Awesome Games

Sonic gets an open-world game exploration game in the vein of Breath of the Wild. Our favorite blue hedgehog will spin and dash his way through the landscapes of Starfall Islands, including massive waterfalls, forests, and deserts. Coming to consoles and PC for the 2022 holiday season.

Set in an uncharted section of the galaxy during the High Republic era, Star Wars Eclipse is a branching action-adventure game from Quantic Dream and Lucasfilm Games. While this cinematic trailer provides few clues to its plot, it’s a visual spectacle that we can only hope is achievable on today’s consoles and PCs.

The energy sword is one of our go-to weapons in the Halo series. We’ve seen lots of cool replicas of the sword over the years, but they’re usually toys made from plastic. Hacksmith Industries went above and beyond with their working version of the iconic sword, which is basically a quad-blade version of their plasma lightsaber.

A comprehensive history of one of video gaming’s greatest icons, Pac-Man. This 340-page hardcover book is packed with concept designs, archival imagery, and stories from the game’s designers, developers, and marketers. The Collector’s Edition includes a slipcase, a Pac-Man Fever record, and an arcade token.

Alan Becker revisits his Animation vs. series yet again. This time, his stick figure characters attempt to play classic arcade games on a MAME cabinet. As they fight over the joystick, things go off the rails and they crawl inside the machine in an attempt to debug the system.

Musician Joe Porter plays a variety of percussion instruments. Sit back and enjoy as he performs a sampling of video game music on an instrument made from plastic soda bottles, timpani drums, steel pan, and more. He has an earlier video game medley and a collection of commercial jingles that are worth a listen too.

These fun RPG dice feature designs inspired by 8-bit video games. The sparkly, polyhedral dice sets are embossed with pixelated digits and sprites and come packed in a box/dice tray that looks like a classic NES cartridge. Each set comes with 11 dice with the option to upgrade with expansion packs and other accessories.

Feeling stressed or anxious? There’s nothing quite so calming as the sound of a rain shower. To help us unwind our minds, UK designer Jez Burrows put together a compilation of soothing rain sounds captured entirely from video games. Since this clip is titled “Part I,” we imagine a follow-up will appear at some point.

Described as a “Slow-life town destruction game,” DEEEER Simulator invites players to frolic about for a leisurely stroll or wreak havoc and destroy the place. After watching the trailer, we still have no idea what’s going on, but we need to play this. Coming to PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch. It’s on Steam Early Access for PC too.

With smartphones, we’re used to gaming on relatively small screens these days. Mr. Volt bought a teensy 0.7″ AMOLED screen that crams in a full 1920×1080 resolution, then hooked it up to a computer to see if he could play games on it. In case you’re wondering, the screen was designed for use in a head-mounted display.

If Super Mario Bros. and Tetris did a crossover, it might look something like this tabletop accent light. The set comes with 16 double-sided and stackable light blocks which you can mix and match to create your own custom 8-bit game level. Makes a great gift for any Nintendo fan.

It’s been a while since we had a new Mike Myers movie, but back in the day, he gave us some of the best characters ever. We’d totally be down for a game of Super Myers, in which Austin Powers battles Dr. Evil, Shrek, Wayne, Fat Bastard, the Love Guru, and that OTHER Michael Myers. A great t-shirt design by Retro Review.

To celebrate 20 years of Xbox, Hyperkin is offering these limited edition “Duke” controllers for today’s Microsoft consoles and Windows PCs. The wired controller has vibration feedback, a headset jack, and a display that plays the original Xbox startup animation inside the Xbox button. Available in black, white, or purple Cortana variants.

Unlike most arcade cabinets, Tanoshibe works with your existing gaming systems. Available in 10″ or 24″ sizes, these tabletop cabinets feature arcade joysticks and buttons and work with Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, PC, and even smartphones. An optional emulator board and base upgrade it to a standalone arcade machine.

We haven’t played an FPS with dinosaurs since Turok. This open-world horror game drops players into a world filled with prehistoric creatures. You can play alone or in co-op mode to explore and complete objectives while defending yourself from the angry beasts. Coming to all major gaming platforms in September 2022.

Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg take on the characters Nathan Drake and Sully Sullivan in this big-screen adaptation of Naughty Dog’s beloved PlayStation game series. Expect globetrotting action, adventure, and wise-cracking as they pursue “the greatest treasure never found.” In theaters 2.18.2021.

One of our favorite arcade games is getting the 1/6th-scale treatment by New Wave Toys. These mini machines play the original Atari ROM and have a working Trak-Ball, lighted volcano buttons, and arcade artwork. The limited-run Field-Test Edition gets a light-up marquee, prototype control panel, and a triple-slot coin door.

This unique sim game asks players to visit homes and offices to perform electrical repairs. Scenarios include fixing broken switches and outlets, installing wiring, and troubleshooting devices. And yes, electrocution is always a risk. First Shock, a free prologue to the full Electrician Simulator is coming to Steam 11.2021.

After being frozen for over 220 years, a secret agent awakens to find himself in a strange new world surrounded by unfamiliar characters. Can he win them over with his swinging 1960s charm, or will the Reapers destroy him? eli_handle_b․wav created this hilarious mashup of two very strange bedfellows.

This slick peripheral combines a DAC and a headphone amp. It connects to PCs or Macs via Micro-USB and has 3.5 mm headphone, microphone, and aux jacks. It supports audio sample rates up to 24-bit / 96 kHz, and drives headphones from 16 to 150 ohms. It also has 7.1 surround sound using EPOS’s Binaural Rendering Engine.

The Rainbow Road levels are some of the most memorable in the Mario Kart games. Mutch Games built a real-world replica of the SNES course with LED lighting and mechanized Thwomps. He combined the track with gameplay footage using the Switch AR game Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. He’s built several other levels too.

8-bit gaming fans will dig these retro-style Timex watches with pixel artwork and sound effects from the arcade classic Space Invaders. They have an old-school green-gray LCD screen with Indiglo lighting and 24-hour chronograph, alarm, and month/day/date functions. Available in black, silver, or gold finishes.

Realm Crafts spent a full year working on this incredible cross-stitch, packed with all 151 first-generation Pokémon characters. While we would have loved it if the time-lapse had more in-between frames to show us, the artistry of the work more than makes up for it.