News:: A young disabled girl can finally play Mario Kart thanks to the smart steering feature

For a lot of elitist gamers, the worst "change" in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the introduction of "Smart Steering" and "Auto Accelerate". The two options are pretty self explanatory, but they allow you to either have the game auto steer or leave the gas pedal down. It lowers the skill ceiling for new players by letting them focus more on learning the courses or using items without having to fiddle with anything else. It can definitely automate the experience a bit, but it hardly ruins it for "expert" players.

What most people fail to realize is that these options can be used as accessibility features for disabled gamers. One such example comes from Reddit where a man named Keith has described how his young daughter, Molly, is now finally able to play Mario Kart with her siblings thanks to these new features. Molly is four years old, but she had suffered a stroke just after being born. It has left her with limited mobility in her right hand, hence how these new features have helped her play Mario Kart.

"Thanks to Mario Kart’s new Auto Drive feature," Keith explains, "she can now steer with her left hand and let the game drive for her or vice versa. I’m sure this feature will be an annoyance to many, but for my daughter, who would otherwise not really be able to participate, it is the best feature ever added to a Mario Kart game. She is currently sitting in my living with my other 2 kids and my wife and all of them are playing Mario Kart and laughing their heads off. This is truly a day I won’t forget thanks to Nintendo."

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News:: Review: Die With Glory

When it was recently reported that Nintendo made more money off Fire Emblem Heroes than it did Super Mario Run, it disappointed me. Not because of how it will possibly affect its future mobile endeavors but because of the message it could sending to every other mobile developer, that creating a premium priced game isn’t worth it. I hope I’m wrong and that isn’t the message being received because I would hate to miss out on future premium games like Die With Glory.

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News:: Portal 2 is hands down the greatest sequel ever made

The games industry, like the movie industry and apparently the television industry, is one that thrives on sequels. Just look at the list of upcoming games for 2017. You can barely swing a cat without hitting some follow-up. Some of these games look to improve upon the first entry, others exist solely to continue the story and some basically start from scratch, going back to the drawing board to give players something completely new. Every sequel has a chance of outshining the original, but let’s be honest: no sequel will ever shine a bright as Portal 2.

I didn’t play the original Portal until just before the release of the sequel. As a Mac owner, the game came free for me with the download of the Steam client. I fell hard for Portal, both figuratively and literally. I literally fell out of my chair in midst of celebrating my triumph over GLaDOS and hit my head on the floor. That brain injury did nothing to temper my anticipation for the follow-up.

There is always the worry a sequel will be a letdown, that our experiences with the original create unjustifiably high expectations for anything that follows it. Portal 2 took exactly 10 minutes for that worry, the fear of the overfamiliar, to melt away. It did exactly what I believe a good sequel should do: take what worked with the original, get rid of what didn’t, and make worthwhile additions.

It’s tough for me to say which addition Portal 2 is the best. The story, and yes stories can make video games better, helped build the world around Aperture Science and create motivation for its characters. New physics concepts intensified the puzzles standing between Chell and Wheatley, and the co-op mode provided some of the most fun I’ve had working together with a friend. Oh, and I can't forget the beautiful mod support for the game. All of this bundled created a package far more complete and engaging than the original. That’s why it’s a clear, inarguable fact that Portal 2 is the gold standard for sequels in this industry.

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News:: Call of Duty: WWII's campaign is all about the bros, but in multiplayer you can make it ladies' night

Female playable characters in Call of Duty games have become the norm. As more women enter into combat roles in the armed services, it only makes sense that games taking place in the near and distant future would include them. It's how things are and how they should be, but what about games set in the past? Should developers take a less historically accurate approach to games set in the early 1900s for the sake of including women in roles they traditionally wouldn't fill?

Of course they should, who the fuck cares it's a video game. That was my exact response when I saw Michael Condrey of Sledgehammer Games confirming female characters will be playable in the Call of Duty: WWII's multiplayer mode, and I'm somebody who paid attention in history class and knows of the contribution women made to the war effort in countries other than the United States.

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News:: GameCenter CX - Episode 191 - Crazy Climber

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