I used to play sports games. Remember this iconic scene from cult classic film "Swingers?"

That was me, but, ya know, not dressed for jazz dancing. And certainly not as pretty as Vince Vaughn. 

I grew up with sports games like "NBA Jam,""NFL Blitz," and "Mutant League Hockey"– sports games that didn't aim to re-create actual sports as much as they took those sports and turned them into interesting video games. They were silly and fast and, often, much more fun than sports game nowadays. Even EA Sports' games were more fun back then, when games weren't capable of near perfectly re-creating real life sports (as evidenced by the clip above).

With a scant few exceptions, sports games like this don't exist anymore. The companies making sports games – more or less only EA Sports and 2K these days – enjoy a much larger profit from annual releases of Madden and FIFA. 

On July 7, the first new sports game in many years not intended to re-create real sports was released on the PlayStation 4 and PC: It's called "Rocket League." And "Rocket League" is one of the best games I've played this year.

What is "Rocket League?" It's soccer with rocket cars, played three vs three or four vs four. Yeah!

You know all of those rules in soccer? None of those apply in "Rocket League." There's no "out of bounds" because you drive on the walls. 

It starts out with a mad dash to the ball from both sides to center field, like a face off in hockey, but with rocket-powered cars instead. Like so:

You could drive at the ball at full speed, or you could use some of your rocket juice, or some combination thereof. The most important thing you do next is make your car jump – yes, jump– and front flip forward. This is the "Rocket League" version of soccer's header combined with standard dribbling, albeit a bit more forceful and unpredictable.

Like everything in "Rocket League," doing front flips with your car is blessedly simple. Press X to jump, press X again in mid-air to flip forward. Push to the left and you'll flip left. Push to the right and...well, you get the idea. This is the basic formula for ball control in "Rocket League," and it's nowhere near as precise as actual soccer.

The next aspect you need to get under control is using your rockets. Every player starts out with a third of a tank of nitro that can be replenished by driving over pickups scattered around the field. Balancing your nitro use with offensive and defensive tactics is the core of "Rocket League," and what makes it such an intense, frenetic competition. 

Will you get to the ball fast enough to beat out the competition, and ultimately get the ball away from your goal and toward theirs? This is the basest level question you seek to answer at any given second in "Rocket League."

This is a madman's vision for future soccer.

That's evident in every aspect of "Rocket League," from the game's ridiculous menu music to its car customization options. Swap out rims, exhaust colors, and even hats! My car has a wizard hat, a tennis ball antenna topper, and it shoots "Tron"-esque streams out the back.

But maybe you prefer something a little less gauche? Thankfully, there are thousands of combinations in "Rocket League" to suit your preferences.

You'll earn more car colors and more hats and more everything else by simply playing the game. There's an offline mode that has you playing against computer-controlled AI teams. I'm sure that's fine, but where "Rocket League" shines is online, against other human beings controlling rocket-powered cars.

That's where the real madness emerges.

Here's one great example of some of that madness:

And of course, scoring goals is incredibly rewarding. Due to the craziness inherent in "Rocket League," goals are often erratic and sudden. But sometimes, every now and again, you get a moment of unadulterated strategy and are able to pull it off:

I can't stop playing "Rocket League." I was up until midnight last night – well past my bedtime – passing a PlayStation 4 gamepad back and forth with my wife, yelling and laughing and experiencing great joy. Even better, the game was free on PlayStation 4 with my PlayStation Plus membership. If you don't pay for the annual subscription service, the game costs $20. And if you'd prefer to play it on PC, that's an option too – you can even play with friends on PlayStation 4 right from your computer. Sadly, there's no version on Xbox One or Wii U.

The way you get it matters not. What matters is that you play "Rocket League," and you play it soon. You won't regret it.

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NOW WATCH: This gorgeous trailer for Playstation's flagship game shows why millions are in love with the franchise

Every August, without exception, a new "Madden" video game arrives. It's been this way for over 20 years.

But it almost wasn't.

"Making football into a franchise coming out every year was something nobody wanted," Electronic Arts co-founder and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers told game website Polygon in a recent interview. At the time – the late 1980s – the concept of making sports games into sequelized franchises was unheard of. 

"Everybody thought it was impossible. If you turn back time, there was zero percent of people who were market researchable who thought there should be a second 'John Madden Football,'" Gordon said.

EA was only convinced to annualize "Madden" by a fantasy football game, played on paper cards, named "Strat-O-Matic." 

"These guys would stay up all night and open their new [Strat-O-Matic] cards. We looked at each other and said, it’s a new season, there’s new players and new rules. We’d buy it. And so we built it," Gordon explained to Polygon.

That decision flew in the face of market research, which not only told EA that branding the game with John Madden's name wasn't worthwhile, but that making the game into an annual franchise with regular sequels wouldn't work. "All the market research said, no, you can’t sequel sports games. The retailers like Toys 'R Us said, ‘We won’t even buy it from you. All you’re going to do is obsolete our old game.’ They said, ‘What, you’re going to make us return this stuff? It’s selling fine.’”

Of course we all know how that story ended: The annual release of "Madden" is an event both for dedicated game players and more casual folks as well. "Madden," alongside "FIFA," is one of EA's crown jewels, one of its most important franchises, and assuredly EA's most well-known franchise here in the United States. 

"Madden 16"– the next game in the franchise – arrives, as usual, this August for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. And yes, there will be another next year.

SEE ALSO: I hate sports games — but 'Rocket League' is the best game of the year so far

AND: 10 reasons you should start playing 'Destiny'

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NOW WATCH: EA Sports just showed off the new Madden NFL game and it looks unbelievably realistic

The hype is real.

I just tried HTC's virtual reality headset Vive, and I'm certain we're on the precipice of a major change in computing. This is going to change the world as we know it. Really.

The HTC Vive was born out of a partnership with Valve, one of the most important gaming companies in the industry: Valve runs the Steam store, which is the biggest distribution platform for online games, and the company is also famous for making several critically-acclaimed games, including the "Half-Life" series. HTC, of course, makes consumer technology products, including the gorgeous HTC One smartphone line.

So when Valve and HTC introduced the Vive at Mobile World Congress in early March, the response wasn't just "good." It was overwhelmingly positive. Just look at these headlines from around the web at the time:

Having just experienced the HTC Vive first-hand, I can tell you that the device truly lives up to its expectations, and then some. And this was just an early version of the headset. The final version launches later this year.

Here's a quick rundown of what I experienced:

• I'm ushered into a hotel room in Manhattan to test out the Vive. The windows are covered with a dark shade and all of the reflective surfaces were covered, too.
• J.B. McRee, HTC's senior manager of product marketing, explains that the final consumer version of the HTC Vive won't require you to turn the lights off or cover all your reflective surfaces; they simply did this to ensure a stable VR experience for all the demos throughout the day.
• I don the Vive headset and McRee throws some headphones over my ears. I'm suddenly standing in a white room with a ring of applications for games and demos floating around me.
• McRee holds two symmetrical controllers, and I can see them in my white environment, just floating in the air. I instinctively grab them, and I can hold them now. The two symmetrical hand controllers are now wireless (they were wired when the Vive was introduced in March). Both controllers have small touch-sensitive pads, and triggers on the back.

