Author: Kyle Orland

Last week, I asked the Ars Technica community to dig deep and help us beat the Charity Drive donation record set back in 2012. This week, I can say the community has responded beautifully to that request. The 2015 Ars Technica Charity Drive has now set a new record, with well over $35,000 in combined donations to Child's Play and the EFF.

With less than 24 hours to go before the entry deadline, I know we can make that record haul even bigger. If you've been putting off your donation until the very last minute or been distracted by holiday travel, today is your last day to enter our sweepstakes for a chance to win some of the cool swag we can't keep. It's also your last chance to have your charity donations counted as part of the Ars community's collective efforts for the year.

Entries have to be in our e-mail by 11:59pm Eastern time tonight to be part of the sweepstakes. If you've already entered, thank you, and know that we'll be contacting winners over the coming days and weeks. If you haven't, read on to find out how to get your donation counted.

If you’ve been waiting for an excuse to buy Duke Nukem 3D again, digital download service GOG is giving you ample reason to get a move on. The first-person shooter classic and three other Duke Nukem titles are being offered for $2.36—90% off the normal price—from now until the end of 2015 (10:59am GMT on December 31, to be precise). The original Duke Nukem 3D is available individually for $1.49 if the extra buck means more to you than the somewhat forgettable ancillary Duke titles.

If the low price isn’t enough reason to make a move, know too that all the Duke Nukem titles will be leaving GOG’s storefront when 2015 ticks over into 2016. After December 31, GOG says that the games “will be removed from our catalog, but we are in talks with the new rightsholders to bring them back as swiftly as possible.”

Those who purchase the games before their removal from the store will still be able to download and view them in their GOG account into 2016 and beyond. The Duke Nukem series is also currently available on Steam, where it has also been discounted during the Steam Winter Sale.

Back in 2012, my first year at Ars, I was extremely gratified to help raise $28,700 in donations in the first-ever charity drive I organized for the site, a total that surpassed every other annual charity haul we brought in since 2007. That record has stood for the last two years, which brought in about $23,500 and $25,000 in charity drive donations, respectively. Not bad totals, by any means, but not as satisfying as that record-breaking 2012.

Readers: this year I want to knock that record on its butt. And we are so close to doing it.

As of this writing, Ars readers have donated a total of $27,450.66 to Child’s Play and the EFF through this year’s Charity Drive sweepstakes. That’s already better than either of the last two years and just over $1,000 away from besting our all-time record.

Not all that long ago, you used to be able to make a list of the year’s best games, confident that those titles would remain relatively static as time went on. That’s not the case anymore. With downloadable content becoming the norm rather than the exception, some of the best games of 2015 actually came out in previous years and were merely updated with intriguing new content this year.

That being the case, we thought it was worth augmenting our official Game of the Year picks for 2015 with this list of four titles that were much improved by downloadable updates during the last 12 months.

Mario Kart 8: DLC tracks and 200cc mode

In a dream world, Mario Kart’s next incarnation would be its last. We don’t want the series to end, per se; we just want it to relaunch as an endless, game-as-a-service title, with semi-annual tweaks and regular releases of new level and character packs.

Before we get on with the list, I want to make sure you don’t miss this year’s Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes. You can win one of over 100 prizes, including limited edition gaming collectibles, all while helping out a good cause. Entries are due by January 4, so check it out if you haven’t already, and thanks in advance for your donation.

Narrowing an entire year of video games into a list of the 20 titles most worth your attention is always difficult, but it was more difficult than usual in 2015. We could have easily extended this year's list to 30 or 40 games without breaking a sweat or recommending any marginal titles (see our upcoming "best of the rest" list as proof).

The year was just that jam-packed with quality titles. Perhaps that's because the new generation of consoles is finally coming into its own, or because a number of independent developers surprised us with highly polished and utterly unique titles. Whatever the reason, we hope 2016 can capture even a fraction of the joy and variety found in this year's best games.

The stereotypical image of a gamer is of someone sitting alone in a dark basement, staring at a screen for hours on end. Forget that! Ars Technica's gaming coverage got off the couch plenty this year, visiting events from Washington state to Washington DC, and from Paris, France to Cologne, Germany. In those travels we saw thousands of gamers willing to leave the house and commune with their own kind in crowded convention center hallways, arenas, and trade shows.

