The nominations for the first ever edition of The Game Awards were unveiled this morning and include the standard set of genre-based categories, a fan category for most anticipated title of 2015 (which mostly includes delayed games) and as a bonus, some love for famous YouTube celebs and eSports teams to help spread the word and bring in the "hardcore" crowd for appro

Publishers are learning what they can and cannot get away with in terms of nickel-and-diming consumers with microtransactions, much like they had to learn about what they could get away with in terms of larger DLC content. Capcom's fighting games became infamous for including DLC characters on the game disc, but employing the shady practice of keeping them locked behind a pay wall. These days, consumers are more savvy to such practices, and the practice of slicing off part of a game and selling it later is far less prevalent than it once was (although pre-order bonus missions remain the bane of many a gamer's existence). In a way, loot boxes are a way around that, as the content granted by the crates can usually be earned within the game itself. It's locked away from most players, but in a different way than Jill Valentine in Marvel vs Capco

Breath of the Wild is often considered one of the best games in recent memory . There are a bunch of reasons for the title's critical acclaim, Our Site from its beautiful art style to its clever quests. The game also gets a lot of credit for the amount of freedom it gives

It's not at all uncommon for video game creators to seek inspiration from other mediums when developing new titles. There have been countless video game adaptations of anime series , television shows, and movies over the years, though one area that is sometimes overlooked is the wonderful world of fiction-based books, short stories, and nov

A huge part of making a great photo in Skate was the spot; this is also true in games nowadays. This is especially true with No Man’s Sky , and the game's recent NEXT update from this summer. You do have a viewable avatar now thanks to the NEXT update, but they don’t define the experience in the same way as God of War ’s Kratos or Spider-Man. It is No Man’s Sky ’s environments that are the stars: how you frame each environment defines the tone of the atmosphere. Taking a photo in the nearly endless space may evoke feelings of loneliness, while a view of one of the planet’s gorgeous vistas brings a sense of wonderm

The most expensive Season Pass DLCs cost $50. At launch, with the Pass, the first Star Wars Battlefront cost $110. Batman: Arkham Knight cost $100. A perceived benefit of loot boxes is that the premise of microtransactions take the place of a traditional DLC system. Some games which bring in money from loot boxes, actually eschew paid map packs; Titanfall 2, Killzone: Shadowfall, Uncharted 4, Halo 5 , and even Star Wars Battlefront II have released (or will release, in the case of Star Wars ) all additional maps and modes without charging players. This allows all players to play together no matter how much money they put in after their initial purchase of the game. This keeps the community alive, which means there's a greater chance that more players will spend money on microtransactions. If more players are playing, then more players are pay

There have been plenty of video games based on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien over the years, though not all of them have quite lived up to the excellence of the great author . With its fantastic nemesis system and well-refined combat mechanics though, that's not really a criticism that could ever be levied against the fantastic Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mord

In some games, the climbing consists of jumping atop waist-high boxes. Other titles, however, allow you to scale pretty much anything. And some of the time, you don't even need convenient ledges or windows for assistance. Instead, you can just walk up or jump to a wall and start your ascent. Here are a few examples of games that allow you to scale anyth

With the nominations coming before the year's end, we're faced with the usual issue of not all of 2014's titles being included (like Ubisoft's The Crew ) but at least they got in the most recent two-three weeks which includes the largest batch of high profile releases. The deadline for eligible entrants was games released by November 25th. On the Canadian Videogame Awards front, the date of nomination eligibility was much earlier and meant that some of the year's biggest titles ( Assassin's Creed Unity, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4, etc. ) didn't make the

Yet, your climbing abilities aren't only for traversal. These skills also come in handy when you're facing the Colossi themselves. After all, these things are huge - hence the name Colossus - so you have to scale their bodies to reach their weak points. Not many other games allow you to climb enem