by Lucy Ungaro

Hello again, gamers. In case you weren’t keeping up with recent Circle news–you can now obtain tickets to the Game Awards! Get ’em while they’re still hot because the show usually sells out. Without further ado, let’s get down to business.

Evil’s pretty fun, at least when it comes to video games. If you played Mass Effect 2 and didn’t intentionally sacrifice your least favorite characters in the end, you missed out on some maniacal laughter. For your weekly dose of video game evil, check out Jorge Jimenez’s article on Resident Evil 0 and the “Origin of Evil.”

For all us New York bums who feel slighted by the lack of a post-apocalyptic New York in the Fallout games, we need look no further than Tom Clancy’s the Division! Chelsea Stark writes about a video short that will take place in this alternate version of New York. Find out about the video and where to watch it right here.

Double Zero One Zero is back with another game that will let you live out a dream career. We got to see the titillating life of an immigration inspector in Papers, Please, and now we can experience the heroics of an editor-in-chief of a newspaper in Westport Independent. In all seriousness, these games amaze me because of their ability to take a mundane job and give it both addictive gameplay and a meaningful story. Evan Narcisse has all the details on the game, as well as gameplay videos and his thoughts. Check out the article here.

Dissatisfied with the short and abrupt backstory for the player character in Fallout 4? Matt Gerardi‘s got you covered! One of his readers created a much more involved and “tragic” backstory to the Sole Survivor. You can read this version, along with more of Gameological’s reader comments, in this installment of “Keyboard Geniuses”.

Good news for those who are planning to be sad and alone on Valentine’s Day (like me)! Destiny‘s next event will be Valentine’s Day themed, and will be up all throughout the offending holiday. Read Samit Sarkar‘s article to find out what exactly a Valentine themed Destiny event entails. Next time someone asks me what I’m doing for the holiday? I’ve got a date with a really cute game.

Speaking of dating games, according to Michelle Ehrhardt, dating and gaming might not be very different activities. In the age of Tinder, dating has become something of a game, and online gaming is similar to matchmaking. Read about the connection here.

The price tag on the Oculus Rift is pretty unexpectedly high. Or maybe I should have expected it? Scott Stein reports from CES about how much the Oculus should cost. Watch the video here.

Finally at Boys Life, Harold Goldberg wonders whether VR will be safe for kids. It’s been fairly difficult for him to get answers when he’s asked that question of Oculus, HTC and Sony.

And now for news outside of the Circle…

Global Game Jam will be at the NYU Game Center again this year! Come one, come all to slave over a game for an entire weekend. I know I will. Find details here.

There’s another episode of the Feminist Frequency out, and this time it’s about backsides. Anita Sarkeesian has some things to say about the way women’s derrieres are shown in games as opposed to men’s. Check out a summary of the episode here.

I always wonder about video game development in countries that I never hear about making games. There must be game developers all over the world, and they must be making good games, and I would like to know more about them. If you’re as curious about this as I am, here’s an article about Iran’s “budding video game industry.”

Thanks for reading; see you at The Awards!