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The representation of women in video games has been a big issue over the last year or so. From the small pool of lead female characters to the absurd attire of women in action-based games, the debate has been a hot one with supporters and detractors loud on both sides of the coin. Several issues have really highlighted the debate, with merely the mention of gaming feminist, Anita Sarkeesian, bringing comment sections collapsing upon themselves....

Since the unveiling of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2’s multiplayer, one of the major selling points for the mode has been the Nuketown 2025 map. A redesigned version of Black Ops 1’s fan-favorite map, Nuketown 2025 was promised as a pre-order bonus to any and every gamer that pre-ordered a copy of Black Ops 2, regardless of retailer. However, what Activision failed to mention when hyping Nuketown 2025 was the limited availability of the map....

Destiny’s legacy won’t be its record-breaking sales, its silky-smooth gameplay, or its ambitious - if ultimately underwhelming - MMORPG-styled mechanics. Instead, it’s going to be that darn loot cave. Originally, the location allowed players to power up their characters through repetition instead of effort, and came to symbolize everything good and bad about Destiny: a flawed levelling system, addictive gameplay, and a dedicated and passionate fan base. While Bungie patched out the original loot cave, the exploit proved to be somewhat like the mythical hydra: chop off one head, and two more take its place....

As has proven to be the tradition with the Grand Theft Auto series, Rockstar Games is keeping up excitement for Grand Theft Auto 5 by releasing a constant trickle of screenshots and in-game artwork promising a variety of gameplay and environments. The latest batch of images are no exception, emphasizing the multitude of options players will have for traversing land, sea and air. Unfortunately the images don’t give any further detail on how players will be able to customize their own arsenal of vehicles, but if these are the standard selection, there may not be a need to accessorize....

At one point it was almost a certainty that Grand Theft Auto 5 would be releasing in 2012. The first trailer came out last fall and analyst predictions had it coming out by this fall, but it remains mysteriously without a release window. GTAV didn’t make the surprise appearance we were hoping for at E3 2012, and it won’t be making an appearance GamesCom either. We hoped to learn more from Take-Two Interactive’s investors call yesterday evening, but instead all questions - and there were a lot of them - about the next Grand Theft Auto were dodged by CEO Strauss Zelnick....

Anyone who’s finding that Mortal Kombat X’s gruesome fatalities aren’t satisfying his or her rampant blood lust is in luck: Killing Floor 2, the sequel to 2009’s zombie-infested co-op shooter, is coming to Steam Early Access on April 21, and developer Tripwire Interactive has released a brand new batch of blood-soaked screenshots to celebrate. The original Killing Floor started life in 2005 as a fan-made mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 before Tripwire expanded the game into a full-fledged retail release....

If there’s one person who could be described as the mad genius of the gaming industry, it’s Hideo Kojima. Innovation is one thing, but the ways in which Kojima has foregrounded the medium of gaming in order to produce meaningful and unexpected gameplay is something else entirely. And that’s made the wait for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain all the more difficult - but that will change this Thursday....

Mortal Kombat X is one of the most hotly-anticipated games of 2015. The title is the follow-up to the impressive reboot of the Mortal Kombat series - a reimagining so successful it made our list of Top 5 Arcade Game Reboots - and it looks set to pack even more of a punch. After creator Ed Boon’s long run of teasing fans with cryptic clues, Mortal Kombat X was finally revealed with a suitably gory launch trailer in June....

Back in the day,Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six was the top dog when it came to team-based, tactical shooters. In fact, along withanother Tom Clancy-branded franchise, Ghost Recon, the first title in the series is widely credited with inventing the genre. However, the franchise’s dominance didn’t last. The series’ last console title, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, is almost seven years old, while its proposed follow-up, Rainbow Six: Patriots, was cancelled during the transition to current-generation consoles....

