Mike Fahey

Mass Effect 2 Review: Once More Unto The Breach

This review was originally published on Kotaku on January 26, 2010. To celebrate Mass Effect week, we’re bumping it up! What kind of man (or woman) has intergalactic hero Commander Shepard become after saving the universe from the Reapers in Mass Effect? That’s all up to you in BioWare’s Mass Effect 2. Shortly after the…

Mr. Runner Was Wonderful. Mr. Runner 2 Looks Wonderfully Insane.

The original Mr. Runner is a lovely little bite-sized mobile platformer that’s been downloaded some five million times. Due out in on April 24, Mr. Runner 2: The Masks doesn’t care what Mr. Runner did, it does what it wants. It’ll cut you. With awesome. For reference, here is the original Mr. Runner: And here…

It’s Almost a Pity This Unique and Colorful Puzzle Game Is Free

I’ve always been a big fan of the color samples in the house paint section of Home Depot. Those unassuming sheets of paper, festooned with color gradients, introduced me to a world that was more than simple black and white — a world with 50 shades of grey, several dozen oranges and more green than…

Boneless Vs. Bone-In Chicken Wings: The Snacktaku Showdown

Late last week the Twitterverse exploded with what might be the most important snacking argument of the year — boneless or bone-in chicken wings? Lines were drawn. Sauces were chosen. Wet naps were made ready. Lots of people made themselves sick, all in the name of fighting for the cause they felt was the justiest…

I Was Done With Three-Star Puzzle Platformers. Then Disney Gave Me Mittens.

Thanks to the low price of mobile games, I regularly download new titles without seeing as much as a single screenshot. Many of those sight-unseen games follow the Angry Birds scoring formula — smash, achieve or collect the things you need on each level, earn three stars, gems, flowers, whatever. Generally I don’t get past…

The Estranged Creator of Dark Age of Camelot is Making His Own Damn Dark Age of Camelot

As co-founder and former president/CEO of Mythic Entertainment. Mark Jacobs introduced the online multiplayer world to the concept of realm-vs.-realm combat with 1999’s Darkness Falls. That MUD-style game paved the way for Dark Age of Camelot, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that focused on the conflict between three fantasy realms — humans, elves and…

The Newest Pokémon Looks Startlingly Similar to An Old Favorite

Debuting earlier today on Japan’s “Pokémon Smash” TV show, the latest pocket monster revealed for Pokémon X and Y bears more than a little resemblance to one of the coolest creatures ever to be stuffed inside a tiny plastic ball. Mewtwo, Brute? For those of you who don’t remember Mewtwo, he was a complete and…

PSP action RPG Black Rock Shooter is coming to the PlayStation Network on April 23 in the U.S. and April 24 in select European countries. Sorry, Canada and Mexico, licensing issues mean no release for you. We’ll let you look over our shoulders.

The Violence in This Week in Gaming Apps is Simply Enthralling. Appalling. I Meant Appalling.

Our weekly roundup of the new mobile games we’ve played over the past five day period is usually filled with physics puzzles and endless runners. Those things are indeed present this week, but tempered with some good old-fashion shooting people in the head. Oh don’t worry, they’re mostly stick people. I’ve been passing up the…

Farming Simulator. On Consoles. In September. Yes.

The once ironically-beloved Farming Simulator series has blossomed into a damn fine alternative to watching cartoon people pretend to plow on Facebook. The latest version is a smash hit on PC, so here comes the console version, bigger and better than ever. Coming in early September to the Xbox 360 and PC (what, no Wii…

Forget Endless Runners, Here’s an Endless Action RPG

A half-hour with FDG Entertainment’s Slayin has convinced me that the action role-playing games I enjoyed as a much younger man were woefully inefficient. Imagine all the things I might have accomplished if I hadn’t spent hour after hour traveling expansive maps, poking things with my pixel sword in order to gain the power to…

There’s One Sure Way to Have Fun in Defiance

The MMO tie-in to SyFy’s upcoming Earth-plus-aliens series Defiance is in full swing, or as full a swing as it can manage, giventhe shaky start. While we’re waiting for Trion Worlds to fix wehat needs fixing, there’s at least one activity that’ll never let you down. Vrooom.

We Need to Stop Tweeting Annoying Gaming Updates. Here’s How.

Earlier this week the Prime Minister of Egypt was globally ridiculed for a Twitter update generated from within Beeline Interactive’s popular Smurfs’ Village game. Last year a Spanish politician made headlines when his “son” tweeted a game update from Doodle Jump.When public figures do it, it’s mildly amusing, but when the average Joe’s Twitter feed…

After 24 Pages I Finally Care About the Heroine of The Last of Us

Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic adventure for the PlayStation 3 looks brilliant, but I haven’t developed quite the excitement for The Last of Us that many of my colleagues have. I’m a little post-apocalyptic’d out — the idea of traipsing through another story about how men become monsters in extreme circumstances leaves me lukewarm. Particularly worrisome was…

This is Not the Injustice: Gods Among Us You’re Waiting For, But It’s Not Too Shabby

As comic book and fighting game fans anxiously await the April 16 release of Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment deliver a tiny taste of the alternate-reality DC Universe battle royale in the form of a gorgeous little free fighter with collectible card tendencies. You won’t need a fighting stick…

What an Astoundingly Clever Way to Play Tekken

There are some incredibly sharp people out there who would truly enjoy playing Namco Bandai fighter Tekken competitive online, but lack the skills necessary to prevail against the lightning-fast reflexes of their peers. Tekken Card Tournament is the game for them. I nearly called this “The Thinking Man’s Tekken Game,” but that would suggest that…

BlizzCon 2013 ticketsgo on sale briefly on Wednesday, April 24, followed by another equally brief sale on Sunday, April 27. Chances are you won’t get any, but we’re rooting for you.

Toki Tori 2 hatches on the Wii U and the original Castlevania makes its big 3DS debut in this week’s Nintendo Download. Get your ghostly groove on with the full listright here.

Four Months Later the Official Hitman: Absolution Companion App Arrives

It’s all about timing in the companion app business. Some people might tell you that it’s best to get out a mobile application that keeps track of your performance, equipment and the latest right when the game is released — the sort of people who buy milk with their cookies so they can enjoy them…

You Are Only Sewing Skills Away From a Huggable, Functional Plush Game Controller

Okay, so you’ll also need some woven conductive cloth, a spool of conductive yarn and the FLORA wearable electronics platform, but the sewing is the hard part. Adafruit’s Becky Stern walks us through making an emulator-ready fluffy controller pal. Aside from making your own superhero costume, I can’t think of a better reason to learn…