“Right now, I’m gearing up for Megacon. I’ll bring my Inara cosplay and I’ll be doing a Popstar League of Legends group cosplay with several friends of mine. I’m a HUGE Firefly fan so I’m pretty pumped to get some autographs! As for the rest of the year, Janna will most likely mosey out of my labyrinth for Metrocon and Supercon. I also love Holiday Matsuri, it’s just a really fun smaller convention that just feels so warm and friendly, I’ll be going back to it for sure again this year. We have yet to get a hotel room for Dragoncon (much to my dismay), so I’m not sure of the status on that venture y

The second runner-up in the BAFTA nominations race is Tearaway , which is impressive considering for a game only available on a mobile platform. Released on the PlayStation Vita and developed by Media Molecule, the studio behind the LittleBigPlanet games, Tearaway is set in a paper world that definitely seemed to charm the Academy, based on the eight nominations it received in categories such as Game Innovation, Moba Game News Design and Best G

February is a bit of a dry month when it comes to video game releases, which makes it a great time to look back on the biggest hits of 2013. It was an exciting year in gaming, not only due to the launch of two major new consoles, but also because of the high quality of storytelling and gameplay in the titles that were relea

This made for an extremely competitive awards season, as each gaming site elected its own Game of the Year , and last week saw The Last of Us dominating the D.I.C.E. Awards . Now the games of 2013 are set to go head-to-head once more in the British Academy Games Awards, which will take place in mid-Ma

Developer Wales Interactive has announced their first-person parkour and shooting game, Infinity Runner , will be making its way to Xbox One. The fast-paced linear game has found success on Steam, and will likely be available for Xbox One owners before the end of the y

2K’s multiplayer online-only Evolve is under fire for this very reason. The game already has several DLCs and a deluxe edition available on top of its $60 price tag. Some critics claim this is equivalent to Evolve being a free-to-play game with microtransactions. Others, who support Evolve ‘s unique 4v1 approach to multiplayer and gorgeous graphics, hope that paying more money upfront will benefit and support future work. Adding more opportunities for players to pay more for games—through DLC and custom items—is a strategy that has earned developers more money thus far, so it’s unlikely to end anytime s

The HGC Western Clash pins the top four HotS teams from North America and Europe in a bracketed tournament (more on that shortly). The winner of the tournament will win the Western Clash trophy, the $30,000 cash prize, and an additional spot at the HGC Finals, which will be held between October 25th – November 4th of this y

Better graphics capabilities. There are a few big reasons for this shift to online multiplayer. The first is purely practical : as the quality of graphics and gameplay increases, more resources are required. If you’re already running a game that requires a lot of power because of technical specifications, imagine doubling, tripling, or quadrupling that for split-screen modes. That kind of local play functionality may require a downgrade in graphics—a sacrifice many gamers just aren’t willing to make for local multiplayer modes. That’s part of the reason games with simpler graphics— Super Smash Bros. , Mario Kart , or any of the numerous rhythm games—most frequently include local multiplayer. It’s less of a strain on the system, and gamers generally don’t sit down to play Mario Kart for a realistic virtual experie

On the other side is Team Octalysis, a team that has struggled throughout the season. They did place 3rd at the HGC – Phase 1 NA Pro League this year, but with Team Dignitas as its first opponent, I don’t see them staying on the upper bracket for l

“Because of all the reasons I listed in the above question, this one has been expensive, I’m not going to lie. It’s amazing how much more efficient you are after you’ve worked with a material for a bit. I would say I’ve easily spent twice as much money on this project and maybe quadruple the amount of time as anything I’ve done before. In the end, I think it’s really taken on a life of its own, and even if no one else can appreciate it, I will have learned so much from it that it will all be worth

“The demon hunter was the project that I decided to do after I went to my first major convention and got a good look at what other people were producing. I mained a demon hunter all the way through Diablo 3 , had loved the character and the artwork associated with it. It seemed a natural choice for me at the time. I just kind of sat down one day, looked at my boyfriend, and said “This. This is what I want to do next.” So I did it. Rather poorly. It was pretty much glued together and the first time I wore it to Megacon, it hadn’t even been sealed, I just slapped paint on it. It evolved quite a bit between Megacon and Supercon. It now just sits on a mannequin in my room, it’s almost too fragile to wear out anymore. There’s a nostalgic part of me that wants to remake it knowing everything I know now