Sure, but how are they profiting on it now? How will they profit on it when they’ve taken the tool offline?

Games I played significantly in 2023 (weren’t all released in 2023):

They should AT MINIMUM make it open source so that once they stop, other people can run it themselves.

Instead of using the drive-thru, I’ve started parking in the lot and placing an online order for drive-thru pickup (which isn’t available everywhere but it is a lot of places). I pull into the drive-thru and the only interaction I need to have with whoever is speaking (the worker or a d-list celebrity impersonated by…

If I’m being cynical, it might be that they want to keep the Kotaku comments separate from the AVClub comments because you know how some people are about this here.

Not at all surprising, the driving force behind “The Rise of Skywalker” was to try to appeal to the loudest “fans” out there to appease them. Reylo? Check. Luke no longer jaded and now respects the Jedi? Check. Familiar characters return? Check. Rose reduced to almost nothing? Check. Rey gets a family? Double check.…

I remember once as a kid trying the “overstuffed” kind and hating it, but in hindsight it was probably just that it was slightly different from what I was used to.

Possibly, but you could not have paid me money at 17 to take that effort.

When I was a teenager, I realized that Chef Boyardee ravioli was better straight from the can. It doesn’t taste better, mind you, but it only tastes a little worse than when it’s heated up and if you eat it from the can, you don’t have to spend the time and effort using a microwave and washing a bowl.

Reminds me of the “Dungeon Dilemma” boss game from the original WarioWare, where you have to play a mini-RPG by picking the correct words from a list (but obviously, you know, a whole game).

I liked how it was in the first gen (yes, roast me) - the starters were the featured Pokemon and not the legendaries, so Mewtwo, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres got to feel like they naturally existed in the world rather than the world existing around them. It felt like a neat treat and a surprise when you stumbled…

It’s also good to remember that the existing lore for most Legendaries was already “this literal god or uniquely powerful monster has chosen this 10-year-old child to fight for”. That was usually tied into the game’s story and they tried to make it feel like it had been earned in a way this doesn’t, but it never…

You could technically control Zelda in Spirit Tracks when she was possessing a Phantom (and maybe as a ghost? I don’t remember) but I also get that it’s not the same as playing as the Hylian form of Zelda, especially if independent of Link (which Spirit Tracks wasn’t).

Yeah, it was a really good proof of concept for a semi-open world Zelda (and of course a very good game on its own right), but I’d be curious to see if we could get another in this style as compared to the fully open Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom style. A Link Between Worlds is the last new 2D Zelda game and…

No clue, I’m in the US and it works for me but if it doesn’t work in your region then it’s probably not free there.

“Paving the way for” doesn’t mean one thing directly leading to another, it means one thing allowing for another - an asphalt truck paves the way for my car to drive somewhere, but that doesn’t mean that I went there because of the truck or that I was physically towed there by the truck; I went there because of what…

Yeah, unfortunately a lot of the late-stage 3DS games just feel lost at this point. DS games had a while to exist on that and the 3DS and even early 3DS games got a lot of replay, but any 3DS titles released after the release of the Wii U (2012, ALBW was 2013) are a bit iffier.

Yeah, I think the Halo superfans are the ones most likely to be critical of it - “Master Chief shouldn’t have a face” and “that’s not how Spartans would behave outside of their armor” and “that’s not how that aspect of the Covenant behaved”. I’ve played the first several games (up to 4 I think) and I liked seeing what…

In retrospect, it feels like an early version of the ascend ability in Tears of the Kingdom, but instead of going up you move horizontally. That item adds surprising depth to the trials Link needs to complete, forcing you to scout every vantage point and possible interaction you can with the cliffs and walls…

Right, like part of the fun in games like this is seeing an obstacle and thinking “now how in the world do I get past that” and then having everything click once you get the item that does it. A Link Between Worlds, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom are great games but have always been lacking there.