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If anything has become clear in recent years about the review systems of some gaming websites, it’s that they can be pretty easy to game. Overall ratings on sites like Metacritic and Steam are based on aggregating all user review scores. So enough people, angry or otherwise, can easily join together to push the overall rating up or down. Review bombing can easily fool users who haven’t kept up with current trends in the gaming industry, resulting in them bypassing games that are actually good due to inaccurately low review ratings or, vice versa, buying games whose score has been falsely inflated by overenthusiastic fans or duplicitous developers....

Blizzard releases update 2.4.3 for Diablo 3, launching a special 20th anniversary event that includes a retro dungeon styled after the original Diablo game. In celebration of Diablo’s 20th anniversary, Blizzard has added Diablo references to many of its major games. For example, Overwatch now has Diablo sprays for players to litter around the maps, and World of Warcraft has the secret cow level for adventurers to discover. It’s only fitting that Blizzard has updated the latest entry in the Diablo franchise to honor its 20th anniversary as well, with Diablo III: Reaper of Souls receiving update 2....

Codemasters has announced a short delay for Dirt 5, moving the launch date for the game forward for about a week. Originally set to release on October 9th, it will now be available to players on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on October 16th instead. It’s not clear exactly why this small delay was made, but Codemasters made sure to share other exciting news to make up for it including early access and free Dirt 5 upgrades....

A partnership between Mediatonic’s battle royale Fall Guys and the first-person shooter Doom is an odd couple indeed, but then again Fall Guys embraces that manner of oddity. This past week Mediatonic teased a round of upcoming skins based on characters from Doom, but only one of three was shown. Now the full selection of Doom-inspired Fall Guys skins has been revealed. Expect to start seeing Cacodemons alongside the rest of the Fall Guys beans soon....

Dragon Age is, as its name suggests, set during the “Dragon Age” of the series’ fictional calendar. The different ages of Thedas are determined by the continent’s main religious organization, the Chantry, with the Divine declaring the start of the Dragon Age after a High Dragon was spotted for the first time in centuries. The Dragon Age, however, is the ninth named era in Thedas’ history. Before the Dragon Age was the Blessed Age, a century prophesized to be prosperous, but filled with bloodshed, intrigue, and in-fighting....

Dragon Age 4 is a long ways off, and there’s not a lot of information about its plot out there right now. One thing, though, is almost certain: Solas will play a big part in the upcoming game. Given everything that Solas has done and all that he secretly is, it also turns out that Solas is related to one popular Dragon Age character in quite the convoluted manner. Let’s look at the facts: going forward in Dragon Age, Morrigan and Solas will have a pretty strange relationship....

The land serpent’s lightning breath arcs through the adventurers, burning away at their skin and leaving their hair standing up on end. “There’s nowhere left to run!” the creature exclaims in Draconic, its belly groaning with hunger. The behir lurches toward them, looking to swallow the party members whole. However, as its mouth snaps shut over the weakling adventurers, it closes on nothing but thin air. Confused, the creature circles the area, but there is no trace left of its easy meal....

Many Dungeons and Dragons players successfully guessed the location of the next published adventure as Icewind Dale thanks to a series of hints and leaks over the past six months or so, but that doesn’t mean anyone saw the theme or storyline that was coming. Rather than returning to the classic Icewind Dale adventures made famous in the trilogy of Drizzt novels, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is aiming to deliver a modern horror-themed epic adventure that will take players from levels 1 to 12 if they can manage to survive what nature has to throw at them… And their own paranoia....

Dontnod Entertainment truly made its mark in video games through the release of acclaimed episodic adventure title Life is Strange, but the developer has taken to E3 2017 with much darker motives. Now, the studio has revealed some fresh gameplay footage for upcoming horror title Vampyr, which shows off the dark London in which the game is set. This gameplay video for Vampyr, however, does not just focus on location and on atmosphere, but instead offers up a first real look at how the game will play....

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake of the original 1993 game is set to release later this year, and a teaser video shown at E3 gave players a peek into what could potentially be a fantastic addition to the game: The ability to create their own dungeons, though in what appeared to be a limited, simple way. Super Mario Maker, meanwhile, has laid the groundwork for such a project to be feasible, and with the hype surrounding the upcoming Super Mario Maker 2, there is a strong case to be made for its creation, as well as some caveats as to why it would not be as feasible an idea....

