guide you on where to go, the world is your oyster when it comes to how you choose to explore it. 

Regardless of the path you choose, be it linear or non-linear, you’ll always run into one of the four Divine Beasts: Vah Ruta, Vah Medoh, Vah Rudania, and Vah Naboris. These creatures tower above you, putting in perspective just how small Link is and the overall scope of Breath of the Wild as a whole. 

And while every single encounter with one of these majestical beings is noteworthy in-and-of-itself, nothing beats the first time you find and explore one of them inside and out. 

Experience the guts and gore in their full 360-degree glory

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What happens when a story comes full circle in more ways than one?

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A 2016 documentary has everything in common with a PS2 classic

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We take a look at how Steam†™s tag system allows us to do broad trend analysis on games, and some of the most attractive Steam genres out there. ...

Valheim hit the ground running at the beginning of February, and doesn't seem to be losing much momentum now that a month has passed. ...

We live in an age where you can easily download the entire NES library, fire up an emulator, and spend five minutes with one game before getting bored. The internet never forgets, which is fortunate since there should be nothing ephemeral about a video game’s availability. If I wanted to go back and play something stupid and obscure like Classic Concentration, then I should be able to and you shouldn't be able to stop me.

While I know there are less-than-legal options that would allow me to do this, I’ve always preferred to go about things on the up-and-up. I’ve got walls of cartridges rather than a couple ROM folders, and sure, I’ll pay to have Leisure Suit Larry in my library. It’s comforting to know that my money will go to continued-ish support for the game. Best case scenario will be someone takes the time to convert it to widescreen and give it native Windows support, but maybe the effort isn’t worth it for something no one remembers, like Blake Stone. But, I mean, at least you can still buy Blake Stone! And you should!

The following is a list of games that have not received a re-release. Even GOG, the bastion for old games of yore, doesn’t feature these titles. They’re not completely unobtainable for someone determined enough, but they really should be available for everyone.

The benefits of a VPN when using Netflix, Amazon Prime, or any other streaming service are well-known, but the positives a VPN can bring to gaming aren't as obvious. While a VPN is never going to be able to improve your K/D ratio or help you reach Diamond, there are still some benefits to turning on a VPN before you jump into your favorite game. These benefits can be a bit opaque, so we've broken down exactly what you can gain from using a VPN as well as some of the disadvantages.

What is a VPN?

First, let's take a step back and break down exactly what a VPN is. VPNs, or virtual private networks, offer a secure private connection for you to send and receive data safely. This means you can browse and use the internet without being tracked, whether by websites, applications, or people trying to access your network remotely. Of course, VPNs are largely focused on security, but they're not typically used by people looking to increase their safety measures. VPNs are most commonly used for entertainment purposes.

VPNs allow people to mask their IP address and trick websites and applications into thinking they're browsing from a different country. Each region has its own library of content on the vast majority of streaming services, and with a VPN, you aren't limited by your own country's selection. For example, if a movie isn't available on Netflix in the US, a VPN will disguise your real location so that you're able to watch it, even if you're not in the country where it's streaming.

Gamers love making weird shit into controllers, including but not limited to pomegranates, light sabers, bananas, and bread. Apparently, Sony wants to get in on that action, according to a patent recently surfaced by GamesIndustry.biz that details a method for turning household objects into controllers.

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During the virtual BlizzCon experience back in February, Blizzard Entertainment made an announcement that gave longtime Diablo fans pure joy. With Diablo II: Resurrected dropping sometime this year, fans of the action role-playing classic are eager to know when they can get their hands on the enhanced experience. While we don't have a release date quite yet, the company did confirm that there will be two Alpha play periods available for gamers to check out. 

With the help of Vicarious Visions, the upcoming Diablo II remaster will bring updated 3D graphics to the table as well as new art, more modernized textures, better audio, and improved lighting. Players can check out the improvements for themselves when the first Alpha test drops at an undisclosed date. For those that want to be in the know when the game's early access test period begins, Blizzard has opened up a way to opt-in on alerts for the second that signups goes live. For those interested, you can opt-in right here. 

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope can provide solid scares while playing alone, but anyone who’s played Until Dawn with friends knows there can be something special about having someone else along for the ride. Supermassive and Bandai Namco clearly agree, because as of now, Little Hope owners have access to a free friend’s pass to pass along to a buddy.

The pass allows a player who doesn’t own Little Hope to play a single full playthrough of the game alongside an owner using the Share Story mode. The pass applies to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC versions of the game and both users must play on the same platform. Once you and your buddy have completed a playthrough, that friend’s pass is used up and can’t be applied again. If that sounds good, you’ll want to wrangle up a partner/victim sooner than later. The friend pass will only be available one month after initial release (which was yesterday), so fire up the game and get going!

Bandai Namco also announced a Curator’s Cut of the game is coming to all players. This new mode adds new, exclusive scenes that offer a new perspective on the narrative once players complete their first playthrough. The game’s soundtrack is also now available to listen to on all major streaming platforms.

The latest game from indie publisher Annapurna Interactive

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It’s a sweet character journey about standing up to school sexism — but it could be so much more

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If you've got the experience and enjoy working with a focused group of talented and passionate game devs, then Airship is the place for you. ...

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I am an absolute sucker for specialist tycoon games, whether you’re running a football team, game studio, bus company or emergency service. So my next indulgence may well be Espresso Tycoon, a game about building some coffee shops.

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Last May Irish teenager Patrick O’Brien was playing a game of FIFA, and one of the players he was controlling was Arsenal and England legend Ian Wright. O’Brien lost that match, and so decided to jump into Wright’s DMs and send a succession of disgustingly racist attacks.

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If you’ve played even just several seconds of Valheim, you despise Greylings. They’re awful little tree stump goblins who smack you once, then run away with an infuriating spring in their step, like they’ve stolen candy from your pockets. In the game’s early goings, they’re everywhere. One brave player has dedicated a…

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While gamers rail against loot boxes, and governments around the world edge ever closer to regulating them, connoisseurs of blockchain bullshit are falling over themselves trying to buy digital highlights of basketball players from a platform called “NBA Top Shot”. In effect they’re spending their money on a form of…

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