Through all that travel, we had our cameras at the ready, set to document the state of gaming culture around the world and share it with you on this very site. As 2015 winds to a close, here's a quick look back at some of the most memorable imagery from the hundreds of photos we took at gaming events this year.

Sorry wallets, but it's Steam sale time again. Yes, the Steam Winter Sale is once again upon us, offering deep discounts on over 10,000 downloadable PC titles from now through 10am Pacific Time on January 4, 2016.

Unlike previous Steam sales, this year's Winter Sale doesn't feature any deals that might vary over time. All currently discounted titles will stay at their current prices until the sale ends, with no other surprise discounts along the way. That means we can make some recommendations without worrying that prices may soon fall even lower or that other high-profile games will get discounts in the near future.

With so many games being offered this year, we thought we'd help you narrow the list down to a few titles worth your time and money. All of the 50 recommended sale-priced games listed below are good buys at their original prices—and even better deals during the next two weeks. Some are classic games that you may already own, while others are 2015 releases that have already been steeply discounted.

Last week, we tried our best to navigate the competitive world of console gaming in order to make a recommendation for which current system should sit under your TV. For some gamers, though, it's almost physically painful to pick just one console and miss out on all of the exclusive content available on the other two.

For those gamers, GameStop has an online deal that means you don't have to choose. The new Pre-owned Next Generation Hardware Bundle offers used and "refurbished" editions of the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U for a total of $569.98. That's a nearly 30 percent savings from the price you would pay for all three pre-owned systems separately at GameStop, and 40 percent off the $950 you'd have to pay to get those systems brand new (though the new systems would include a few bundled games, as well). The deal looks even better when you consider that, two years ago, a brand new Kinect-bundled Xbox One and a single game would run you $560 all by itself.

You might be understandably wary of purchasing consoles that have been subjected to unknown horrors by previous owners, but all of GameStop's used consoles go through the company's impressive refurbishment center where they're tested and refreshed for new owners (those centers have even been able to fix the infamous Xbox 360 red ring of death since 2009). GameStop also offers a seven-day money-back guarantee on its pre-owned hardware and a 30-day return period where you can exchange the console for an identical one, no questions asked. After that, it's caveat emptor.

Regular readers may remember an odd little story we ran back in May about the Retro VGS game console project. Sporting a plastic shell made from the actual original Atari Jaguar molds, the new system was being designed to support new games made with an old-school, 16-bit aesthetic. Oddest of all, those games would be distributed on old-fashioned, solid-state cartridges made to last for decades.

Just over half a year later, the Retro VGS console is no more (though the company behind it still bears the same name). It's been replaced with the Coleco Chameleon, a rebranded version of the same idea that dredges up a well-known name from gaming's "ancient" past.

That rebranding is somewhat necessary, given the poor reputation the Retro VGS had garnered in the classic gaming community during its short pre-life. The system failed to get much buy-in during an aborted Indiegogo crowdfunding effort in September, raising just $80,000 of a hefty $1.95 million funding goal. For context, the Ouya only asked for a minimum of $900,000 in its initial Kickstarter (though Ouya shot past that number to receive $8.6 million in crowdfunding)

Just over two weeks ago, we kicked off the 2015 edition of our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes, where we urge readers to donate to a good cause for a chance to win some of the piles of vendor-provided swag we can't keep. Since then, Ars readers have turned the generosity meter up to 11, packing in a combined total of over $21,000 in donations to Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation so far ($21,112.60, to be precise).

That's a great start and already within spitting distance of last year's take of just over $25,000. We're aiming our sights higher than that, though... with two weeks to go until the January 4 deadline, I think we can beat our all-time Charity Drive record haul of $28,713.52 set back in 2012 (my first year running the sweepstakes). Let's prove just how deep Ars readers can dig for a good cause.

If that's not enough motivation, keep in mind that each donation helps settle a battle of generosity between two deserving charities. This is the first year that the total money given to both charities in the sweepstakes has been competitive; the EFF was actually bringing in the majority of donation dollars until rather recently, when a few generous Child's Play gifts put it back ahead.