Mike Fahey

Meow-troid? Cat-slevania? Either Way, Gato Roboto Is Excellent

A space pilot named Gary crash-lands on a small planet, gets stuck in his ship, and sends his cat (who caused the crash in the first place) on a retro platforming adventure to find help. A real cat would lick itself and fall asleep, but this is no real cat. This is Gato Roboto, monochrome…

Apple’s 150 MB App Download Cap Raised To 200 MB, Still Dumb

Apple’s annoying 150 megabyte data cap for downloading apps and games over cellular connections is 50 MB less annoying this week but still doesn’t give phone owners the option to ignore it. So, yay, but also boo. Finding out a cool new game has been released on the iTunes App Store, purchasing it, and then…

Crystal Crisis Is The Sequel Puzzle Fighter Fans Deserve

In 1996 Capcom released Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, a competitive puzzle game featuring chibi versions of Street Fighter and Darkstalkers characters. The closest Capcom’s gotten to making a sequel is a failed free-to-play mobile game. It’s cool, though. Indie developer Nicalis just released Crystal Crisis, and it’s all current-gen gem-fighting fans could possibly need.…

DIY Retro Gaming Handheld Is As Fun To Build As It Is To Play

This is the GameShell, a retro gaming handheld that I built from a kit. I clipped and trimmed the plastic pieces, inserted the circuit boards, connected the wires and snapped it all together. It plays old games, emulated titles and homebrew software. It’s pleasing that something I built does those things. The folks at Clockwork…

New Pet Sim For Switch Is No Nintendogs But It’s Still Better Than My Real Dog

This is Pootie, my Shiba Inu from Little Friends: Dogs & Cats, which is out this week for Nintendo Switch. He’s not the best frisbee catcher in the world and often misbehaves during walkies, but I still like him better than my actual, real-life dog, and not just because he has no butthole. Despite how…

Streets Of Rage 2 Champ Pulls Off Nigh Impossible No Death Mania Run

Speedrunner Anthopants is one of the best Streets of Rage players in the world, but even he couldn’t complete Streets of Rage 2 on Mania difficulty as the character Max without dying…until this weekend, that is, when he downed the final boss with a mere sliver of health left. His reaction upon becoming the first…

PlayStation exclusive no more, Thatgamecompany’s otherworldly adventure Journey arrives on PC June 6 via the Epic Game Store Now PC gamers will be able to experience the joy of briefly becoming best friends with total strangers.

Mortal Kombat 11, One Month Later

It’s been one month since the release of Mortal Kombat 11. One month of arguing over microtransactions. One month ofnightmare-inducing violence. One month of cringingevery time Sonya Blade opens her mouth. The first month of what’s sure to be years of very good fighting. Here’s what happened in that month. On April 20, three days…

The People Who Published Firewatch Are Now Making A Game Console With, Uh, A Crank

Playdate is a new portable gaming system from app developer Panic, coming in early 2020. It has a glossy black and white screen with no backlight. Along with a directional pad and A and B buttons, it sports a rotatable crank that pops out of the right side of the unit. Instead of buying games,…

Lapis X Labyrinth Lights Up My Life

In Lapis X Labyrinth, NIS America’s new dungeon crawler coming to PlayStation 4 and Switch on May 28, a totem-like stack of four adorable adventurers dive into dungeons, seeking their fortune. It’s cute and chaotic, until the fever meter fills, at which point it gets even more cute and chaotic The music changes, the scenery…

Team Sonic Racing: The Kotaku Review

While it’s true that kart racing clashes with the idea of a character who runs super-fast, Sonic the Hedgehog is less likely to trip up when he’s driving a vehicle. Developer Sumo Digital proves that statement true a third time with Team Sonic Racing, a very good kart racer with a game-changing co-op twist. This…

My Seven-Year-Old’s First MMO

After playing massively multiplayer online games for over two decades, it’s time to pass the legacy on to my offspring. My seven-year-old son Seamus is playing Adventure Academy, a new educational MMO that teaches him important skills like quest log management, maximizing experience point gain and buying cosmetic items. And probably some math, science, and…

Three Of The Most Obscure Transformers Have Been Modernized For 2019

The Firecons are far from the best-known Transformers ever made. Released in 1988, the little robots that turned into spark-spitting monsters were nobody’s Optimus Prime, Megatron or Omega Supreme. And now, suddenly, 31 years later, they’re making a comeback. Flamefeather, Cindersaur and Sparkstalker are returning in remade form in the upcoming Siege expansion to the…

Family Life Has Turned One Of World Of Warcraft’s Greatest Heroes Into Mel Gibson

In the latest cinematic trailer for World of Warcraft, orc leader Varok Saurfang travels to Outland in search of legendary Horde warchief Thrall, who retired with his wife and children following the events of the Legion expansion. What Saurfang finds is green Mel Gibson, but is it Braveheart Mel Gibson or The Patriot Mel Gibson?…

Pokémon Rumble Rush Is As Basic As Pocket Monster Battling Gets

The mobile game formerly known as Pokéland and now called Pokémon Rumble Rush is out today for Australian Google Play users. While the rest of the world waits for the latest mobile Pokémon game to come their way, we nipped off to Aussie Android land to give it a go. It’s pretty simple free-to-play fare.…

Sniper Elite V2 Doesn’t Hold Up, Even In Pretty Remaster Form

Boy do I love Sniper Elite 4. Those beautiful, wide-open environments, spending a couple hours carefully navigating a map in order to make the most kills while alerting as few enemies as possible, enemy soldiers reacting more realistically than ever—it’s so good. But going back to play Sniper Elite V2—even a lovely, remastered version—is a…

One Of The Coolest Rhythm Games Ever, Now On Switch

Originally released for iOS and Android way back in 2012, Rayark’s Cytus is one of the sleekest, most stylish rhythm games out there. Today it’s out on the Switch as Cytus Alpha, and with more than 200 songs (including previously unreleased tracks), a cool sci-fi story and the ability to play with buttons instead of…

The hell we asked for is nearly upon us. World of Warcraft Classic goes live on August 27, bringing the good old days of endless grinding and major inconvenience to Blizzard’s venerable online role-playing game. Hit up the official website to see how to opt-in to monthly stress tests, before the real stress begins.

The tiny world of Polyarc’s mouse-based virtual reality game is getting bigger. Moss’ Twilight Garden expansion adds a new chapter to Quill’s adventure, with more puzzles and enemies to defeat and equipment to earn. The free update launches with the Oculus Quest on May 21 and comes to other VR platforms in June.

Lovely Japanese massively multiplayer role-playing game Caravan Stories comes to North American PS4s on July 23, with open beta kicking off July 16. The free-to-play game has a huge following in Japan. I’ve been fiddling with the Japanese version, which has English language support, and it’s very nice.