• The demo starts, and I'm suddenly standing on an underwater shipwreck on the ocean floor. Fish are swimming around me, and I see the shadow of a manta ray cross the boat. I look up and see a small school of manta rays swim by. I turn around again and see a giant blue whale approach the ship and slow down, just to greet me. We have a small staring contest. I'm pretty sure I win because the whale swims away.
• The next demo begins. Suddenly, I'm in a colorful Italian kitchen. I see a cutting board, a rolling pin, a full stove, and tons of ingredients in front of me: mushrooms, tomatoes, sriracha, and more. In the background, I see instructions to make some kind of tomato stew. So I use the trigger on my hand controllers to grab the ingredients and throw them in the pot. I'm dropping some supplies occasionally, but all in good fun. I need one more mushroom, so I open the fridge and get one. Turning around in that tiny kitchen made me feel like I was actually a chef in a restaurant, not just playing a game.
• Next, I try a painting application. The environment actually looks like our hotel room, but very dark, so as to highlight the activity. A flower appears in front of me and I start using my hand controllers to paint: The right controller is my brush, and the left controller is my palette. I use the "brush" to point to the color I want on the palette, and begin painting. I draw a bunch of squiggly circles, but then I look around my drawing only to realize it's in 3D, not 2D. What looked like a simple 2D ball now actually looks like a spiral strand of DNA. I've never painted in 3D before, so this felt like an entirely novel experience.
• Finally, I'm dropped into a familiar setting: The scientific testing grounds of Aperture Labs, home to Valve's "Portal" series, one of my favorite games. I walk around a small white and beige room, which looks like an office for a scientist or tinkerer. I'm asked to flip switches, open drawers, and fix a broken down robot. At one point, the walls of the room fall away and I'm standing in the center of a giant factory. It was awe-inspiring.

Following my demo, I had a chance to sit down with Jeff Gattis, HTC's executive director for marketing and emerging devices. I had tons of questions about my experience, and how HTC and Valve hope to get this product into people's homes. Here's a brief synopsis of what I learned:

• HTC and Valve are aiming to release the Vive before year's end. That said, it's not certain if only pre-orders will be available by that time, or if the companies intend to ship the first batch of products out to customers before the start of 2016. We will learn more in October at an HTC event, apparently.
• As McRee previously told me, lights and reflective surfaces won't be much of an issue for the final consumer release. HTC and Valve are taking into account that most people's living rooms also have tables and counters, as well as televisions, so they're building in smart ways for Vive users to navigate those spaces safely without bumping into furniture, or even stepping on a cat.
• Vive content (games, demos, and more) will be available through the Valve VR store, but considering many developers for Facebook-owned Oculus Rift will also want to build applications for the HTC Vive, it's likely there will be other ways to download virtual reality content.
• Many brands have reached out to HTC to start building applications for Vive. All the big car companies, including Mercedes, want to use the Vive to create immersive virtual reality experiences for their customers, but plenty of other huge companies, like Nike and Coca-Cola, are also getting involved early.
• HTC and Valve will soon announce the PC requirements for the Vive, but both companies want to offer this experience to as many people as possible. So as HTC and Valve work on lessening the requirements for Vive to work — it's mainly about having a capable graphics processor — Gattis insists Vive will work on Windows PC, Linux, and Mac.

The biggest takeaway from my talk with Gattis, however, was that Vive's potential is almost limitless.

Virtual reality experiences, or the ability to transport a person to any place at any time to experience anything you could dream of, have tons of applications in almost every major industry you can think of.

Education

Kids love visuals, and with virtual reality, you can take them on a field trip without ever leaving the classroom. You can also teach them things like animals, biology, and history, just by taking them to those places in virtual settings.

Entertainment

Games are a popular application for virtual reality, but imagine being able to sit courtside at a Los Angeles Lakers game without needing to visit the Staples Center. Imagine being able to watch a live concert, in perfect 3D, without needing to stand in a mob of people. 

Medicine 

Doctors, researchers, and patients can learn more about the human body, particularly with regards to conditions and treatments, to improve internal practices and patient care. Plus, spending time in virtual reality I imagine is extremely therapeutic; for a period of time, you forget you're in the real world, and that immersion is helpful as a means of distraction.

Retail 

Shopping online isn't always easy, but trying on virtual clothes, or being able to see and manipulate a product in the virtual world could be a helpful tool for making purchase decisions.

Military

Simulation is an important part of training, and military groups have long used virtual reality for things like flight and vehicle simulation, as well as battlefield training. As these tools improve, our soldiers will be better prepared for what's out there, and they won't need to spend money on using expensive physical tools to do so.

Engineering 

As Microsoft showed off in its HoloLens demo, being able to create and manipulate 3D objects in real-time — and potentially even print out those 3D objects from a nearby printer — could have massive implications for the maker community. With fewer barriers to creation, more people can design and construct systems large and small — it could even help engineers create houses, or new forms of transportation.

Social experiences

Right now, the Vive is more or less a solo experience. But Gattis said HTC is certainly looking into making the virtual reality experience a social one, where you can meet and chat with people in a virtual environment, even if those people are on the other side of the globe. Some companies have even created these kinds of applications: A company called AltspaceVR, for instance, once showed me how multiple people's avatars could interact with each other in real-time, exploring virtual spaces or even just watching YouTube videos together.

Many of these virtual experiences are in development right now, but after my brief 30-minute demo with HTC, I'm convinced of VR's limitless potential. It's immersive, it's functional, it's intuitive, and it's addictive. Taking off the Vive was, dare I say it, sad. My colleague Antonio Villas-Boas tried the Vive after I did, and his reaction upon taking off the headset summed up the experience perfectly: "Well, thanks for ruining reality for me!"

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NOW WATCH: Thanks to Facebook's virtual reality device, I've been to 'The Matrix' and all I want is to go back

My colleague Ben Gilbert has been head-over-heels for "Rocket League," a crazy game with a simple premise: It's soccer, but with rocket-powered cars.

Last night, I finally tried it. And within just a few minutes, I was sold.

"Rocket League" might be my favorite game of the year so far.

It's available on PlayStation 4 and PC, via Steam's online store.

If you've purchased PlayStation Plus, Sony's premium online service that costs $50 a year, "Rocket League" is a free game for the entire month of July, so many PS4 owners have already tried "Rocket League."

And so far, it's a hit with almost everyone.

You can play an online match as soon as you boot up the game — no long drawn-out introduction necessary. Still, you can opt for a quick tutorial like I did to get a better feel for "Rocket League." You'll learn to speed up, reverse, U-turn, boost, and hop — yes, hop — your way to glory, all while pushing a giant soccer ball across a field in hopes to score a goal.

Goals, by the way, are comically brilliant. Every time anyone scores a goal, the net EXPLODES! It's hilarious every single time.

