Cover Story
Issue
15
February 8, 2016
Sonic the Hedgehog’s long, great, rocky history
The peaks and valleys of one of gaming’s most notable characters.
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8 CommentsNBA 2K16 recreates Stephen Curry's bonkers three-pointer to beat Oklahoma City
Last night, Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors tied an NBA record with 12 three-point baskets made in a game. His last was a 38-foot heave, in overtime, to subdue the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team they'd trailed all night.
Courtesy of Shady0018 and Operation Sports, here's what that looks like in NBA 2K16. This had to take a lot of work. Curry is rated 99 in three-point shooting in the game, whether standing or on the run, but that's not from the kind of distance he hit last night. Go into practice, fool around with Curry, and turn on his "hot zones" — the areas where his shot is the deadliest. They end way short of the range where he connected IRL on Saturday.
From 30-plus feet — the distance in this video — it's a crapshoot, even with someone like Curry, who in the real...
News
44 CommentsPokémon Sun and Moon officially unveiled, out later this year
Nintendo announced this morning that Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon are the next new games in the franchise. The games will launch worldwide on Nintendo 3DS this holiday season. You can watch the quick reveal at the tail end of the series-spanning anniversary video above.
The games will come with nine language options, according to the announcement, including Chinese for the first time.
The news came from the company's special Pokémon-centric Nintendo Direct, held today in advance of the series' 20th anniversary tomorrow, Feb. 27. Fans discovered Pokémon Sun and Moon ahead of the official reveal, however, when the logos and trademark applications turned up yesterday in a European trademark database.
Pokémon Sun and Moon are the first mainline...
News
3 CommentsTwitch is watching a Pokémon marathon — in huge numbers
Pokémon is celebrating its 20th anniversary this weekend, and a 24-hour stream of Pokémon cartoons is just one of the events currently underway. The feed peaked at 70,000 earlier this morning and is currently seeing viewers in the neighborhood of 50,000.
You can watch it all right here — the stream will end at 9 pm EST.
News
23 CommentsPlayStation TV shipments end in Japan
The PlayStation TV, Sony's microconsole alternative that launched in Japan in 2013, may be coming to an end. Its official product listing in Japan now notes that its shipments are done.
PlayStation TV still is for sale, in some cases in limited supply, from major online retailers in the west, but the console launched here a year after it did in Japan. PlayStation TV was, basically, a non-handheld PlayStation Vita plugged into a television, controlled with a standard DualShock gamepad.
The unit didn't catch on in North America and price drops were almost immediate. Best Buy knocked it down to roughly $20 during last year's holiday sales, and Amazon currently has it listed for $43.95; MSRP is $79.99.
Sony's PS Vita segment has received decreasing amounts of attention over the past year...
News
1 CommentFind your way in Firewatch with this high-resolution, printable map
If you've been stumbling into trees while walking with your map in Firewatch, well, the game's creators have a solution: printable, high resolution versions to lay next to you on the couch or coffee table.
Campo Santo did it on request of many Firewatch fans, and pitches it as a way to get a couch companion interested in what you're doing. I think it'd just be easier to refer to this rather than always stop and bring up the map and compass and orient myself that way. The full-size versions are at this link.
It does make a gameplay option in Firewatch a little more manageable, too. That's disabling the "show location on map" feature for the in-game map. It makes it a little more like a hike in the wilderness, relying on a compass and landmarks, though I've still walked in circles...
News
12 CommentsThe Arbiter's got five Killer Instinct looks (but Keith David ain't one)
All of the looks for the Arbiter, coming to Killer Instinct's Season Three next month, have been revealed by 343 Industries in Halo Waypoint's latest update. The fighter's weapons and move sets are also discussed in detail.
As previously indicated, this character is not voiced by Keith David, making it an Arbiter and not the Arbiter. Halo's canon allows for this as Arbiter is a rank (of the Sangheili) not necessarily a specific being, though "The Arbiter" is the more commonly known name of the one voiced by David since his appearance in Halo 2.
So, according to Frank O'Connor, the franchise development director for Halo, when 343 chose to bring an Arbiter to Killer Instinct, they went with a "Hall of the Arbiters" concept, and that means a lot of looks for this fighter. They are:...
Latest Reviews
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2 CommentsHere's how a voice actor recorded his lines for Portal 2
The Steam VR Performance Test has gotten a ton of attention lately, but one of its cooler caches of buried treasure isn't the usual oblique reference to a sequel that's never coming. It's a soundfile of a recording session for Portal 2's announcer, found in the earliest (and no longer available) version of the demo. Thanks to a lot of cleanup work by Valve News Network, one can hear the directors giving him instructions.
The announcer is the actor Joe Michaels. This is a very long soundfile, some 20 minutes, so it's probably best to just skip around to hear something interesting. The directors are Valve writers — including Erik Wolpaw — working on Portal 2.
