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Some of the problems within science have been getting much more public attention recently. Psychology’s replication crisis has gained deserved notoriety, but the social sciences are far from alone, with pharmaceutical science being plagued by the same problems.

These issues are the product of a number of underlying problems. A study published recently in the journal PLOS Biology presents evidence showing that a very cheap solution could help to patch up one of them: the sharing of data that underlies published research. It's a solution that isn't out of place in a video game—all it takes is a digital badge or two to encourage researchers to be more transparent.

It’s clear that although the scientific method is still the best tool we have at our disposal, there are some situations where it desperately needs sharpening. One thing that has dulled the tool is the damaging incentives often faced by scientists. They’re under pressure to publish exciting, positive results in order to keep their jobs and be promoted, which can push some people to do awful things like fake data. But on a more mundane level, the pressure often means that only the most exciting, whizzbang studies see the light of day.

The Minecraft community is one of the most video-centric gaming groups online, with hundreds of thousands of players routinely streaming and sharing gameplay and mods through YouTube and Twitch without issue. Nintendo, on the other hand, is one of the most restrictive game publishers when it comes to video, with a history of taking videos of its games offline and threatening to shut down livestreamed tournaments. It has also had problems sharing ad revenue with video creators.

When those two sides effectively merged through the recently released "Super Mario Mash-Up Pack" for the Wii U version of Minecraft, problems were bound to arise. And arisen they have, with a number of YouTubers publicly complaining about Nintendo making copyright claims on their Minecraft videos.

The issue appears to stem from the game's use of Super Mario 64 music, which is actually included as part of the Mash-Up Pack but still triggers a copyright match with the original Nintendo 64 game. One memorable video response from a Nintendo streamer urges the company to "stop trippin'" about the Minecraft videos. "It's like Nintendo doesn't want us to play their games. Don't play them because we don't want you to show them on YouTube. We don't want anyone else to see how great and wonderful the gameplay is..." the streamer says in his best mock Nintendo imitation.

Revolutions are tricky. Ostensibly, they are the end result of the frustration and desperation of a group of people. They are upwellings, the last recourse of a downtrodden nation. In practice, though, they’re often among the most brutal sorts of wars. While oppressors stand as the intended targets, the collapse of a reigning social order and the construction of a new one never comes without moral compromise and collateral damage.

Homefront: The Revolution captures the compromised morals dead-on. Given the haphazard execution of the rest of the game, though, I’m not sure that’s intentional.

A muddy revolution

In this guerrilla war, you play as Ethan Brady, a recent recruit for yet another American Revolution. This time, North Korea, not England, is the occupying force. The Revolution opens with a series of brutal scenes that show your chosen band of freedom fighters as bordering on psychopathic.

After being captured by the Korean People’s Army (KPA) while making bombs, you end up finding your way back to the revolutionaries. Under suspicion of espionage, your former band of brothers beats and brutalizes you before threatening to tear into your flesh with knives and torture you for information. Your main tormentor even goes so far as to suggest that you scream so that she’ll get her fill, all without a shred of indicting evidence.

VIDEO: The ZUS cable versus bullets. Video produced and edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

Attention PR folks: On average, I get about 100 pitch e-mails a day, and most of them get ignored. But this is how you get my attention:

SUBJECT: What do bulletproof vest and our charging cable have in common?

Hello Lee,

We at Nonda have developed an indestructible charging cable.

Introducing the ZUS charging cable built with Kevlar by DuPont with lifetime warranty.

The cable in question comes in USB-C, micro-USB, and Apple Lighting forms. It's also currently the subject of an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that has massively exceeded its $10,000 funding goal (it’s up to about $157,000 this morning, about $10,000 more than it had yesterday). The standout feature, Nonda PR says, is the set of Kevlar reinforcements that run through the cable’s core, strengthening it and in theory preventing it from tearing or breaking on repeated bending.

If you've ever wondered what Sega was like at the height of its game-making powers, wonder no more. A staff video from the Sega vaults—made in 1996, the same year that the Sony PlayStation would begin to take over the world—has been released by the production company behind it, Green Mill Filmworks. Not only is the video a fascinating behind-the scenes look at game development and game testing, it is also, without doubt, the most '90s thing I've ever seen.

Even excluding the baggy clothes, questionable hair cuts, and horrifying denim, the desks of game testers interviewed—many of whom said they worked up to 90 hours a week squashing bugs—are littered with '90s paraphernalia. My personal favourite, aside from the multiple appearances of the obligatory (for the '90s at least) Jurassic Park merchandise, is the spinning holographic disk that appears 13 minutes in. I had one of those as a kid, and while I still don't quite understand what the appeal was, they were all the rage at school, even over here in the UK.

Of course, there's lots of Sega tech on show too, with testers having access to the Mega Drive (Genesis to our US friends), 32X, Sega CD, Game Gear, Saturn, and even the short-lived Sega Pico, a laptop-like educational system for kids that was powered by Genesis hardware. Each tester was also issued with development cartridges—which you can see being loaded up with memory chips by hand around 18 minutes in—before having to sit and play the game relentlessly, using a VHS recorder (yes really) to record gameplay and identify when and how bugs appeared.