After the tutorial, I dug into some online matches. I told myself I'd only play a few rounds, but I ended up playing probably around a dozen. "Rocket League" has a learning curve, but it's super addictive.

Each match is just 5 minutes, and you can play 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, 3 vs. 3, or what's called "chaos," 4 vs. 4. I spent most of my time playing 3 vs. 3 online matches.

The game starts with the ball in the center of the field, and everyone races to the center to hit the ball. As the ball flies around the field, you can fixate your camera on the ball as you zoom around, knocking into competitors and trying to hit the ball in the other team's net. And you can never fly off-course, either. Each field is a glass-covered arena, meaning you can drive up the walls, and even on the ceilings of the goals.

You get points throughout each match for a multitude of things: hitting the ball first, pushing the ball into the center of the field, assisting on a goal or scoring on a goal, and more. With those points, you gain experience to level up, and you can gain special rewards for customizing your car.

It's refreshing to see a game that doesn't focus on a massive open world, or an extremely convoluted story. "Rocket League" is all about picking up a controller and having fun for five chaotic minutes at a time. The game looks simple, but is difficult to master, which should keep players like me coming back for more. I can't wait for my next match; they'll be calling me "Thierry Henry Ford" when it's over.

SEE ALSO: 10 reasons you should start playing 'Destiny'

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NOW WATCH: How you could end up spending thousands on Kate Upton's 'Game of War'

Ready your flingers, "Angry Birds" addicts. The series will strain app store servers July 30 as millions of fans download the brand new sequel: "Angry Birds 2."

Of course, there's something a bit strange about calling this game a "sequel." Rovio has stuffed the app store with "Angry Birds" spin offs – and Finland and China with real world theme parks. This game is more like "Angry Birds 16," so to earn the "2" in its title, it'll have to include some truly game-changing new features while remaining true to the original spirit of slingshot-driven bird-on-pig warfare.

While you wait in anticipation of enraged avian glory, I recommend a daily training regime to prepare for battle. Finger-lifts, ice baths for your hands, and meditation exercises should do nicely.

We don't yet know what the game will actually look like (or if you'll be able to distinguish it from the first one), but here's one of the promotional images they've release so far:

SEE ALSO: Angry Birds Maker Rovio Is Laying Off 130 People

AND: Angry Birds Maker Rovio Reports $200 Million In Revenue, $71 Million In Profit For 2012

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NOW WATCH: How to stop getting those annoying game invites on Facebook

Every holiday season, dozens of games are released all around the same time with the goal of getting your dollars faster than the competition. "Call of Duty" and "Assassin's Creed" and a wide variety of other easily recognizable blockbuster franchises plan annual releases around the all important holiday season. 

So, what are people most excited for in 2015? If YouTube plays are any indication – and we're betting they are – then the game people are most excited for this holiday is from a galaxy far, far away: "Star Wars Battlefront." 

In fairness, the game is gorgeous and littered with staples of the franchise:

When we spoke with Patrick Bach, head of the studio making "Battlefront," back in June, he described the depths to which his studio is going to detail the world of "Battlefront." The studio is outright scanning all the props from the original trilogy, from the iconic lightsaber to the various versions of the Death Star. Here he is explaining as much:

Beyond "Battlefront," which has somewhere in the neighborhood of 18.5 million views, folks are very excited about the next entry in the long-running "Call of Duty" franchise. "Call of Duty: Black Ops 3" takes both the second and fourth spot in the top five most viewed videos, with 15.9 and 11.2 million views (or a combined 27.1 million views, making it potentially the game people are most excited about in 2015). 

Here's the reveal trailer that's garnered the most views:

With "Star Wars" and "Call of Duty" out of the way, the most interesting stats are tied to the other two games that made the top five: "Fallout 4" and the return of "Guitar Hero." When game publisher Bethesda Game Studios released the announcement trailer for "Fallout 4," it set the world on fire:

Games like "Call of Duty" and "Star Wars" are shoe-ins for this list, but games like "Fallout 4" and "Guitar Hero Live" aren't annualized sequels and aren't anywhere near as recognizable. Here's the full top five list, with numbers:

1. Electronic Arts: Star Wars Battlefront Reveal Trailer, 18.5M views
2. Activision: Official Call of Duty®: Black Ops III Reveal Trailer, 15.9M views
3. Bethesda Softworks: Fallout 4 - Official Trailer, 14M views
4. Activision: Official Call of Duty®: Black Ops III "Ember" Tease, 11.2M views
5. Activision: Official Guitar Hero® Live Reveal Trailer, 7.1M views

SEE ALSO: Everyone is talking about 'Rocket League,' a crazy game that blends soccer with rocket-powered cars

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NOW WATCH: Here's the moment Harrison Ford surprised fans during the 'Star Wars' Comic-Con panel

Facebook-owned Oculus VR just bought a company called Pebbles Interfaces, which specializes in motion-sensing technology that allows you to see your hands in a virtual world, and even interact with virtual objects and elements in real-time.

This is really good news because if you've ever tried a virtual reality headset, the first thing you do is look for your hands. Soon, you'll be able to see them, along with the rest of your body, in the virtual world.

"At Pebbles Interfaces, we’ve been focused on pushing the limits of digital sensing technology to accelerate the future of human-computer interaction," Pebbles Interfaces CTO Nadav Grossinger said in a statement on Thursday.

"Through micro-optics and computer vision, we hope to improve the information that can be extracted from optical sensors, which will help take virtual reality to the next level. We’ve always believed visual computing will be the next major platform in our lifetime, and we’re excited to join the Oculus team to achieve that vision for the future.”

The following video offers a glimpse of Pebbles Interfaces' 3D gesture technology, check it out:

This is the second time Oculus has purchased a hand-tracking company within the last year: In December 2014 Oculus purchased Nimble VR, which makes cameras and software that tracks your movements and translates them into the virtual world instantaneously.

It's not difficult to understand why Facebook and Oculus clearly want people to see their hands in VR. Virtual reality is all about immersion, so if you're trying to make an experience feel as real as possible, people should see their actual hands and actual body in the game to feel like they're actually in the game — like their actions have real consequences.

Several months ago, YouTube personality PewDiePie rigged up his Oculus Rift with the Leap Motion Controller, a basic device that senses your hands and gestures in 3D. The result was a bit rudimentary, but you can see the potential: As PewDiePie moved his head around, he saw his hands, and even his full body, as if he were in the real world.

Despite the desire to replace controllers with our own hands, virtual reality companies are still working hard to create quality input solutions that feel natural and intuitive. While Pebbles Interfaces' tech is certainly advanced, it still has trouble detecting the fine movement of fingers, particularly when fingers touch each other or interlock (as seen below).

Right now, most virtual reality devices — the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, in particular — use some kind of motion controllers with touch-sensitive pads and triggers, which emulate things you might want to do with your hand: picking up and throwing objects, or pushing a button, or really any form of interaction with the virtual world. In the case of the Oculus Rift, Facebook-owned Oculus VR created the "Half Moon" prototype motion controllers that will launch soon after the Rift becomes available to consumers in early 2016.

