All posts tagged: console games

RIP ‘Red vs. Blue.’ Machinima Is Gone—but Its Legacy Is Everywhere

RIP ‘Red vs. Blue.’ Machinima Is Gone—but Its Legacy Is Everywhere

Red vs. Blue is officially over. On Tuesday, Warner Bros. Discovery released Red vs. Blue: Restoration, the final installment in the long-running saga that was once at the forefront of a whole new form of entertainment: web videos created from in-game footage. Machinima signaled a new world where that footage—of Halo, in Red vs. Blue’s case—could power viral clips. That was 2003. Now it seems as if Restoration might be machinima’s swan song. “Machinima directors use game engines, which allow them to record a scene from any conceivable angle, like a Hollywood director uses a cinematographer,” WIRED wrote in a 2002 piece heralding the potential of this new filmmaking technique. When it launched a year later, Red vs. Blue exemplified those possibilities. The series was created by linking several Xboxes together and recording footage of a Halo multiplayer match, then adding voiceover. The absurdist, existential tone of the dialog was a hilarious counterpoint to (and commentary on) the run-and-gun gameplay of the first-person shooter used to create it. The show’s creators founded a production company, …

33 Best Nintendo Switch Games for Every Player (2024)

33 Best Nintendo Switch Games for Every Player (2024)

The Switch is one of Nintendo’s most successful and influential systems ever. There’s something unique about carrying a home console-quality gaming device everywhere you go. Figuring out what to play, though—that’s getting harder every year, as the roster of first-party and indie games grows deeper and deeper. Thankfully, WIRED has plenty of opinionated Nintendo fans on staff, and we’ve put our heads together to compile a list of the best Switch games. We’ve listed the digital version for most of them here, so make sure you get a spacious microSD card to store all your game files. (We recommend this one.) Be sure to also read up on our Switch Tips and Secrets, Favorite Switch Accessories, and Switch Bundle Deals. And if you upgraded to an OLED Switch, here’s how to transfer all of your data. Updated April 2024: We’ve added Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario Party, Mario Party Superstars, and Bayonetta 3, and removed older games. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes …

Is a Nintendo Switch Worth Buying Right Now? (2024)

Is a Nintendo Switch Worth Buying Right Now? (2024)

With that in mind, there are a few nuggets that might be certain. The next console is likely to remain a hybrid home and portable console—reporting from VGC indicates this is the case, and it’s a natural progression given Nintendo’s recent trajectory. After the company has sold more than 132 million portable consoles, it’s unlikely to revert to a system that can’t leave your TV’s side. Other reports suggest the next console might have a slightly larger screen, use an LCD panel (as opposed to OLED, found on the more recent Switch refresh), and presumably have more powerful processors. But specs are specs. They can tell you only so much about how a console works or feels in person. We don’t know whether the new console will be backward compatible with old games. Nintendo has only occasionally supported the previous generation of games on its newer consoles. Until we know for sure, it’s hard to say whether it’s worth waiting for the new console. If it can’t play most of the games available on the …

24 Best Nintendo Switch Accessories (2024): Docks, Cases, Headsets, and More

24 Best Nintendo Switch Accessories (2024): Docks, Cases, Headsets, and More

The Nintendo Switch has incredible staying power for a console that’s now seven years old and has only had a moderate update to its screen and kickstand after all that time. Unlike the homebound PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the Switch is portable, personal, and packed with exclusive and indie titles. Because you can play the Switch at home or on the road, you might need batteries, protective cases, and other accessories you’re not used to buying for a console. The Switch OLED is a fine improvement over the original, and the accessories on this list should work with the OLED version unless otherwise noted in the text or buy links, though we have not tested them all on it. Some are suitable for Nintendo’s Switch Lite, the Switch’s mobile-only sibling that cannot dock to a TV. Be sure to check our roundup of the Best Switch Games and our Switch tips and tricks to get the most out of your system. Updated March 2024: We’ve added the HyperX ChargePlay Quad 2, Monoprice portable …

Mobile Gaming is Having a Moment—and Backbone Wants to Unite It

Mobile Gaming is Having a Moment—and Backbone Wants to Unite It

Other perks to being a Backbone+ subscriber include game capture, recording, and editing tools for folks who like to share content on social media. There are promotions, like free months of Apple Arcade or Google Play Pass, in-game content for titles like Diablo Immortal, and 30 percent off new Backbone products and accessories. Unfortunately, this convenience comes at a cost. Yet another subscription is a hard sell nowadays. As nice as it is to have a single portal, shelling out for Backbone+ may not be worthwhile for everyone. If the one-stop shop interface for all your games is included as part of the free app, it would be easy to recommend, but $50 a year is too much to pay for folks who don’t care about the other functionality or promotions. That old expectation that mobile games should be free is persistent. Most folks are yet to be sold on alternative models to in-app purchases and advertising, like Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass. The latest rumors suggest Apple Arcade’s future is in doubt. That …

‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’ Initial Prototypes Were ‘Chaos’

‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’ Initial Prototypes Were ‘Chaos’

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s developers had a problem: the land of Hyrule kept falling apart. Anyone who has played Tears of the Kingdom might be able to guess why. Some of the game’s big advances—Link’s Ultrahand and Fuse abilities, which allow players to create any tool they’re clever enough to stick together—required a lot of new and intricate development. Nintendo wanted to build something bigger and better with their Breath of the Wild sequel, but, as the team worked on the game, the tools that would allow players to make all those shield skateboards and log bridges broke it. A lot. It was, programmer Takahiro Takayama says, “chaos.” During development, Takayama said he’d often hear devs exclaim “it broke!” or “it went flying,” Takayama said Wednesday at the Game Developers Conference. “And I would respond, ‘I know. We’ll deal with it later.’” The problem was the physics of it all. “We realized removing all non-physics-driven objects and making everything physics-driven will lead us to the solution we were looking at,” Takayama …

Give Us an Xbox Handheld Already

Give Us an Xbox Handheld Already

Microsoft is gearing up for a big holiday season at the end of this year. During yesterday’s much-hyped Official Xbox Podcast, Xbox president Sarah Bond teased news regarding the company’s hardware, as well as its plans for its next-gen gaming devices. “What we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation,” she said. The biggest question about Microsoft’s next bet, then, isn’t whether or not it will continue to make traditional consoles that plug into your television. It’s if Microsoft will follow in the footsteps of companies like Nintendo and Valve to make a console you can carry around. Gaming has long advanced past the point of handhelds only providing a separate, smaller experience; you can play everything from battle royal megahits like Fortnite to expansive, open worlds like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom without a full TV setup. Other Microsoft competitors like Sony have already dipped into handhelds. In addition to the company’s efforts like the PlayStation Vita, which it …