Court rules against Activision Blizzard in $23.4M patent dispute
Enlarge / Acceleration Bay says World of Warcraft‘s networking code infringes on a patent originally filed by Boeing. Activision Blizzard A jury has found Activision Blizzard liable for $23.4 million in damages in a patent infringement lawsuit first brought to…
40 years later, Kontrabant 2 for ZX Spectrum is rebroadcast on FM in Slovenia
Enlarge / In 1984, the year 2000 was so promising, students made entire games promising to take you there. Radio Student Software is almost impossibly easy to download, distribute, and access compared to 40 years ago. Everything is bigger, faster,…
Hands-on with the new John Wick pinball
Enlarge / John? Is that you, John? John? Can’t we discuss this like civilized men? Stern Pinball If you don’t follow the ins and outs of pinball, you might be surprised to find out there are more active companies making…
Sneaking science into Borderlands: Inside the game inside a game
Enlarge / Line up those colors and close those gaps… for science! In 2020, a new minigame appeared in the video game Borderlands 3, located in the resident scientist’s laboratory on the spaceship Sanctuary III. Although the arcade game may…
Pokémon Go players are altering public map data to catch rare Pokémon
Enlarge / Rather than going to beaches to catch Wigletts, some Pokémon Go players are trying to bring the beaches to themselves. Niantic Ah, Pokémon Go. The hottest mobile game of 2016 remains a potent force to this day, pulling in…
Hackers discover how to reprogram NES Tetris from within the game
Enlarge / I can see the code that controls the Tetri-verse! Aurich Lawson Earlier this year, we shared the story of how a classic NES Tetris player hit the game’s “kill screen” for the first time, activating a crash after…
Hades II’s new combat options enhance an already great game
Enlarge / New gods, same old drama. Supergiant Here at Ars, we were obviously excited by the late 2022 announcement of Hades II as a follow-up to our favorite game of 2020. But when early coverage of that sequel suggested…
Mini Settlers is a city builder that you can both enjoy and actually put down
Enlarge / Are you enticed by this kind of orderly madness with a clean graphical layout? Then I suggest you… settle in. Goblinz Studio You can’t buy Mini Settlers right now, but I think you should play the free “Prologue”…
Sony demands PSN accounts for Helldivers 2 PC players, and it’s not going well
Enlarge / This gear is from the upcoming “Polar Patriots” Premium Warbond in Helldivers 2. It’s an upcoming change the developer and publisher likely wish was getting more attention of late. Sony Interactive Entertainment There’s a lot of stories about…
GeForce Now has made Steam Deck streaming much easier than it used to be
Enlarge / Streaming Fallout 4 from GeForce Now might seem unnecessary, unless you know how running it natively has been going. Kevin Purdy The Steam Deck is a Linux computer. There is, technically, very little you cannot get running on…