Author: Max Smith
It is human nature to seek an outlet to end the day. For a cowboy in the Wild West, it's a campfire. For traditional American families, it's the dinner table. For me, it's the virtual world of the PlayStation. Almost every night this semester, I fired up the console as soon as I got home from a long day of classes. I kick back and grab the controller and open her Discord on my phone. My friends are already there. We choose a game from Fortnite, Rocket League, Minecraft, and sometimes Jackbox games and play and talk for an hour…
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom shipped 10 million copies over the weekend. Hogwarts Legacy sold 24 million units in a year. Palworld has 25 million players. Spider-Man 2 is Sony's fastest selling game. Starfield broke Bethesda's record. Then along came Diablo 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Baldur's Gate 3, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Resident Evil 4… Over the past 12 months, sales records have been consistently broken. But then other headlines emerged. You've seen it too. Epic has laid off 860 people. At Unity, he cut 1,800 jobs. Xbox 1900. PlayStation 900. 530 for Riot. At EA it's close to…
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth features a card game so compelling that many of us at Polygon have struggled to focus on the main adventure. Who wants to save the world when they can be playing a round of Queen’s Blood at the tavern, humiliating the locals by deploying a perfectly timed chocobo card? We’re marks for this sort of distraction: the beloved game within a game. Likely you’ve come across one of these novelties before, like Gwent in The Witcher 3 or (speaking of Final Fantasy) Blitzball in Final Fantasy 10. These aren’t typical minigames but meaty experiences that, given…
In this article, we will be looking at the top 55 video games of all time: 2024 ranking. If you want to skip our detailed analysis, you can go directly to the Top 10 Video Games Of All Time: 2024 Ranking.An Overview of the Video Game IndustryThe global video game industry is growing rapidly. According to a report by Grand View Research, the global video game market was valued at $242.39 billion in 2023. The market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.4% from 2023 to 2030 and reach a valuation of $583.69 billion…
in 2023caused by the climate crisis unprecedented Floods, wildfires, and drought triggered the beginning of a cascading human crisis. Food shortage; displacement; economic turmoil;large scale, ground conflict. When faced with such disagreements, video games, even those made by large corporations that shy away from contentious politics, can become more extreme in their responses. There are predecessors in this media who can serve as references. Final Fantasy VII (1997) is arguably the great ecological story of our time, putting players in the shoes of an eco-terrorist organization called Avalanche, who at various points blow up a fictional mako reactor belonging to…
Games where you're in the middle of the forest and have to figure out how to survive and build a new life off the land are very relatable to me – I love that you have to rely on the land to build your life and use the environment for your own benefit rather than destroying it. But it's not just the concept of using the natural world to build from scratch that I love – it's the different ways you can use it to immerse yourself in it. Luckily, there are plenty of games out there that open up…
What if you could talk to video game characters? Instead of choosing from preset phrases, why not ask them your own questions in your own voice? Last May, Nvidia and its partner Convai showed off a rather unconvincing canned demo of such a system, but this January I got to try out a fully interactive version myself at CES 2024. I was able to. I walked away confident that I would see something like this. In future games.To be clear, the character I was talking about was effectively a generative AI chatbot. They didn't feel like real people. Solutions are…
The Last of Us Pt. II Remastered (January 19th)platform: playstation 5For those who want to relive that tragic event The Last of Us Pt. II, the official remastered version will debut in late January. The new release comes with the original DLC and a “roguelike survival mode” with random encounters called “No Return.”Already own the original? Point IIPlus, it only costs $10 to upgrade to the PlayStation 5 edition.Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (January 26)platform: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PCOriginal title Yakuza to like a dragon, infinite wealth attempts to bridge the gap between violent…
Alan Wake IIplatform: Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PCEsquire's Game of the Year and a mind-bending horror experience. Alan Wake II It captures everything that made the original cult survival game great and raises the bar for next-gen consoles. Alan Wake II The story follows two detectives trying to solve a ritualistic murder in a dream-like space known as the “Dark Place.” It's like playing out a Stephen King novel.J.R. spiderman 2platform: playstation 5Forget for a moment how great it feels to fly around the city as Spider-Man: What's the most memorable thing? spiderman 2 It's how much history of…
The windows are dark, and the alarm clock hidden behind a skateboard rack on my bedroom wall reads 4:47 a.m. I ignore it, brushing my messy hair away and concentrating on the screen. My fingers press against the controller, and my armored cyborg character moves through the interior of a massive spaceship. I put on the headset, and a cloud of the sounds and chatter of my friends accompanying me on this raid envelopes me, a far more enticing challenge than school, which starts in three hours. But before we can safely escape, my dad opens the door. He's understandably…