Just over six months after the release of Apex Legends, a pro tournament for the game has been announced. Apex Legends’ developer, Respawn Games, and the game’s publisher, Electronic Arts, announced today a series of esports events for the game later this year, including a professional tournament with a $500,000 prize pool on September 13-15. The event will be called “The Preseason Invitational” and will take place in Krakow, Poland. At the event, 240 players divided into 80 teams will compete in a double-elimination format tournament for the invitational....

Gamers looking to purchase EA’s Dragon Age 2 on Steam will find themselves out of luck - as the game has just been yanked from the digital store. The removal of Dragon Age 2 coincides with the release of the highly anticipated “Legacy” DLC. It’s unclear at the time of writing what issue caused the game to be removed - with neither Steam nor EA offering an explanation. Speculation suggests that the issue is born out EA’s desire to sell the DLC exclusively through the Dragon Age 2 in-game store - which goes against a recent amendment to the Steam Store code of conduct, stipulating that DLC must be made available through the Steam storefront as a standalone purchase....

Super Mario Bros. 3 was a truly influential Mario game to have on the NES. This game introduced tons of things to the the Mario series like enemies and music, but most of all it was the first to use overworld maps to navigate between levels. Since then, nearly every Mario platformer from the SNES to the Nintendo Switch have had equally diverse worlds. This helped make the original games eight worlds greatly iconic, and set the tone for the world themes of future Mario titles....

Here’s what we learned about Psychonauts 2 from yesterday’s Xbox Games Showcase stream. Psychonauts 2 got a new trailer yesterday with the musical stylings of Jack Black. He was really channeling his inner Jim Morrison in the psychedelic gameplay reveal that showcased just some of Psychonauts protagonist Razputin “Raz” Aquato’s brand new powers. While the trailer itself was a little light on details, we learned a few key pieces of info from Double Fine themselves following the show that sheds a bit more light on what we can expect in Raz’s latest adventure....

Excitement surrounding Madden 21’s newest game mode, The Yard, has been building for the past week, and thanks to a press presentation and demo that took place earlier this week that showed off the mode in-depth, we finally have a better idea as to what to expect. The Yard will feature backyard-style football that allows for (and actually encourages) double passing, laterals, and a multi-snap mechanic to keep defenses on their toes....

No PlayStation 2 launch title is more fondly remembered than the original SSX. The series had a great run last generation, but it’s been far too long since gamers have had the opportunity to take to the virtual slopes, speed down a mountain and bust mad tricks. Not one to let a cherished franchise rest on its laurels, Electronic Arts is bringing SSX back in a big way. Now, in advance of SSX’s projected January 2012 release date, the team at EA Canada take players behind-the-scenes of the game’s production with a new video series titled “SSX: Massive World....

Fallout 4 is a huge open-world game with tons of hours of content for you to play through. Whatever you choose to do, if it’s getting closer to Shaun’s locations as soon as possible or just wandering around trying to find a nice weapon that’s unique in the game, the game has enough content for you to do before getting to the end of the story. There are 144 quests in total in the game (and that’s not including DLC content)....

When fans played through Fallout 3, they were left bitterly disappointed upon completing the main story. Unlike other Bethesda games, Fallout 3 actually had a definitive ending, meaning that players had to reload a save before completing the final mission in order to continue their adventure, until later DLC rectified the issue. Because of this oversight in Fallout 3, some have been worried that Bethesda would opt for a similar route in Fallout 4....

Another Fallout 4 graphics mod releases, improving the overall appearance and diversity of the terrain in the post-nuclear apocalypse Boston wasteland. Not everyone has been impressed with Fallout 4’s visuals, despite the graphical improvement over Fallout 3. However, for gamers who are still disappointed by the appearance of the sprawling Boston wasteland, there’s a mod for that. Fallout 4 modder Printerkop is no stranger to the Fallout series, having previously upscaled the appearance of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas....

An oversight in Fallout 4 allows players to equip a boxing glove and beat up innocent children in the wasteland without the use of any mods or console commands. Fallout 4 is an open world game that gives players the option to be just about any kind of character that they want to. Players can spend their time building new homes for the poor and needy or pickpocketing strangers everywhere they go....