This is not an official review of Yakuza 0, nor is it an official review of Yakuza Kiwami. The former released on PC last August, making this writeup more than six months overdue--or four years, if we time it to the original PS4 release. Kiwami's PC port is only a few weeks old as I write this, but I just finished Yakuza 0 this week and have only managed to put a few hours into the follow-up. That said, I can't believe it took me so long to give this series a shot. The Yakuza series is coming up on fifteen years old now, but until last summer's Yakuza 0 port the games had been primarily released on PlayStation (and uh...Wii U, of all places).

Gaming culture is rife with graphic representations of gun violence and has been since arcade goers first blew aliens out of Space Invader's skies. You'll be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of AAA titles designed for adults (sit down Rayman) that don't rely on firearms, or use gore in substitution, either as a primary tool for the gameplay or as a thematic element. While firearms have been a mainstay in video games since the mid '70s, few games have cemented their position in popular culture than 1993's pioneering first person shooter, Doom. Not only did Doom bring the FPS genre into mainstream gaming culture, they also helped to normalize a level of gore not often seen since 1988's Turbografx 16 hit, Splatterhouse, one of the first games to ever carry a parental warning label. Doom's influence is clear in nearly every game in the genre.

The PC Gaming Show is always my favorite E3 press conference. It usually feels one step away from disaster at all times, a far cry from the ultra-slick press conferences from Microsoft, Bethesda, and so on. This year's highlights included Yakuza 0--yes, you read that right--and Star Control: Origins, but it's worth scrolling through the full list of bigger announcements below and just admiring the breadth of experiences offered on PC these days. So many indie games were announced that we couldn't even cover them all here. The Goat Simulator team over at Coffee Stain Studios is making a real game again, Satisfactory. Not really sure what to make of this, except that it looks like a 3D Factorio or maybe a less puzzle-oriented Infinifactory.

Welcome back to Gaming IRL, a monthly segment where several editors talk about what they've been playing in their downtime. This month, we spend too much time taking photos in Assassin's Creed Origins, lose ourselves in Yakuza 0's side stories, and ask the important question: "Tinder or Reigns?" I like to play a little game whenever I'm posted up somewhere with ample people-watching opportunities: It's called "Tinder or Reigns?" Playing Reigns: Her Majesty looks a lot like scrolling through Tinder -- one thumb swiping left or right -- and I enjoy guessing which app people are actually using as they're lost in their phones. I deeply hope (but supremely doubt) most folks are playing Reigns.