Infinite 1UP

Gen Z Gamers Are Not Like Millennial GamersGen Z has been playing video games since they were babies catching fruit on their mother's phones. They not only enjoy the games they have mastered, but also are eager to explore new games as soon as they are available and revel in new discoveries. So what better subject to talk about with your co-workers? They play games, too, and it might be a good way to get to know them. Millennials are in a different stage of life. Sure, they've played games since they were kids, but in their minds, that was long ago and now games are a fleeting indulgence, a means of escape from the grind of adult life. That realization can be terrifying to the freshman members of the adult demographic. To be honest, it's terrifying even to those of us who have been adults a long time. -via Geeks Are Sexy

They Dared to Rank All the Fallout GamesThe TV series Fallout, based on the video game universe, has introduced an awful lot of non-gamer viewers to the postnuclear world depicted in the games. No doubt it has also introduced this world to gamers who never tried Fallout, as well. But that's a lot of video games, and they've been around since the 20th century. If you want to delve into the games of the series, where do you begin? The Fallout video game series consists of four main series games (Fallout 5 is in development), and seven spinoff games in the same universe. Den of Geek discounted Fallout Pinball because, well, it's a pinball game. They also ignored Fallout Shelter Online, we suppose because they consider it an extension of Fallout Shelter. That leaves nine games to rank, and they did their best to describe what makes each game unique and which ones you would most want to play as a beginner. See the ranking of nine Fallout games from worst to best at Den of Geek.

Pee-wee Herman Enters the World of Cyberpunk 2077The universe of Cyberpunk 2077 is so flexible and customizable that it naturally lends itself to any kind of mashup that you can imagine. To our delight, the latest from master mashup artist eli_handle_b․wav stars everyone's favorite character Pee-wee Herman as the protagonist V in Cyberpunk 2077. Oh yeah, and his bike, too. Although we no longer have Paul Reubens, Pee-wee will always be with us in clips from his TV show and the movies. This delightful compilation uses clips from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Big Top Pee-wee as the player character moves through the seedy world of Night City. This video contains some NSFW language. -via Geeks Are Sexy

GTA Mumblings Turned into PoetryIn 2020, Twitter (it was Twitter back then, not X), user Reb Day mentioned that her housemate wrote down self-comments that she uttered while playing Grand Theft Auto. She compares them to the works of Canadian poet Rupi Kaur.

The Making of The Ghoul in FalloutAmazon Prime's new series Fallout, based on the video game, is taking the television audience by storm. Viewers are especially captivated by the mysterious character known as The Ghoul, played by Walton Goggins. He looks half-rotted, which is only appropriate as the character is more than 200 years old. He began life as a man named Cooper Howard (also portrayed by Goggins in flashbacks), who survived the nuclear apocalypse that destroyed civilization. He is a mutant who makes a living as a bounty hunter, but his backstory is way more complicated, having been involved with the corporationVault-Tec. In this Fallout featurette from Prime Video, we get a glimpse at the prosthetics that transform Goggins from the 20th century Cooper Howard to the weathered, noseless, 200-year old Ghoul. Goggins also talks about his damaged character and what he represents in the show

Whatever Happened to LAN Parties?If you were an avid gamer in the 1990s and 2000s, you no doubt fondly recall LAN parties. LAN stood for local area network. See, video games entered the internet early, but in the early days, connections were difficult and expensive. My first internet connection required dialing up a long-distance server, which meant long-distance phone rates. The internet itself charged by the minute, too. Even when local service became available, it still meant tying up the family phone, and later DSL was still pretty janky and got throttled often. So LAN parties were the way gamers got together and played each other in groups. Sure, you had to haul your computer equipment out and hook them all together. Those were heavy setups, but the parties themselves were a good time. An entire culture grew out of LAN parties, remnants of which we still recognize today, in the music and entertainment that was shared, and the memes that became historic. While computers got smaller and easier to carry, doing so became unnecessary as networks and accessibility improved. Read about the rise and fall of LAN parties in an excerpt from the book LAN Party by Merritt K at Aftermath. -via Kottke (Image credit: Knacker) 