Chris Kohler

In Defense of ROMs, A Solution To Dying Games And Broken Copyright Laws

Various game emulation sites are pulling down their software libraries, or ceasing to exist entirely, following a lawsuit filed by Nintendo against one of the largest of their kind. This is hardly tantamount to the erasure of all unauthorized copies of older video games from the internet, but it’s still gotten a lot of folks…

High School Kids Send EarthBound Into Space

How much do you love EarthBound? Do you love it so much that you’d shoot it into space? When Ronnie Doyle turned 14 recently, his grandfather bought him an unorthodox birthday gift. By making a donation to a crowd-funded science group called Earth To Sky Calculus, he gave his grandson the opportunity to shoot a…

WarioWare Gold: The Kotaku Review

The first time I ever played a WarioWare game, I was drunk. Even so, I remember it pretty well. It was March of 2003, and I was living in Kyoto, Japan, about a 20-minute walk from the building where they made WarioWare. Every so often, I’d take the train down to nearby Osaka to meet…

WarioWare‘s Two Favorite Things Are Classic Nintendo, Poop

This week, I’ve been playing the latest entry in Nintendo’s series of wacky compilations of seconds-long “microgames,” the first for Nintendo 3DS (and the first since 2010’s WarioWare: DIY). I’ll have a full review for its release on August 3, but for now, I’m still going through all of its features. As I do, I’ve…

Captain Toad Switch Has Cool Extra Features, Few New Levels

It’s a worn-out cliche these days to say that a game is “perfect for the Switch,” but that really does apply to Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, which will become the latest Wii U transplant to arrive on Nintendo’s new console this Friday. I admit that I didn’t think that Captain Toad, originally released in 2014,…

WWE 2K19 Cover Athlete AJ Styles Has A Retro Game Hunting Show

AJ Styles, the WWE wrestler announced this week as the cover athlete for the game WWE 2K19, has an interesting game-related side project going on: He goes out hunting for classic games, filming the search and putting it on YouTube as a show called Retro Styles That Styles, currently the WWE champion, is into old…

How Yoshi’s Island Got Its Beautiful, Hand-Drawn Look

Prior to her interview at E3 this week with Splatoon 2 producer Hisashi Nogami, Kotaku’s Cecilia D’Anastasio asked me if there was anything I wanted to know. “Yeah,” I said. “Ask how Yoshi’s Island got its hand-drawn style.” Nogami, you see, was credited as a character designer on that legendary 1995 Super Nintendo game, which…

Two Long-Lost Nintendo Arcade Games Are Heading To Switch

Nintendo kicked off the final day of Treehouse Live with a huge announcement for fans of its classic games: Two arcade games that have never been officially released on home consoles are coming to Switch’s Arcade Archives: the original Donkey Kong, which is available now, and Sky Skipper, coming in July. Donkey Kong is a…

Splatoon 2‘s Octo Expansion DLC will be available tomorrow evening, June 13, Nintendo said at E3 today. The expansion lets you play as an Octoling in multiplayer, but first, you have to make your way through a series of tricky single-player challenge levels. It’s $19.99.

Nintendo’s E3 Booth Is Full Of Amazing Smash Bros. Props

Nintendo’s E3 2018 booth is mostly full of increasingly-sweaty attendees playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but it’s also home to a veritable museum of real-life custom props drawn from Smash, and therefore from the company’s rich history of games. Kotaku EIC Stephen Totilo is on the show floor, and couldn’t help but snap a bunch…

We’re Liveblogging Nintendo’s E3 Press Conference [Update: It’s Over!]

One more press conference before E3 2018 begins, and it’s the wild card. Sometimes Nintendo delivers megaton after megaton, sometimes it plays its cards close to its chest. What’s this year’s Direct—which Nintendo says focuses on Switch games for 2018—got in store? Smash, at least. Watch the Nintendo Direct here or read our liveblog below.

Star Fox Will Appear In Ubisoft’s Space Game Starlink

Fox McCloud will appear in Ubisoft’s toy-based space flight action-adventure game Starlink: Battle For Atlas, the company said today. Exclusively on the game’s Nintendo Switch version, of course. In the game, to be released October 16 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Switch, you build a modular spacecraft, attach it to your controller, then take…

Ubisoft Just Announced A Wii Game

It is the year 2018 and Ubisoft is releasing Just Dance for the Wii. Not the Wii U, although that’s getting a version of the company’s perennially-popular motion-controlled dancing game, too. Just Dance 2019 is also coming out for the Xbox 360 Kinect! But really, the shocking part is that games are still being made…

Beyond Good & Evil 2 Features Young Jade, After All

Jade, the heroine of the original Beyond Good and Evil, will play a major role in the next game, Ubisoft said. Originally, Beyond Good and Evil 2 was said to take place before Jade was born, but instead a “ferocious young Jade” will appear in the game’s storyline. The long-awaited follow-up to Ubisoft’s critically acclaimed…

Jump Force Brings Goku, Naruto, And More Together For A Giant Battle [Update: Battle Footage]

Bandai Namco has announced Jump Force, a new game that mashes up characters from Shonen Jump manga, like Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece. It’s coming in 2019. The three-versus-three tag team fighting game will be released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam. The trailer opened on a ruined urban setting, showing several famous…

Disney’s Frozen Is A World In Kingdom Hearts III

The gang will travel to the land of Arendelle in Kingdom Hearts III, Square Enix revealed at Microsoft’s E3 2018 press conference. Yes, Frozen is coming to Kingdom Hearts. Did you expect anything less? The crossover game will hit PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 29, 2019. After years in development, Kingdom Hearts III…

Microsoft Announces Halo Infinite With Tiny Teaser

Microsoft kicked off its E3 2018 press conference with a small teaser for the next Halo, called Halo Infinite. If you thought Halo 5 could have used more Master Chief, Microsoft says you’ll get more play time with the series’ protagonist this time around. “We will join Master Chief on his greatest adventure yet to…

What We Liked (And Didn’t Like) About Solo

There’s a new Star Wars out, have you seen it yet? It’s more likely than ever that the answer is “no.” Solo: A Star Wars Story, the origin tale of everyone’s favorite stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder, has been struggling hard at the box office since its release on May 25. What’s behind the audience…

Mario Tennis Aces‘ Adventure Mode Is A Great Teacher

Mario Tennis Aces is the sequel to the spiritual successor to the follow-up to Pong. Somewhere along the way, video game tennis became significantly more complicated than two paddles and a square ball. Fortunately, this upcoming Switch game will teach you all its tricks, by way of the RPG-style single-player adventure mode. To be released…

Chrono Trigger: The Kotaku Review

In the mid-nineties, at the approach of the millennium, the creators of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest combined their considerable talents in the hopes of creating the ultimate Japanese role-playing game. What resulted was Chrono Trigger, considered not only one of the best games of the era but also one of the high-water marks for…