This video and audio doesn't betray any great secrets about Portal or Valve, but it is a curious window into how one of the most...
Culture
0 CommentsWatch speedrunners try to beat 20 straight NES games in less than three hours
There's an intriguing speedrun competition taking place right now — The Big 20 — in which participants try to beat 20 straight NES games in the fastest time possible. Winners of the past two have clocked times under three hours.
This is the fourth race in the series, and it got underway at 1 p.m. The third was back in September. This race comprises the following games and conditions.
Mario Bros — Beat Phase 10.
North & South — Beat the game (difficulty 1, any settings).
The Karate Kid — Beat the game.
Die Hard — Beat the game.
Clu Clu Land — Beat stage 5.
Puss n Boots — Beat the game.
River City Ransom — Beat the game.
Dr. Mario — Beat levels 0 through 5. Begin at 0 if you lose.
Solomon's Key — Beat room 10 (no warps).
Snake Rattle n Roll — Beat stage 4 (no...
News
50 CommentsVideo game releases for March 2016
Here are some of the big video games releases for the month of March 2016. Be sure to check out the list we put together of our most anticipated games of 2016.
What are you looking forward to playing? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.
Note: Only games with specific dates are listed below. Some games are announced for March but have no date yet.
March 1:
Heavy Rain, (PlayStation 4) — Since November's re-release of Beyond: Two Souls on the PlayStation 4, we have been eagerly awaiting the re-release of its predecessor Heavy Rain for the opportunity to "Press X to Jason" in a higher resolution.
March 3:
Black Desert Online, (Windows PC) — If the video above doesn't sell you on the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, we don't know what...
News
19 CommentsNintendo forecasts drop in 3DS sales by fiscal year's end
Nintendo has given some bad news to its investors, forecasting 3DS sales for the fiscal year ending next month will be 1 million fewer than expected.
That's a 13 percent drop, to 6.6 million units from 7.6 million. A corresponding drop in net sales also is expected, $4 billion instead of $5.4 billion. The sales forecast for the Wii U is unchanged, and Nintendo revised its sales projection for Wii U games upward, to 27 million, after sales through the end of December already topped the previous forecast of 23 million.
The increasing strength of the yen in foreing currency markets also was cited as a reason for the lower monetary figures, particularly in operating revenue. That is dropping to $291 million from $442 million, a 34 percent decrease.
Earlier this month, Nintendo reported...
Deals
21 CommentsNewegg rebate means Destiny on PS4 is on sale for free this weekend
NewEgg is offering Destiny — the 2014 base game, not The Taken King — for what is effectively nothing this weekend, though buyers will have to mail in a rebate and wait for that to be paid. The offer is only for the PlayStation 4 edition.
The offer is on this page. At checkout, buyers apply the promo code, which knocks $10 off the listed $25 price. A mail-in rebate takes care of the rest. Shipping is not free, however, with options starting at $2.99 for delivery in 4 to 7 business days. To take advantage of the promo code, one has to sign up for NewEgg's deals newsletter, too.
Be sure to look at the rebate form here to make sure you want to jump through all of these hoops. It involves cutting out and mailing in the UPC code from the insert on the game's case. There also is a whopping...
Minimap
0 CommentsThe Super Bowl of Tecmo Super Bowl, Blizzard's sounds, A Brief History of Pokémon
Minimap is your daily audio tour through the world of video games, related technologies and pop culture like comics, movies and TV. On Fridays, it transforms into Polygon Minimap: Worldmap Edition. These special episodes include on-staff experts who not only talk about current events, but analyze and synthesize them.
Think of Worldmap as the director's commentary for Polygon.
Today, we're joined by Owen Good, who tells us about the recently departed Super Bowl of Tecmo Super Bowl, Megan Farokhmanesh, who tells us about her nearly accidental feature on Blizzard's sound department and Allegra Frank, who takes us on a brief tour through Pokémon's history.
Links to subscribe to Minimap in iTunes, your podcast player of choice or to download an MP3 are all a click away, tucked inside...
Movies
80 CommentsJ.J. Abrams says Star Wars will get an openly gay character
J.J. Abrams, the director behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens, confirmed that there would be openly gay characters in future franchise installments, according to The Daily Beast.
During a pre-Oscars event at his Bad Robot HQ in Los Angeles, Abrams said said that he wants Star Wars to be a more inclusive universe, then referenced LGBTQ community.
"To me, the fun of Star Wars is the glory of possibility," Abrams said. "So it seems insanely narrow-minded and counterintuitive to say there wouldn't be a homosexual character in that world."
The Star Wars universe has recently introduced openly gay characters. Author Chuck Wendig found himself having to defend his decision to make the lead character in his Star Wars novel, Aftermath, a gay man.
Wendig's Aftermath, the first canonical novel...
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