In Sue Burke’s debut novel Semiosis, she imagines contact in a unique way: first contact not with animal-like life, but between humans and a planet full of intelligent plants. When Semiosis opens, a human colonial expedition — which left Earth in the 2060s — is headed for a distant star. It’s slightly larger than Earth, and there’s copious plant life on the surface. Burke starts her book with the first group of human colonists, and in the following chapters, jumps between successive generations

Square Enix released a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3 today at the D23 Expo in Japan, showing off a new Monsters Inc.-inspired world and new gameplay. The publisher also offered a preview of brand-new Kingdom Hearts 3 music from singer Hikaru Utada. Kingdom Hearts 3’s journey to the world of Monsters Inc. means a fresh, furry look for our heroes, Sora, Donald and Goofy. Kingdom Hearts regulars like Riku, Vanitas and Marluxia also pop up. Kingdom Hearts 3 is scheduled to arrive on PlayStation 4

A Twitter account highlights some classic carts, cards and discs that have been well loved — but maybe a little too much — and still find them a good home. Abused Games, which has been around for about five years but returned to posting in December after about six months off, curates eBay listings of old games that are definitely not in mint condition, but according to their listings are at least perfectly playable. Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64, 1997) Lot 003Item condition:Good pic.twitter.com/0OM

If you’re both into sports games, Walmart is offering a discount on a Nintendo Switch bundle with Fifa 18. If sports games aren’t your jam, there’s an Amazon Nintendo Switch bundle builder with games like Splatoon 2. I love the Switch, but it’s made me really nostalgic for some of the other great times I’ve had with other Nintendo consoles. If you want to recapture some of these halcyon days, you can head to GameStop and pick up one of their Blast From The Past Consoles, like the Wii bundle with

Dragster, signed by Todd Rogers — whose 35-year-old record was stricken from Twin Galaxies and Guinness World Records last week — fetched $830 for Brett Weiss, a video game book author and collector. Weiss told Polygon that he first met Rogers at the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas more than a decade ago. While he found Rogers to be friendly, he said Rogers signed two copies of Dragster while Rogers was away from the booth, without Rogers being asked for the autograph. “Todd had come back while

Fifteen years later, controversial YouTuber Logan Paul took a similar approach to his trip to Japan. Paul’s trip culminated in a visit to Aokighara, also known as the “suicide forest,” where he and his friends came across the body of a man who had recently hanged himself. Paul’s decision to edit the video, upload it to YouTube and use the man’s body as a thumbnail led to heavy criticism, and led YouTube to cancel Paul’s YouTube Red projects. Knoxville’s willingness to take on the most painful an

Instead, the thoughtful adventure game is a unique blend of simple, puzzle-based gameplay and emotionally complex storytelling, all coated in 32-bit visuals. All Our Asias stars Yuito, a Japanese-American 30-something who seizes the opportunity to learn something about his ailing father, right as he’s about to pass. (There are plenty of other inhabitants of Yuito’s father’s memory banks, it turns out.) Through conversations with various people in the Memory World, Yuito learns a lot about the fa

YouTube has issued a new set of transparent rules regarding problematic creators on the platform who generate concerns among the community. “We may remove a channel’s eligibility to be recommended on YouTube, such as appearing on our home page, trending tab or watch next,” said Bardin. “our responses to some of these situations were slow”YouTube’s news comes just hours after the company suspended ad revenue for Logan Paul, currently the platform’s most notorious creator. Paul recently returned t

Five years ago, I interviewed a group of fans calling themselves Mane6, who’d been working on a My Little Pony-inspired 2D fighting game called MLP: Fighting is Magic. But then, toy giant Hasbro, owner of the My Little Pony property, slapped a cease and desist order on the game. Instead of giving up, the team came back, raising $600,000 on IndieGoGo for a new game called Them’s Fightin’ Herds. Them’s Fightin’ Herds is finally coming out for Windows PC on Feb. 22, according to a new trailer relea

YouTube has issued a new set of transparent rules regarding problematic creators on the platform who generate concerns among the community. “We may remove a channel’s eligibility to be recommended on YouTube, such as appearing on our home page, trending tab or watch next,” said Bardin. “our responses to some of these situations were slow”YouTube’s news comes just hours after the company suspended ad revenue for Logan Paul, currently the platform’s most notorious creator. Paul recently returned t