But while motion-sensing solutions are clearly superior to physical controllers, we might not see Oculus eliminate its controllers in favor of using one's own hands for another few years. Once the technology is ready, though, virtual reality will be even more desirable than it already is. VR has potential to improve nearly every major industry we have, but seeing yourself in virtual reality makes it even more engrossing, and much more difficult to leave. 

SEE ALSO: I tried HTC's insane virtual reality headset, and I'm convinced the world is about to change forever

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NOW WATCH: Thanks to Facebook's virtual reality device, I've been to 'The Matrix' and all I want is to go back

"Super Mario" may be an Italian plumber, but that's the last thing you're thinking about while punching question mark blocks. He's just a little cloud of pixels with a tiny brown mustache, right?

But in the next "Super Mario" series entry, there's one bizarre, unmissable piece of art that's clearly human:

You see that giant human hand? How could you not! 

In "Super Mario Maker," Nintendo takes the worlds of the original Super Mario Bros. and combines it with the worlds of "Super Mario Bros. 3,""Super Mario World," and "New Super Mario Bros. U." But it's not some compilation of old games – as the title implies, "Super Mario Maker" is a game about creating new Mario levels using the worlds of classic Mario games. 

And that's where the giant human hand comes in.

You create new worlds using the Nintendo Wii U gamepad, the tablet-esque gamepad that comes with Nintendo's newest game console. What happens on the gamepad is mirrored on-screen, except your real-life hand is mimicked on-screen using the hand seen above.

During a meeting with Nintendo on Thursday in New York City, I tried the game and was immediately struck by the strangeness of a disembodied human hand – bearing little similarity in looks to my own – acting as a stand-in for my actual hand. Yes, I'm a white guy, but my fingers are far from long and slender (sadly). 

What if I were, say, a 10-year-old black girl? Or a 30-year-old Japanese man? Or literally anything other than an adult white woman (which the hand appears to belong to)?

Given the mainstream appeal of the mustachioed hero and his ongoing battle against Bowser, you'd think Nintendo – a company that's repeatedly shown willingness to be inclusive – would have thought of this.

When I asked Nintendo reps about the hand and if it could be changed, they confirmed that it couldn't be. They also reacted with surprise that there wasn't an option to swap it out. And hey, the game launches on September 11, so Nintendo could still alter this by launch. Even after the game comes out, Nintendo could issue a patch to the game that adds an option to change this.

Given the nature of how much work goes into actually progamming these games, it's extremely unlikely any change could be made by launch. So the best hope is probably a patch after the game goes to market.

This isn't a huge deal, and I'm not exactly offended. It's just a bizarre and glaring oversight from a company that knows better, especially when it comes to games starring its mascot.

SEE ALSO: These are the video games set to rake in major cash this holiday season

AND: EA Sports' once took a hugely unpopular risk that led to one of the most successful sports game franchises ever

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NOW WATCH: The 1st 'Super Mario Bros.' level had a fiendishly clever design

"Destiny" is about to get some major changes, and players aren't happy about it.

In developer Bungie's weekly Thursday night blog post, community manager David "DeeJ" Dague explained that most popular weapons will be "rebalanced" shortly before the launch of "The Taken King," the next major game expansion launching in September.

Some weapons will be "buffed," or made stronger, while other weapons will be "nerfed," or made less powerful or effective. Of those weapons getting nerfed, the exotic rocket launcher Gjallarhorn, widely considered to be one of the best weapons in the entire game (it's also the rarest, making its acquisition very YouTube reaction worthy), is getting a pretty severe reduction to its damage output.

The biggest perk of Gjallarhorn is something called "wolfpack rounds": when your rocket hits an enemy, it splits into cluster missles that hit the enemy again, so you're basically doing double damage. Soon, though, Bungie will reduce the damage from these wolfpack rounds. The extent of the damage reduction is unclear, but considering how it's an overpowered, overused item in the game, many fear for the worst. 

Here's Bungie's sandbox designer Jon Weisnewski explaining the changes to Gjallarhorn:

If Destiny had a nuke it would be the “Ballerhorn.” We definitely intended to have a high damage Heavy Weapon that was ideal for PvE destruction. What we did not intend, and what we unfortunately saw, was pick up Raid and Nightfall groups gating participation based on whether or not players had this weapon. Gjallarhorn was so strong that for many people it had become the only answer to getting through tough encounters, and therefore they were less willing to spend time with other players that didn’t have it. 

We strive for Destiny to be a place where a single weapon or strategy does not dictate how, or with whom, you spend your time. In the new world Gjallarhorn is still worthy of its legacy as an exotic Heavy Weapon, but we hope it promotes inclusive behavior rather than exclusivity.

As Weisnewski points out, many current "Destiny" players are relying too much on Gjallarhorn to get them through missions and activities, and some players also refuse to let others play with them simply because they don't own the weapon. Of course, that isn't their fault; Gjallarhorn is one of the rarest weapons in "Destiny"— you can't buy it right now, and it can only drop as a reward for completing certain activities.

In my opinion as a longtime "Destiny" player, nerfing Gjallarhorn a bit seems completely reasonable. As Bungie has repeatedly stated, "Destiny" has a 10-year game plan, where players will be able to play with these characters and weapons — with new content added on a consistent basis — for an entire decade. And when it comes time to balance weapons, Bungie needs to obviously address overpowered, overused weapons, Gjallarhorn included.

All weapons in "Destiny" will get their day in the sun. When the game first launched, the exotic auto rifle Suros Regime was probably the most powerful, overused item in the game. After some rounds of weapon rebalancing, considerably fewer people use Suros Regime, and they're moving onto other weapons. Bungie wants this kind of fluidity, where players will regularly rotate their favorite weapons, in hopes to keep players interested over the next 10 years. It will be interesting to see the extent to which Gjallarhorn is actually affected by the time Bungie releases its patch, which should be shortly before "The Taken King" launches September 15.

SEE ALSO: The next 'Destiny' expansion is coming in September, and it looks pretty terrifying

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NOW WATCH: This gorgeous trailer for Playstation's flagship game shows why millions are in love with the franchise

Stephen Colbert and his team has just created something wonderful.

On the CBS website today you can play an in-browser, text-based "choose your own adventure" type video game that is so witty it seems like it was written by Colbert himself (maybe it was?).

"You are Stephen Colbert. Congratulations!" goes the opening screen. "You are wandering the office because your show doesn't start for two months and they won't let you drive go-karts inside anymore."

From there I rapidly found myself lost in a very Colbert-ian narrative that found me locked in the titular man-sized cabinet, kicking and biting at the walls. Soon, I found myself at this screen:

Maybe I should have followed Colbert's prodding to explore deeper into the cabinet.

Business Insider editor Matt Johnston took that route and encountered centaurs, fantastic illustrations, and "Duke Nukem" references. (He's still playing and calling out quotes as I type this up.)

We don't want to spoil the rest of this silly, wonderful adventure so please do give it a shot.

