Cameron Kunzelman

Mysteries Are The Heart Of Control

Control originally presented itself to me as a mystery. It was a new game from Remedy, the favorite development house for those of us unnaturally attached to Alan Wake and Max Payne, and it took place in some kind of shadowy government facility. I remained gracefully unspoiled and uninformed until I launched the game, and…

Control’s AWE Expansion Leans Into Horror, And It’s Rad

Horror has always seemed right around the corner in Control. There’s a refrigerator that always needs to be looked at or it’ll kill you. A rubber duck teleports around maliciously. Your double is plotting your demise in a mirror world. Even so, horror was always the game’s selective spice, used sparingly to break up the…

The Week In Games: Human Boxing

Another light week at the end of the year, but some neat games are showing up on the Switch. Developers are clearly avoiding the post-holiday release window, and it shows, but Switch owners who are into smaller games are still getting an interesting trickle of stuff to check out. Some highlights are obviously The Aquatic…

Track: Flight From The City | Artist: Jóhann Jóhannsson | Album: Orphée Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Portal Speedrun Breaks The Game And My Brain

A speedrunner named Can’t Even has achieved the new world record for the “Out of Bounds” category in Portal by zipping through the game in a blistering 7:07, toppling their own previous record of 7:12. The run is pretty astonishing. The basic play of this Portal speedrun category involves getting the camera out of bounds…

Rappers Saving A Puppy In VR Is Very Good

The YouTube channel 88Rising has put together a compilation video of rappers trying to save a puppy on a rooftop in VR. There’s a lot of rude language. There are two reasons why this video is more special than any group of random people trying out rooptop virtual reality experience. The first is that rappers…

There’s a Gravelord Smash in Dark Souls Remastered for Switch today. It’s all about doing PVP as a part of, or against, the Gravelord Covenant. The event is going on until tonight at 7:00PM EST, so grab your Switch and get over the the Moonlight Butterfly Garden. Learn more here

Updated My Journal: Goodbye!

Today is my last day as the Weekend Editor at Kotaku. That’s right: your Cities: Skylines-loving, Rollercoaster Tycoon-playing, isometric RPG-enjoying buddy is moving on. What can I say? It’s the adventurer’s way. I’ve really enjoyed my time as Weekend Editor. It is a fast-paced job with a lot of responsibility, and I am eternally grateful…

Sunday Comics: Palace Mouse 

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published December 24. Read more of Awkward Zombie Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published December 27. Read more of Corpse Run Double XP by…

Telling Stories About A Decaying Small Town With Cities: Skylines

YouTuber TazerHere has created a sleepy Texas town called Berrysville in immaculate detail, but what really makes it unique is that it is chock full of stories created by community members. In a playlist of 11 build videos, TazerHere has built up the small town of Berrysville in immaculate miniature detail. It is an astounding…

Track: Closedown | Artist: The Cure | Album: Disintegration Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Epic Games Store is giving away Super Meat Boy from now until January 10. You simply create a store account (if you don’t have one), click the Meat Boy image at the top of the page, and get the game. After that, you’re free to jump and slide and plop to your heart’s content. 

YouTuber Really Shows Off Fallout 3‘s Wasteland

YouTuber Shesez’s show Boundary Break is always a treat, but the most recent episode on Fallout 3 is chock full of weird experiments with skyboxes, colors, and minutiae that’s beyond the regular play experience. My favorite part is the wasteland. The episode moves through a lot of interesting things that you might expect from a…

You can get Soma for free today on GOG You can go to the game’s store page and simply claim it. We reviewed the game positively when it came out back in 2015.

‘Shop Contest: Everyone Is Santa, Winners!

Last week I asked the ‘Shop Crew to put together some holiday cheer, and y’all brought it all together. I asked you to turn characters into Santa, but the holiday cheer seemed so exciting and powerful that you all just zipped and zapped your way into holiday extremity. Our winner this week is Dixie-Flatline, who…

A Deckbuilder Explains How To Balance Your Lands In Magic: The Gathering

If you’re a Magic: The Gathering player, you know that lands are the way that you generate mana, the resource that allows you to play cards. In a new video, YouTuber SaffronOlive explains how to get that balance of lands correct. Titled “You’re Probably Playing Too Many Shocklands In Modern,” the video is ostensibly about…

The Week In Games: Dynasty Core

It’s the last full week of the year, so there are a slim number of releases. Most of them are on the Switch. Like every year, a lot of games have released this year. I imagine that you, like me, have a dozen or so games that you’ve been meaning to get to that you…

There are new, “very hard” levels coming to Celeste in 2019. PC Gamer reports that Celeste developer Matt Thorson also tweeted that we will also learn “what’s next” from the Celeste team next year.

Blindfolded Speedrunner Demolishes Outlast 

I don’t care for first-person games that are heavy on jumpscares, and so speedrunner AcrohTheBeast’s 10:24 blindfolded run seems like the perfect way to play the game. While the actual time of the run would put it somewhere above 100th place in the official speedrun rankings of the game, I have a lot of respect…

A Classic Christmas Song Interpreted Through  Rollercoaster Tycoon

It’s the holiday season, and that means it is the time to listen to holiday songs. They’re universally terrible, so making “new” versions with pop culture objects is just fine by my book. And now we have “The Twelve Days Of Christmas” with Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic parks. A YouTuber with the simple name of “Stu”…