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Books Video Games

Exclusive Interview: The Tetris Effect Author Dan Ackerman

At first, the video game Tetris seems simple enough. When you really get into, though, you realize there’s a complexity to it that may be subtle, but it’s also substantial. Not surprisingly, the story of how Tetris came to be also seems simple enough at first, but not when you real dig in. It’s a story told in the new book The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized The World (hardcover, digital), written by CNET editor Dan Ackerman (who, I should point out, is someone I’ve known for years from going to video game press events). But in talking to him about his book, it seems it wasn’t just a love of the game that made him want to write something this substantial about Tetris.

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PlayStation 4 Video Games Xbox One

Exclusive Interview: Destiny Rise Of Iron Community Manager DeeJ

Since its release in 2014, the sci-fi first-person shooter Destiny has constantly evolved, adding new missions and multiplayer modes, and expanding its compelling story even further. With the fourth expansion, Rise Of Iron due out September 20th — both as a download (PlayStation 4, Xbox One) and as part of Destiny The Collection (PlayStation 4, Xbox One) with the rest of the game — I asked Bungie’s Community Manager Deej to give me the lowdown on what this add-on actually adds.

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PC PlayStation 4 Reviews Video Games Xbox One

Livelock Review

In many top-down, twin-stick arcade games, you either shoot your enemies or smack them, but you usually don’t get to do both. And if you do, it’s just a quick slap because you’ve run out of ammo, but just you wait, when I get more, I’m gonna shoot you so bad. But Livelock (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC) largely throws that unwritten rule out the window and the results are game so nice you’ll want to play it twice.

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PC PlayStation 4 PlayStation Vita Reviews Video Games Xbox One

Hue Review

Given how important graphics are to video games, it’s odd how infrequent the colors of those graphics are used as a mechanic. With the exception of puzzles games, colors are usually just used as visual clues; red means “this thing explodes,” and so on. But that’s not the case for the creative and adorable 2D, side-scrolling, puzzling platformer Hue (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Vita, PC via Steam), in which you change the world you’re in by changing its colors.

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News Toys Video Games

Funko Announce Funko Five Nights At Freddys POP! Toys, Keychains, And More

Funko have announced that they’ll release a series of POP! toys, plush keychains, pen toppers, lanyards, and Pint Size Heroes all based on the video game Five Nights At Freddy’s.

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PlayStation 4 Reviews Video Games

Strike Vector EX Review

While it sometimes seems like gaming is full of guys in giant robot suits, fighting it out to save or take over some place, really good mech games are actually rather rare. And the same can be said for aerial dogfighting games. Which is why Strike Vector EX (PlayStation 4) makes me a little giddy. While this mech dogfighting game is far from flawless, it gets enough right to satisfy both itches.

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PC PlayStation 4 Reviews Video Games Xbox One

Deus Ex Mankind Divided Review

By mixing elements of role-playing games, first-person shooters, and stealth action games within the framework of a cyberpunk story, 2011’s Deus Ex Human Revolution was basically the Ghost In The Shell game that fans of that anime had been waiting for since the movie’s 1995 debut, myself included. And though we’re still waiting for the Ghost people to get it right, we can at least enjoy the next best thing with Deus Ex Mankind Divided (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC).

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PC PlayStation 4 Reviews Video Games

No Man’s Sky Review

“Space…the final frontier.” And in a perfect world, the space exploration game No Man’s Sky (PlayStation 4, PC) would’ve been as fun and engaging as watching the crew of the Enterprise boldly go where no one has gone before. But thanks to some fundamental flaws and a lack of variety, No Man’s Sky is instead a dull and annoying voyage.

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PC PlayStation 4 Video Games Xbox One

Titanfall 2 Single-Player Mode Preview

Last week, at their offices outside Los Angeles, the good people at Respawn held an event where, for the first time, they showed off footage from single-player campaign in their upcoming sci-fi shooter sequel, Titanfall 2, which will be available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 28th.