Steam Adds LGBTQ+ Tag for Games
As originally reported by Kotaku, Steam has finally implemented an “LGBTQ+” tag for games on its platform after developers and players drew enough attention to the issue.
Steam’s game discoverability and recommendation algorithm is largely determined by their tag system. If you go to the page for, say, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, you’ll see tags like “Adventure,” “Lara Croft,” or “Female Protagonist.” Mouse over one of these and you’ll get taken to a hub page of sorts that shows you other similarly defined games. Historically, it’s been difficult for smaller studios to get their game noticed among the sea of possible choices, especially if their tags didn’t align with certain genres. Steam users have been able to make custom tags for a few years now, but Steam doesn’t use any of those for its algorithms, so they’re effectively useless. On top of all that, Steam removed custom tags from its hub functionality, essentially leaving developers who custom-tagged their own games as “LGBTQ+” in the dark.
30 Years Later, Michael Keaton’s Batman Is Still the Best
It's been 30 years since Tim Burton's Batman hit theaters and showed a world a wholly different vision of the Caped Crusader than the one made famous by Adam West. The 1989 Batman's legacy is hard to overstate. The film's release and the ensuing "Batmania" served as a taste of things to come for our superhero movie-obsessed culture. The tone, aesthetic and music directly paved the way for Batman: The Animated Series. But there's one thing a lot of moviegoers seem to forget. As much as Jack Nicholson's Joker tended to dominate the conversation then and now, Michael Keaton is the true unsung hero of Batman. 30 years later, his is still the best live-action Batman of them all.
It's understandable why Nicholson's Joker has always hogged the spotlight. He was the A-List talent Warner Bros. needed to sell moviegoers dubious about a cinematic reboot handled by the director and star of Beetlejuice. In fact, the studio was so desperate to land Nicholson they wound up agreeing to one of the most ridiculously lucrative contracts of all time. And by his very nature, the flamboyant, scenery-chewing Joker is always going to steal the show from a grumpy, soft-spoken man in a black costume.
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Toy Story 4 Ending Explained
This ending explained contains full spoilers for Toy Story 4.
Toy Story 3 seemed like a perfect ending for Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang. Andy went off to college, but he left his beloved toys in the gentle hands of pre-schooler Bonnie, implying that his toys had many years of playtime left ahead of them.
Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley admitted that when it came to approaching a fourth installment, "We had the same questions everybody else has right now: 'I thought you guys were done.' ... We love the end of Toy Story 3, and feel like that’s the completion of Woody and Andy’s story. But there was more Woody story to tell."
How to Get More Spell Energy in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
Update: Watch the video above for the best ways to refill spell energy or continue reading our spell energy tips below.
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is all about casting spells and that requires spell energy. Here's how you make sure you can get an energy refill so that you're always ready to wield your wand by managing and getting more spell energy in Niantic's latest game.
How Spell Energy Works
When you walk around the world different icons will spawn on the map. From the Dark Arts and Hogwarts School to Magizoology and the Wonders of the Wizarding World: these lost objects, creatures, and people need you to send them back to their rightful place that means casting a spell to remove the confoundables keeping it there. This means tracing quickly on your screen and using some spell energy.
FF7 Remake: Tifa Isn’t Getting a Smaller Chest, Just a Proper Bra
This week, fans and media outlets reacted to a translated Tetsuya Nomura interview from Famitsu about Final Fantasy VII’s Tifa with very conflicting interpretations. In the interview, Nomura is said to have been told by Square Enix’s ethics department to “restrict” or “constrict” Tifa’s chest. Twinfinite has the full interview, and has since added an editor’s note reading “the context and wording indicted clearly that this refers to the tightness and design of Tifa’s clothing, not to her chest size.” I’ll take an educational approach as to why this is not only appropriate when interpreted correctly, but realistic, further down in this article.
In Psychonauts 2, the Tooth Is Stranger Than Fiction
Though it’s been nearly a decade and a half since the original Psychonauts, not much has changed in the world of Raz and the other psychically gifted campers. That’s because Psychonauts 2 picks up just a few days after the events of the first one (though the highly enjoyable PSVR interstitial Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin managed to crowbar directly between the two mainline titles). Truman has been rescued from Dr. Robato, and it begs the question: was there a mole operating within the Psychonauts, and if so, who hired him?
If you fondly remember the 2005 cult classic from the original Xbox (and later other platforms), as I do, you’ll feel right at home in the sequel. The art style retains the same cartoonish, almost claymation charm, though of course texture detail, resolution, and just about every other technical part of the visuals is substantially improved now that we’re two generations removed from Raz’s debut.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Is like Hollow Knight with the Speed Cranked up to 11
I was extremely excited to play Hollow Knight: Silksong in the Nintendo Booth at E3 2019, and what I found there was a sequel to one of my favorite games that simultaneously felt incredibly familiar and entirely new. It’s unmistakably Hollow Knight, but with the speed cranked up to 11 thanks to the nimble nature of its new protagonist, Hornet.
Hornet’s basic movement doesn’t seem any faster, but her attacks and abilities certainly are. Your mid-air downslash has been replaced with a diagonal dive thrust (completely uprooting strategies I had developed in the first game) and she can grab edges to hop up onto high platforms right off the bat. It felt like I had to relearn a game I was already intimately familiar with - that was jarring, but once I did, I think I started to like its combat and movement even more than the original.
Tim Allen Answers the Buzz Lightyear Question You’ve Always Had
Tim Allen has answered a question that has long eluded fans: what does Buzz Lightyear’s hair look like under that purple Snoopy cap?
At the press junket for Toy Story 4, an audience member asked what kind of haircut Buzz Lightyear has. “He has alopecia is the problem. He has pattern baldness a little. That balaclava that he wears - it’s for fireproofing,” Allen joked. "No, actually, he’s got a beautiful head of hair underneath there. It’s rather curly. And he’s got a man bun under all that."
Of course (and Buzz knows this well): he’s just a toy, so all that's really under that balaclava is just more plastic. Still, some fans have wondered exactly what kind of hair he’s got going on under his helmet, and now you can imagine beautiful, flowing locks that he keeps hidden in a bun to focus on saving the galaxy.
Bond 25 Director Denies His RDR2 Playing Behind Production Delays
Bond 25 director Cary Fukunaga said in an Instagram post on Tuesday that he did not hold up his film crew by playing Red Dead Redemption 2.
A report in The Sun surfaced on Monday that said Fukunaga kept the James Bond crew waiting hours. The excuse? Because he was too busy playing PlayStation 4. Fukunaga responded to the Bond 25 controversy by posting a picture to Instagram of Production Designer Mark Tildesly on Tuesday with a caption denying his supposed video game addiction.