Smoke and screams drifting through the air, regiments of the British and Continental Armies dot a verdant hillside by the thousands, exchanging lethal volleys of musket and canon fire as they charge towards a thunderous, deadly collision. A hooded assassin slowly makes his approach towards a quaint wooden chapel, path illuminated under full moon, treading over a row of graves marked only by the sign of a cross, their dead as much a secret as the wanderer’s true intentions....

For all those who have been curious about The Darkness II, 2K Games has decided to finally answer the age old question - what is The Darkness? Some gamers may not be familiar with the story of Jackie Estacado and his eerie ability to control (or be controlled by?) a horrible creature called The Darkness. Jackie was a kid with nowhere to go who ended up caught in the middle of mob warfare, slowly working his way to the top....

There were some skeptics when Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics announced they were rebooting the Tomb Raider franchise back in 2010. After all, reboots fail a lot more often than they work, and this would mean a new start for a franchise that had at that point spanned over 14 years and 9 core games. Tomb Raider had its problems, but there was no guarantee the proposed reboot would fix them....

The Battle Royale genre has recently dominated the free-to-play market. This is due to developers releasing battle royales for free to support a large community. It’s what keeps 100-man matches possible; a format necessary for battle royales to be playable. However, the free-to-play industry is also saturated with many other genres such as FPS, co-op, looter-shooter, open-world, and so much more. The popularity of battle royale games may have overshadowed some hidden gems in other genres....

The original Star Wars: Battlefront II is turning 16 years old in 2021. That’s pretty amazing, considering the game still has a huge following to this day. Many fans prefer developer Pandemic Studios’ smaller scale and deeper approach to the shooter series over DICE’s big, Games-as-a-Service model. And with Pandemic Studios shutting down over a decade ago, we’ll never get another game quite like the original Battlefront games. But Battlefront II is undoubtedly showing its age these days....

Final Fantasy VII Remake is finally in people’s hands and by all accounts is living up to its promise. Fans are over the moon with the updated graphics, new take on combat, and faithful interpretation of the story’s Midgar chapter. The sheer attention to detail is astonishing and making many players dream about other classic RPGs that deserve a similar treatment. Little do some people know, a handful of them already got remade a while ago, as shown by the list below....

The director of 10 Cloverfield Lane has revealed how Gears of War and other video games inspired the 2016 hit. Appearing on IGN’s WHF (Watch From Home) Theater, Dan Trachtenberg gave a live Q&A and unique insight into the production of his directorial debut. The Cloverfield franchise is the birthchild of director/producer J J Abrams. It is an anthology of stories set in the same universe, and while not a trilogy in the traditional sense, they all explore the same concept - creatures from other dimensions....

Berserk is easily one of the greatest and most influential manga of all time. The tale of Guts as he embarks on a journey of revenge is truly engrossing and makes for an excellent tale that people can sink hours into. Kentaro Miura was a master of his craft, and the fact that so many things inspired by Berserk have become legendary in their own right is a testament to the sheer quality of his artwork and storytelling....

PC video games come in different sizes, genres, and playthrough lengths; the latter of which can often determine whether or not a game is worth purchasing. After all, why play a short game when there are so many seemingly endless ones? The ideal length for a video game typically boils down to personal preference, but it’s hard to discount the appeal of a lengthy title. Players won’t always require the most sophisticated PC rigs to run these games....

Fans of open-world games come in a wide number of varieties. Some like to go hard into a specific storyline and live off of the lore and narratives you can explore in these open spaces. These players love to take in a story at their own pace, traveling and experiencing the world as if they were in it themselves. Others have the opposite approach, preferring to simply wander the world and do what they want....

Since its inception in 1996 on the original PlayStation, the Crash Bandicoot series has played an integral part in most gamers’ childhoods. The original trilogy is a timeless masterpiece, and new generations are rediscovering it thanks to the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. The smooth difficulty curve also ensures the games hold up well into adulthood. The colorful world and charming characters have inspired numerous artists to create original works based on the platforming franchising Naughty Dog created....