Colbert's script plays out through a clever piece of open-source storytelling software called "Twine" embedded on the CBS website. You can play through Colbert's mad world here, or make a game of your own with the software.

Give it a shot. Trust us, it's worth it.

SEE ALSO: 14 Old School Apple Games You Can Play In Your Browser Right Now

AND: Everyone is talking about 'Rocket League,' a crazy game that blends soccer with rocket-powered cars

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NOW WATCH: Watch Stephen Colbert Complain About His Title 'Chief Of Secrecy' At The Apple Event

The more a man sucks at video games, the more likely he'll be mean to his female fellow players, suggests a new study.

That study, performed by Kasumovic Lab, was intended to scientifically test whether "female-initiated disruption of a male hierarchy incites hostile behavior from poor performing males who stand to lose the most status."

In plain English: If a man is really bad at something, from work to playing games online, are they more likely to be threatened by women doing the same thing, and act out accordingly?

To test this theory, they studied the players of Halo 3, an online competitive first-person shooter released for the Xbox 360 in 2007. Video games like Halo 3 rely on skill and reaction time instead of strength, meaning that men and women are on equal ground  — but that it's often considered a "boy's game" because of the subject matter. 

The result:

"We show that lower-skilled players were more hostile towards a female-voiced teammate, especially when performing poorly," writes the study's authors. "In contrast, lower-skilled players behaved submissively towards a male-voiced player in the identical scenario."

The hypothesis suggested from the research is that a lower-skilled player tries to cover up their lack of skill by being a lot more macho, saving them from a perceived loss of face. 

Conversely, players who were better at the game were nicer to their female teammates, because they had less to fear — and, the study's authors suggest, because they want to get the women's attention. 

As the study notes, the subjects here didn't know they were being studied; the Xbox Live terms of service for online gaming allow for the recording of conversations, so everybody was basically opted in by default. 

And because they didn't know they were being studied, they acted completely normally. In fact, since they were using online pseudonyms, the researchers never learned their real names.

Because of this, it's an interesting look into the kinds of power dynamics that drive the world, and lead to things like online harassment and workplace discrimination.

Plus, it explains why so many women are loathe to play games online.

SEE ALSO: The 'Reddit Revolt' that led to Ellen Pao's resignation is bad news for the Internet

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NOW WATCH: Tom Hardy makes a crazy transformation playing identical twins in this new gangster movie

Nostalgia for retro video games is popular today, but spending $500 on a game console might seem a bit overboard. Especially when that system is designed to play 30-year-old Nintendo video games. However, the Analogue Nt is more than just retro gaming — from the aluminum body to the original Nintendo hardware, this console is more than just a retro gaming machine. 

Produced by Darren Weaver

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One major advantage of playing video games on computers instead of game consoles is the ability to mess with the structure, look, and gameplay of your favorite titles.

This is known as "modding."

"Modding" is just jargon for "modifying"– altering – video games. Savvy fans dive into the back-end of their favorite games to fix bugs, update graphics, or introduce new elements. Sometimes, fans create new games altogether (we're looking at you, "DOTA"). Some game studios create custom "mod tools" for their games, making the process even easier for the less code-minded among us. In order to play a mod – even ones that are essentially full games – you need the underlying game on your computer. The mod runs on top of the original game. Think of the original game as the foundation. The mod is the house built on top of that foundation.

Video game players have been mucking about on the back-end of popular titles – from "Skyrim" to the earliest text-based adventures – for as long as games have been on the market. And, for nearly as long, those edits have passed back and forth on the internet. 

Nowadays, it's thankfully much easier to install these mods: it's as simple as downloading a file and installing it. By far the best and largest source of mods is the Steam Community Workshop, which gathers, gives out, and sometimes sells player creations. And it does so within the confines of the world's largest, most popular digital game store: Steam, which boasts over 100 million active users.

Most mods just add items or characters to games, and many fix bugs. But others are deeply weird. Some people can only play a character for so long before wondering "What would it look like with a hamburger for a head?" or "Why doesn't its gun fire rainbows instead of bullets?"

Take this image, for instance:

Someone took a look at the dragons of the "Skyrim" universe and thought, "You know what those things are missing? The hair, voice, and headgear of WWE superstar Macho Man Randy Savage." I don't care if you're miles from WiFi, reading on your last megabyte of data. The video below of a freakish wrestler-dragon hybrid attacking a town is worth the watch:

The amazing thing about that clip isn't just that someone had that idea; It's that they took the time to meticulously and expertly patch it into the actual game.

Modding goes much deeper than bizzare aesthetic changes or new characters. Some creative (and invested) fans have modded games to entirely supplant their original worlds.

"Black Mesa" is one of the more ambitious examples. It takes the classic 1999 "Half-Life" game and entirely rebuilds it from the ground up with better graphics and smoother gameplay. Check out the images to the right to see for yourself.

At its core it's the same game. Modern graphics, new items and dialog, redone music and voice acting combine to make it play like a modern release.

A few levels of the mod came out in 2012; The rest will arrive on Steam sometime in the future. (Like the "Half-Life" series that gave it life, "Black Mesa" is famously plagued with delays.)

But mods can do a lot more than just modernize a game. Mods can transform an old title into something entirely new and far better.

Take "DayZ," a game that began its life as a mod of the 2009 title "ARMA 2." 

"ARMA" is a series with dedicated fans, and it's not intended as a blockbuster. You won't see it at your local Best Buy, or see commercials alongside major NFL games. It's a niche game with a niche, loyal following. All that to say, "You probably don't need to play it today." It's highly technical and not always the most "fun," in the purest sense of the word.

"DayZ" is something else entirely.

Despite its status as a patch on existing game, it was (and, in my opinion, remains) the best "survival" game ever released. That genre, which "DayZ" largely invented, puts players in the position of fending for themselves in a hostile world, working together with other people online who might turn on them at any moment. If you've read the "Hunger Games" trilogy, you get the idea.

Gone from "DayZ" are the military factions, battlefields, and tactics that defined "ARMA 2." Instead, players fend for themselves in a massive, open multiplayer world – a world infested with zombies, and, worse still: other actual humans.

"DayZ" didn't just transform the playing experience of "ARMA 2" players. "DayZ" snagged thousands of players who had never played "ARMA 2," players who ran out to purchase that niche title in order to run the mod. The result was a sales surge more than quintupling sales for the obscure game's developers. 

The "DayZ" mod is so popular that it's becoming its own game, getting a stand-alone release in the near future. 

Most modders don't go that far, nor are they caught up in the absurdities of dressing up dragons as WWE world heavyweight champions. The typical modder is a happy warrior for fun in gaming, building new levels, items and abilities that make the experience fun for everyone. And no video game multiverse demonstrates the power of this kind of modding more than "Minecraft."

