The emulator itself isn’t piracy or copyright infringement. All it does translate the game code, which isn’t a process protected by copyright. It’s no different than if I programmed a word processor to read .pdf or .docx files; all I’m doing is giving the software the functionality of translating code.

There’s a…

Depending on how good the copyright holder’s lawyer is, emulation is most definitely piracy.

Copyrights are just that: rights to make and use copies of a work (yes, the legal definition is more complex than that and addresses intellectual assets as well as complete works, but in a nutshell that’s what they are). The…

I respect Blizzard for trying to police their community and weed out toxic players, but the only way to really make toxicity disappear is to go full-on draconian. Constantly monitor all in-game communications and player activity, and the moment somebody drops a racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. slur or starts actively…

I’m not sure if this was dumb luck or I actually figured out one of the game’s puzzles, but I noticed that some of the spooky trees had “happy” faces. I started going in the direction that those trees were “pointing” (there was always one branch that was broken, one that wasn’t) and, eventually made it through.

I’m sorry, but this smacks of high school students (and their parents) saying that they can’t get a scholarship because they’re not a minority.

There are plenty of game design workshops and camps offered by numerous sponsors that are open to everybody. The reason why there are a just a few only open to specific…

I think it has less to do with crafting and meeting quotas and more to do with encouraging minority populations to get into those industries to begin with, thus creating a more diverse hiring pool and giving employers less room to justify having an almost exclusively white and/or male work force.

And what’s wrong with…

No, you’re not alone. It doesn’t hurt any developer to make a game specifically for kids now and then. If you want people playing games twenty years from now, then you need people playing games right now when they’re young. There’s a reason why, even in the face of ubiquitous digital technology, hardcopy book sales…

I’m not saying that adulthood is without advantages, but considering that I use the most awesome thing about being an adult—being able to buy whatever I want without having to ask my parents for money and/or waiting for my birthday or Christmas to get new stuff—to retreat back into my childhood, I’m going to go with…

But I’d still have to see them die and I don’t think I can handle that.

I named the first horse I tamed Epona. It was only after that that I learned you could unlock the actual Epona from the amiibo. So, now I have two Eponas.

I have a third horse that I named Farosh, after the first dragon I found. Finding that dragon was such a memorable moment, and I spent of the day chasing down a…

Sadly, I never got the experience of a Blizzard manual. By the time I was gaming on the computer, their earlier games were in jewel cases. I did pick up Diablo II on release, but I don’t remember that manual being so hefty (it probably was; I had stopped reading manuals and just started diving into games at that…

I really miss instruction manuals. I understand why they’ve fallen out of fashion, but there were many games that I enjoyed the manual as much as the game itself. I remember the manual for the original Legend of Zelda being especially engrossing; it included the story of the game in narrative format (not just in…

Small bit of advice: if you just leave your Switch in sleep mode, the in-game timer on when your amiibos refresh won’t start. So, if you’re playing on Friday night and put it in sleep mode, then go back to the game on Sunday morning and try to scan your amiibos, you’ll get a message saying that the amiibo can’t be…

Despite shifting to primarily gaming on PC about 9 years ago, I’ve never played around much with mods. I really need to. This seems like a good opportunity to do so. I loved Civ V and am enjoying Civ VI, but the act of actually playing the game can feel like a chore.

So by your logic, we should just completely ignore that users seem to prefer Horizon: Zero Dawn?

In the UK, it sure did. It is noteworthy that Horizon had a two-day lead on BotW, yet Zelda still managed to finish second. In Japan, however, Zelda was the big seller. I couldn’t find any rankings or sales figures for either game in the US.

Also, depending on your definition of “doing well,” Horizon is the less…

I managed to get up that tower without fighting the guardians. I put on the Climber’s Bandana, which increases your climbing speed, and went for it. If you duck down on the ledges going up the tower, the Guardians can’t see you. I had to jump as I climbed and had a few close calls (either with my stamina running out…

I’ve had two Blood Moons. The first one I experienced actually spawned a boss right where I was standing. I was in the woods east of the Dueling Peaks when it happened. After the cutscence, there was a giant Stalkoblin RIGHT THERE. It was named and had a boss’ health bar.

Noped right out of there.

Playing this game with the mini-map off has made me a believer. I will never play a game with the mini-map on ever again.

What really makes this game work, more than anything, is that it doesn’t penalize you for exploring and taking risks. You can nope out of any combat encounter or find your way back to civilization if you get lost by fast-traveling from anywhere on the map, no waypoint or signposts needed. As long as you have enough…