I’m back from my self-imposed Internet blackout, ready to take on the joyous Christmas season. This is both my favorite and most despised time of the year. I love the energy that permeates the air during the holidays, but disappointment always sets when I realize I once again lack the funds to take a trip to visit those friends I never get to see anymore. In fact, I wish I could hang out with each and every one of you lovely readers this month....

Wind Waker edition plush characters are super cute Did you by a certain loved one the newThe Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HDfor Christmas? Maybe you grabbed them the sweet limited edition Wii U console. Well, if you’re looking for some more Zelda goodies to grab this holiday, you’re gonna have to wait for these cute little plush characters. Slated to ship around Valentine’s Day next year are Tingle; Princess Zelda; and not one, but two Link plush toys....

I’m keeping a Shatter handy just in case Let’s talk aboutArtifact. The card-based battler was shown off to the public for the first time last weekend at PAX West, and I got to go hands-on with it during the show and speak with a couple of the game’s developers. It’s significant mainly because it’s the first major Valve game sinceDOTA 2in 2013 (VR toyThe Labreleased in 2016, but virtual reality is still too niche to consider this a major release)....

The wilds ofTowers of Aghasbaare ripe with danger, and death is an inevitability if you’re planning to progress deep into the mainland. If you’re curious about what happens when you die, here’s the scoop. What happens when you’re killed in Towers of Aghasba? Despite being a survival game at its core, death inTowers of Aghasbais definitely on the more lenient side of the spectrum. Normally, the effects of dying within this genre vary wildly, from having to do a corpse run to regain lost gear to losing progress in one or more various systems....

We teamed up with the fine folks behindGotham City Impostorsto give away a console of your choice plus five copies ofGotham City Impostorsand t-shirts. All you had to do to enter was create your own homemade Batman or Joker-like costumes similar to how the character inGotham City Impostorsdo it. We got a ton of great entries but there can only be one.Congrats to Grynwho spent four days working on his costume and all the weapons....

A new Disney Kinect title is still under wraps, but it sounds amazing so far. It’s code-named “Rush,” and it’s set to launch in spring 2012. In “Rush,” using Kinect, kids can scan themselves into five Pixar worlds to team up with their favorite characters from TheIncredibles, Ratatouille, Up, Toy Story 3andCars 2“in a race against time to solve exciting challenges.” There’s even cooperative play. A press release says that for the first time in Kinect history, kids can use their body and voice interact with their favorite Disney/Pixar on screen and play cooperatively....

Not really that many zombies Zombie Hunterlooks like a fake game. You know the opening ofNo More Heroes IIIwhere Travis Touchdown outlines this weirdDeathman game, and the gamer part of your brain tells you that such a game couldn’t exist in the time period it’s supposedly from? That’sZombie Hunter. It tells me it’s from 1987, but doesn’t really tell me it was developed by Lenar. Instead, it just mentions Hi-Score Media Work Corp, which was sued out of existence by Enix over a screenshot of Dragon Quest 2....

Live on September 1 [Update:These games are live later today!Make sure you grabFall GuysandModern Warfare 2if you haven’t already.] PlayStation Plus! You’re back again! Last month gave us the unlikely pairing ofFall GuysandCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, with the former scoring very big within the PlayStation community. This month we’re getting another shooter, as well as another fairly interesting pick. Alongside of the ever-enduring battle royalePUBG, the always-polarizingStreet Fighter Vwill arrive on PlayStation Plus on September 1....

Goddo Hando delivers a Reverse Hell Kick Granny Smacker to 2014 Yes, it’s now 2015–though I’m still writing 2014 on all my checks!!!–but how can anyone do a definitive Game of the Year award until the year is officially over? Until that big dang ball drops down in The Big Apple, the Big City, New York, New York baby! What if Valve decided to stealth releaseHalf-Life 3on 12/31 like Beyoncé in 2013 orRun the Jewels 2this year?...

Charging day is a very dangerous day After the latest firmware update, Switch owners that use all sorts of third party hardware solutions have been panicking a bit. Reports surfaced that many users were impacted by bricked consoles, and most of the cases seemed to be linked to third party chargers or docks. Nintendo even came out and re-iterated that they don’t want anyone using non-sanctioned products. To further quell that fear Nintendo has provided a landing page that explains what’s safe — and it basically boils down to USB-A to USB-C with 56K OHM resistors....

The ballooning popularity ofHelldivers 2has been both a blessing and a curse for Arrowhead. On the one hand, it has allowed the game tosell over a million copies already. Unfortunately, it has also put the studio’s servers under intense stress. The waiting game He admits the following: “As a CEO I of course want the game to be as profitable as possible.” However, he also acknowledges that if a fan spent money on the game just to be stuck in a queue, he’d be heartbroken....

Things haven’t been going terribly well over at UTV Ignition, publishers of well-regarded niche titles likeDeadly PremonitionandEl Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. The Indian media conglomerate was recentlypurchased by Disneyfollowing theclosureof their internal development studios. UTV shocked fans last month with the cancellation of pre-orders for Vanillaware’s forthcoming PS3/Vita dungeon crawlerDragon’s Crown.However, rather than nixing the project altogether, the publishing duties have merely been passed to a firm that is equally familiar handling the bizarre and Japanese, Atlus....

Siliconeraspotted a shiny bauble courtesy ofGamesnipedupon the grimy, virtual docks ofeBay: a replica of Ryu Hayabusa’s Dragon Sword signed by ass-connoisseur Tomonobu Itagaki. The sword — one of three awarded as prizes for theNinja Gaiden Master Tournament— was forged via a combination of dark magic, unrivalled skill, and wood. Of course, a faux-sword alone isn’t enough to prove to Britney Gotherboobsfirst that you epitomize the ninja spirit, Billy. You’re going to have to start slinking around her house at night, taking MySpace pictures of you and the sword with the contrast turned all the way up, and above all, carry that thing around at school....