If you haven't heard, "Minecraft" is an addictive, virtual building game with millions of fans and endless possibilities for creation. Here's a good example of what players have built, block-by-block, in the basic game:

As with LEGO, the possibilities of "Minecraft" are functionally infinite – limited only by the scope of your imagination, obsession, and the processing power of your computer. Mods elevate the potential of "Minecraft" ad infinitum. The floating worlds concept below, for instance:

And while some modders just want to build beautiful things like in the clip above, others take the approach that no game – not even a building game – is complete without the possibility of death at the hands of horrific creatures at any moment:

And others just want the game to better resemble the real world...no matter how bizarre and specific that want might get.

See that image to the right? A modder, "sick" about the bland way creatures produce offspring in the "Minecraft" world, decided to change all that. Here's an explanation from the mod's page on a community site:

Ever get sick of creepily watching two genderless, identical, ugly squidward-esque villagers breed and instantly pop out offspring? Unrealistic, huh? Well, get sick no more! With Neuro's amazing Realistic Breeding Mod, you can submerse yourself in the beauty of animal reproduction. This mod offers male and female types of many creatures, pregnancy, mating season, and so much more.

All this attention to detail – whether its  gorgeous, terrifying or just strange – shows how important modding is to the way many fans play their video games. To give just one more great example of what mods can do, check out how the mod "angry planes" ratchets up the mayhem of the "Grand Theft Auto" universe to a whole new level:

Modding, like anything that involves downloading software from the internet, takes some due diligence. If after reading this post you want to experience mods for yourself, try out some of these sites:

• The Steam Community Workshop (super-safe and easy to use)
• MODSonline (a slightly more technical site, with articles and forums about the craft of modding and game design)
• Nexusmods (still more technical than Steam, but organized by game title and overflowing with user comments, screenshots, and video)
• MinecraftMods (for Minecraft)

SEE ALSO: Stephen Colbert just released a genius 'choose your own adventure' game online and you can play it right now

AND: The best weapon in 'Destiny' is about to get 'nerfed' — here's what that means

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NOW WATCH: People are going crazy for this holographic version of 'Minecraft'

Over the weekend, the publisher behind "Fallout 4" released the five-minute gameplay trailer shown off during June's game industry trade show, E3.

The People of The Internet were very excited by this, so much so that the trailer was the top trending item on Facebook for several days. It was a whole thing.

But you? You were at the beach, enjoying the summer, not thinking about the potential post-apocalypse detailed in the world of "Fallout." That's fine – spoiler: We were too – and we've intentionally broken down the trailer here so you too can understand why millions of people are incredibly excited for the November 10 launch of "Fallout 4" on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

SEE ALSO: A fan of the game 'Fallout' just shipped 2,240 bottlecaps to the makers and was granted an awesome wish

The game's main character is created based on what you make him or her. The trailer starts with the default male character leaving his fallout shelter, dubbed "Vault 111." The vaults were created by a company named "Vault-Tec," which plays an important role in the history of the "Fallout" world. Many vaults were created as social experiments rather than survival shelters.

Here's the default main character, surrounded by "The Wasteland"– the "Fallout" world's name for the ruins of society following the nuclear war of 2077 ("The Great War"). The war started, and ended, on a single day: October 23, 2077. Not so much a "war" as a nuclear apocalypse. The blue and yellow jumpsuit seen in the image is worn by all Vault-Tec vault dwellers, and is a staple of the series. The back says "111" for the vault number he resided in.

This is the first glimpse we get of the suburb where "you" (the game's main character) lived before The Great War. All the trees are stripped of life, the houses decomposing. It's not clear if it's the fall/winter, or simply nuclear winter, that's keeping the trees from growing foliage. The world looks so washed out because this is the first time the game's main character has seen sunlight since he entered Vault 111.

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I play video games for fun. Who doesn't?

But there's only so many times you can play through a level on a three-year-old game before it becomes rote button-tapping: the interactive equivalent of bingeing "House" on Netflix. You know exactly how it's going to go.

Enter the world of "mods."

These are free patches fans create to expand the worlds of their favorite video games – sometimes for the better, and sometimes just for the weirder. Mods can soup-up graphics, add in-game content, or change the ways games behave. Some mods function as entirely new games, with the game they modify running invisibly underneath. Others just exist to make you laugh. The only requirement for playing them is owning the original game they're based in.

Collected here are mods that, one way or another, promise to transform your gaming experience. A few are even so good they make buying their underlying games worth it. That is, if you don't have them already. 

SEE ALSO: Online communities are changing video games to make them better, weirder, and much more wonderful

AND: This is what a ridiculously souped-up $500 Nintendo looks like

Macho Man Randy Savage dragon in 'Skyrim'

OHHHHHH YEAHHHHH! This may be my favorite mod out of the video-games-should-be-much-weirder school of design.

Macho Man Randy Savage was a pro wrestler for three decades, known for his over-the-top persona and mannerisms that stood out even from the WWF's manic pack of characters. ("Snap into it!") "Skyrim" is a fantasy role-playing video game about swordplay, magic, knights, and dragons. Someone stuck those dragons and Mr. Savage in a blender and this weirdness emerged:

RAW Embed

The uncanny look of the Macho Man dragons isn't even the best part of the mod. The best part is the quotes the dragons shout as they wreak havoc. Here's a video on one in action:

Youtube Embed:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/Bifmj1O3D24
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 [NexusMods]

John, the 'Minecraft' Monster

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See this friendly-looking fellow? His name is John. Would you like him running around your pixelated "Minecraft" world? Neither would I.

In case you haven't run across it, "Minecraft" is the wildly popular video game that resembles  virtual LEGO. Players, just like LEGO builders, spill the contents of their imaginations across blocky landscapes of enormous possibility. And some players' imaginariums are apparently incomplete without horrifying, blood-soaked monsters.

John is just my favorite "Minecraft" horror mod character to hate. There's a whole bestiary of his cousins in terror out there ready to download into and subvert your creations. If this is your thing, check out Slender Man and Herobrine as well.

Army attack at five stars for "Grand Theft Auto V"

"Grand Theft Auto V" is, for better or worse, all about the joy of utter mayhem. Most mods for the game are built for the purpose of pumping up that mayhem to ever more extreme levels. The "Tanks Spawn at Five Stars" mod rewards mayhem with even more mayhem.

In the "Grand Theft Auto V" universe, your wanted level – reflecting how much violence and machinery of war the police will use to stop your crime spree – raises as you commit crimes and maxes out at five stars. In older "GTA" games, like "Vice City" and "San Andreas," the star level went one step higher to six. At that point the army would step in to shut you down, often using – you guessed it – tanks.

(For the cool cats I ran with in middle school, reaching six stars without cheating or dying was the holy grail of late-night basement gaming.)

In "V", the mythical sixth star is sadly absent. But "Tanks Spawn at Five Stars" goes a long way toward fixing that grievous error:

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For over 30 years, the name "Nintendo" has been synonomous with joyful children.

Though many of the kids who once loved Nintendo have since grown up, the Japanese company's aim remains steadily targeted on the younger demographic. 

But with the advent of smartphones, tablets, and multiple home computers, kids have never had more options at their fingertips over the distractions of yore.

Simply put: Nintendo's still popular with kids, but not quite as popular as, say, Snapchat. 