Destiny developer Bungie made some major changes to the weekly Nightfall strike between Destiny and Destiny 2, but they haven’t quite worked out. You’ll get your first one for completing a Nightfall after the v1.1.3 update, although Challenge Cards will apply only for the Prestige version of the Nightfall. They’re tied to the new modifiers in the Prestige Nightfall, which allow players to manually tune the difficulty to suit their desire. This new Prestige mode setup is scheduled to go live for

Destiny developer Bungie made some major changes to the weekly Nightfall strike between Destiny and Destiny 2, but they haven’t quite worked out. You’ll get your first one for completing a Nightfall after the v1.1.3 update, although Challenge Cards will apply only for the Prestige version of the Nightfall. They’re tied to the new modifiers in the Prestige Nightfall, which allow players to manually tune the difficulty to suit their desire. This new Prestige mode setup is scheduled to go live for

Five years ago, I interviewed a group of fans calling themselves Mane6, who’d been working on a My Little Pony-inspired 2D fighting game called MLP: Fighting is Magic. But then, toy giant Hasbro, owner of the My Little Pony property, slapped a cease and desist order on the game. Instead of giving up, the team came back, raising $600,000 on IndieGoGo for a new game called Them’s Fightin’ Herds. Them’s Fightin’ Herds is finally coming out for Windows PC on Feb. 22, according to a new trailer relea

Boehm said that being transparent with a community is the only way to build a good environment for users. It was all very pleasant.”Replies to his post all contain similar appreciation from former small-time Twitch streamers who jumped over to Mixer. Mixer’s director of marketing, Jenn McCoy, says the platform isn’t actively trying to compete with YouTube and Twitch’s audience. Like Twitch, Mixer doesn’t have anyone who watches every stream. Bohem said the company will continue to invest in mode

Mayfair Games has sold its remaining games catalog to Asmodee North America, a massive games publisher and distributor, the company announced. “As of today, the management team at Mayfair Games, Inc. announces we will wind down game publishing,” the company said in a statement. The following year, it sold the North American license for the franchise to Asmodee North America. Today’s announcement indicates that it will add the entire product line of Mayfair Games to Asmodee’s growing portfolio. T

Mayfair Games has sold its remaining games catalog to Asmodee North America, a massive games publisher and distributor, the company announced. “As of today, the management team at Mayfair Games, Inc. announces we will wind down game publishing,” the company said in a statement. The following year, it sold the North American license for the franchise to Asmodee North America. Today’s announcement indicates that it will add the entire product line of Mayfair Games to Asmodee’s growing portfolio. T

Tap Battle is the name of Fire Emblem Heroes’ new in-game event, which is live for a two-week period. But Fire Emblem Heroes already has plenty of that, and it only has one thing like Tap Battle. Tap Battle is simplistic, but that’s the charm: You fight those enemies by tapping them in time with the rhythm of the background music. Discover tips on how to tap your way to victory in the new Tap Battle: Illusory Dungeon with this video! #FEHeroes pic.twitter.com/wnT75XPBjc — Nintendo of America (@N

Tap Battle is the name of Fire Emblem Heroes’ new in-game event, which is live for a two-week period. But Fire Emblem Heroes already has plenty of that, and it only has one thing like Tap Battle. Tap Battle is simplistic, but that’s the charm: You fight those enemies by tapping them in time with the rhythm of the background music. Discover tips on how to tap your way to victory in the new Tap Battle: Illusory Dungeon with this video! #FEHeroes pic.twitter.com/wnT75XPBjc — Nintendo of America (@N

YouTube is suspending ads on all of Logan Paul’s videos after the personality uploaded a series of recent and offensive vlogs encouraging bad behavior. This is a bigger consequence for Paul than YouTube’s first punishment, which simply was to remove Paul from Google Preferred, the company’s top-tier ad group for creators. A YouTube representative told Polygon it wasn’t a decision the company made lightly, but YouTube believes his entire channel is unsuitable for advertisers. “After careful consi

Do you think of Yuri on Ice when you think of figure skating? The Japanese figure skating team performing at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games sent out a pair of skaters to a routine featuring the soundtrack from popular anime series about competitive figure skating. Team skating, however, is a relatively new Olympic event. Their performance was celebrated by Yuri on Ice fans and cosplayers, who thanked the duo for their “magical performance,” which helped to kick off the 2018 Olympics. Thank you Miu S