Look no further than this excellent piece in Paste Magazine for evidence of that: 

“Maggie,” I say, “you seemed pretty negative earlier. What do you play instead of Nintendo?”

“Instagram,” she says.

And in that child's (hilarious) response, we can see where kids are going instead of their handheld Nintendo 3DS game console. Instagram is actually the most popular social network among teens – a demographic kids like Maggie are just about to enter.

The Paste piece focuses on the recent passing of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. Writer Jon Irwin is spending the summer teaching "ten- and eleven-year olds" at an educational camp outside of Atlanta, Georgia, and he asked the kids a variety of questions about that passing. Interestingly, of the kids present, "nearly all" own Nintendo devices. It sounds like gawking at rich kids living lavish lives may just be more appealing than Italian plumbers and pocket monsters.

SEE ALSO: Female gamers have it bad: Study suggests women are targets for 'low-status, low-performing' male gamers

AND: Online communities are changing video games to make them better, weirder, and much more wonderful

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NOW WATCH: This is what a ridiculously souped-up $500 Nintendo looks like

Nostalgia is as important a part of playing video games as the thrill of defeating your foes or the frustration of a level you just can't overcome. Anyone who's ever owned a game console has at least one series they look back on with warm fuzzies, regardless of how rough it looks compared to modern games.

Even if you haven't played your favorite classic in years, a new sequel might tempt you to shell out cash just to briefly recapture that joy of first discovery. And many game players do more than wait around for those sequels.

They write letters, create memes, and build cult followings around games that never got the follow-ups that fans feel they deserve. (It's a cliché to even bring up the ever-imminent, but never-any-closer, "Half-Life 3," although that doesn't stop anyone from talking about it like its around the corner.) Sometimes they even go so far as to build new games themselves – the fan-made "Black Mesa" patch for the original "Half Life" transforms gameplay to produce an all-new experience. "Fallout" fans also released software to transform the "New Vegas" title into a prequel: "Project Brazil." 

Recently, game developers have gone out of their way to reward that loyalty. Long dead franchises from the '90s and '00s are springing to life all over the place.

In the video game industry, like in the games themselves, death is but a prelude to re-birth.

Series revival can be a beautiful thing. I grin ear-to-ear whenever I see video from the upcoming reboot of my old favorite franchise, "Star Wars Battlefront":

The "Battlefront" series was as important a part of my childhood as "Harry Potter," or being desperately untalented at any sport that involved depth perception. My friends and I would gather in the basement for hours, crowing whenever we successfully sniped each other's helmeted stormtrooper heads from across the battlefield. Now, a decade after the last installment, the series is on its way back (courtesy of EA Games).

Look at this beautiful gameplay footage!

I'll shell out for that on day one.

But rebooting "Battlefront" makes good business sense for EA. Fans have called for a third game for years. More importantly, the game will arrive at retail in November – just ahead of the next "Star Wars" film in December.

In other words, a new "Battlefront" means the potential for boatloads of cash to one of the biggest companies in gaming. Of course its coming out soon.

Sometimes less lucrative franchises make their way back from oblivion along more creative routes. "Shenmue III"broke Kickstarter when die-hard fans jumped to fund a series that saw its last release over 10 years ago (in 2001). It raised over $6.3 million when all was said and done.

Games like "Elite: Dangerous" and "Wasteland 2" accomplished similar feats of reincarnation.  The original "Mega Man" creator is even bringing back his series under the new name "Mighty No. 9," despite owning none of the rights to the original work.

Here's "Mega Man":

And here's "Mighty No. 9":

"Mighty No. 9" is, officially, an entirely separate title from "Mega Man," but the visuals and gameplay are a direct evolution of the Blue Bomber's classic franchise – its "spiritual predecessor." In other words, committed developers can – in the right circumstances – cast aside industry apathy to bring back beloved games.

But some games are really truly never ever coming back, no matter how much love their fans show. Un-burying a series from a mound of legal and financial obstacles takes a generous cult fandom and dedicated developers.

Many beloved series just don't have that. These are their stories.

'Midnight Club'

"Midnight Club" was Rockstar's answer to the wildly successful "Need for Speed" racing series from Electronic Arts. Rockstar – an edgier publisher than Electronic Arts, with releases like "Grand Theft Auto" and "Bully"– stuffed the game with police chases, customizable cars, and globe-trotting night races. It also featured an endless supply of electronic pedestrians who seemed to throw themselves under your wheels without the minor consequences of the "Grand Theft Auto" universe.

At 14, I loved that game. And many players on Steam and elsewhere still do. Like "Battlefront" and "Shenmue" players, they make their wishes for a new title known. But the series is almost certainly never coming back.

Where "Battlefront" had big money (and a major brand in "Star Wars") behind it, and "Shenmue" had a persistent developer, "Midnight Club" has only online circles of fandom. Rockstar employees claimed the company mistreated and dismantled the "Midnight Club" team, firing longtime developers after the final installment was finished in 2009. Things got so bad a group of developer spouses wrote an open letter threatening legal action against the company.

With that much bad blood between the copyright holders and the developers, and "Need for Speed" sitting like a leviathan on top of the genre, there is little-to-no chance of a series comeback. We asked Rockstar, but never received a response.

'Mercenaries'

The open-world series "Mercenaries" took players to the war-torn Korean peninsula in 2005, and Venezuela in 2008, putting the open-world gaming style pioneered by "Grand Theft Auto" in a military context.

The concept – blending the popularity of war games and fans' love of virtual mayhem – was strong, and the games were tremendously fun. Fans looks back fondly on brutal battles between factions like the Russian Mafia and the North Korean army. "Mercenaries" deserves to still be a hit series.

Sadly, the rights to the game lie deep in the bowels of EA, which shut down the studio charged with its second sequel back in 2013. Even if a rogue developer wanted to make like "Mighty No. 9" and produce an off-brand sequel, its similarity to the far-more-popular "GTA" franchise would the potential for profit. A developer taking up the "Mercenaries" banner under a new name would invite bankruptcy.

We asked EA for a statement about the future of "Mercenaries" and were told only, "'Mercenaries' remains part of EA’s IP portfolio, but it’s not a franchise that is in active development."

The series is another work of art lost to the realities of the market.

'Black and White'

The oddball real-time strategy series from British game development house Lionhead Studios and developer Peter Molyneux upended genre conventions when it landed in 2001. Players were gods in the game world, and chose titanic creatures to do their bidding. Unlike the morally neutral competition of most strategy games, "Black and White" gave players a choice: do the good thing and prosper your way to victory, or do evil and battle your enemies. Each choice shaped your creature, your town, and your progress through the game.

Some people loved the new take on the genre, despite buggy coding and redundant gameplay. But the game just does not hold up by modern standards. Raising the creature feels a bit like "Tamagotchi." Even worse, the central choice of the game – to be good or evil – has mostly superficial impact on the story.  The 2005 sequel failed to substantively improve matters.

Critics came to see "Black and White" as one of the most overrated series of all time.

Molyneux took his god-game building talents to Kickstarter in 2012. The result was "Godus," released to even more miserable reviews. With that kind of critical reception and a limited fanbase, the game's original developer and the publisher who owns the rights to the game have shown no desire to drag this particular skeleton out of their closet.

If they're smart, they never will. We asked both Microsoft (which owns Lionhead Studios) and EA (which published "Black and White") for comment; neither company responded as of publishing.

'System Shock'

What's your favorite first-person shooter (FPS)? Nearly every major title of the genre – from "Deus Ex" to the latest "Tomb Raider"– owes its life to the common ancestor of all shoot-'em-up adventure games.

Before "System Shock" role-playing games (RPGs) and and FPS were distinct genres. Story-driven adventuring meant diving into top-down worlds like "Legend of Zelda," or the "Pokemon" series. FPSes like "Wolfenstein" rolled through gun battles with scant to no plot and minimal strategy. 

The first game in the series came out in 1994, bringing the two concepts together for action-packed real-time storytelling. It chronicled a hacker's battle with an evil artificial intelligence on a space station ("Shodan"), as it transformed humans into mutants and set about destroying Earth. In 1999, "System Shock 2" took that immersion to the far, horrific reaches of space and set players against the parasitic alien race known as the Many. As players stumbled through drifting interstellar spacecraft, they encountered the worst of humanity and space-manity alike – setting a dark tone familiar to players of the "BioShock" series.

That familiarity has a lot to do with why this classic series will never come back. Ken Levine (who worked on "System Shock 2") took the gameplay and horror that made the series great to a new project: 2007's widely-acclaimed "BioShock." Following in the "System Shock" tradition and with an homage in its title, "BioShock" reigns supreme over the genre. With the "System Shock" tradition alive and well in a new series, and key developers still involved, there's no reason for anyone to mount the effort of a comeback.

The lesson here

If you love something enough, and that thing happens to be a video game series, you just might be able to bring it back from the dead. But that's the exception, not the rule.

It takes money and will from the industry – money and will that won't exist if there's already a competitor or spiritual successor like "BioShock" dominating the market. Move on, "Mercenaries" fans. There's a whole wide "GTA" world out there just waiting to be explored.

And hey, if nothing else, there's always "Saint's Row."

SEE ALSO: The 'BioShock' opening is the best video game introduction ever

AND: 'Shenmue III' sets crowdfunding record, breaks Kickstarter

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This is the 'Fallout 4' video fans have been waiting months to see

Everyone loves a good video game revival. Just look at the way "Mega Man" fans' eyes light up when you show them this footage from the coming sequel-in-everything-but-name "Mighty No. 9":

But some series — no matter how much promise they may have had or how many fans clamor for their return — are just gone from the earth. I recently took a long dive into the reasons some fan-favorite series disappear. Here are four I learned will almost certainly never come back.

SEE ALSO: Why your favorite video game series is never, ever coming back

AND: Online communities are changing video games to make them better, weirder, and much more wonderful

'Midnight Club"

"Midnight Club" was the "Need for Speed" franchise's darker, more worldly twin in the underground street race genre. Players raced across cities including Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo, fending off cops and rival street-racing gangs to earn cash for car upgrades and rule the streets. 

The game's tone and unbounded open-world racing style stood out from its competitors, but explosive internal beefs among its developers and the crushing dominance of "Need for Speed" helped kill its future.

"Mercenaries"

"Mercenaries" sat at the nexus between the open world of "Grand Theft Auto" and the explosive grittiness of war games such as "Call of Duty." Open-world, nihilist, and pro-mayhem, the series dropped players into imagined Korean and Venezuelan war zones to unleash the machinery of war for fun and profit. Leaving aside the cynicism of that premise, grim even by anti-moral "Grand Theft Auto" standards, "Mercenaries" was a clever new spin on a popular genre.

But Electronic Arts shut down the series after only two titles; EA told us there are no plans to bring it back.

"System Shock"

"System Shock" invented the first-person-shooter adventure game in the '90s. Fun, plot-driven, and featuring gorgeous sound design, the series spawned successors including "Deus Ex" and "BioShock" (among countless more indirect descendants). These modern titles are now so beloved and successful that there just isn't any call to bring back the grandparent that gave them all life. Consider us shocked if it returns (pun intended).

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Performance-enhancing drugs aren't just for regular sports anymore.

In the world of eSports, however, it's not about bulking up physically. In the world of eSports, performance is about mental acuity and concentration. 

The drug of choice is Adderall, an amphetamine that requires a doctor's prescription. It's used to treat ADHD. Adderall is also common in colleges, where students use it as a study aid. It's a stimulant that enables long periods of concentration, or, as Business Insider science editor Kevin Loria put it: "It's basically speed." 

And that's why it's been so easily adopted by the competitive eSports world.

"We were all on Adderall," Kory “SEMPHIS” Friesen, a professional eSports competitor, said in an interview with Launders on YouTube on July 12.

Here's the full interview (Friesen starts talking about using performance-enhancing drugs at around 7:30):

 Friesen claimed that "everyone" used Adderall at one particular event – a $250,000 prize tournament in Poland – and that it's a commonly used drug among eSports players during competitive events. The event was hosted by ESL, the Electronic Sports League, which is one of the oldest and largest eSports leagues in operation. It boasts "more than 5,000,000 registered members."

As a result, ESL announced on Thursday that it's is implementing anti-doping measures.

We will be administering the first PED [performance-enhancing drug] skin tests at ESL One Cologne this August, with a view to performing these tests at every Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One and ESL ESEA Pro League event thereafter as soon as the official PED policy is established and tournament rules updated accordingly.

ESL is working with European regulators at the Nationale Anti Doping Agentur to establish rules and standards for it's anti-doping measures, and says it will begin implementing the regulations in August. Friesen, meanwhile, won't be punished. ESL representatives told Motherboard, "We can't punish someone if we are not 100 percent sure he is guilty. And as we have no way to test it anymore (we're four months after the event), we won't take action in this specific case."

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EA Sports released its list of the top-five highest-rated running backs in the "Madden NFL 16" video game Tuesday, leading to a good exchange between the company and the Seattle Seahawks on Twitter.

It began with the Seahawks account complaining about running back Marshawn Lynch's "trucking" rating. Lynch, who's the highest-rated running back in the game, was only given a 98 trucking rating. The Seahawks thought it should have been 99:

EA Sports responded by implying that if they wanted him to get a 99, they should have given him the ball at the end of the Super Bowl:

Ouch. EA Sports was, of course, referencing the Seahawks' recent Super Bowl loss. The Seahawks had the ball at the Patriots one-yard line with seconds reamining and a chance to win, but, instead of running it with Lynch, they decided to attempt a pass with Russell Wilson, who threw an interception to end the game.

Even though it's been more than five months since their heart-breaking Super Bowl loss, that still has to sting. The Seahawks were at least able to take it in stride, posting a funny clip from one of Lynch's rare interviews, admitting "they got got."

Trying to make light of the situation, Madden NFL then jokingly blamed the entire episode on a hacker.

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