Heather Alexandra

Metal Gear Solid 2 Retrospective: Be Careful What You Wish For

The initial technological threat in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is Metal Gear RAY. It is an “anti-Metal Gear,” a mech designed to destroy what came before. It is singularly focused on destroying the past, and so is Metal Gear Solid 2. This game is the anti-Metal Gear game. It is the great…

Tips For Playing Resident Evil 3

The Resident Evil 3 remake is jam-packed with zombies and giant lizard beasts eager to rip your throat out. Oh yeah, there’s also this big fella called the Nemesis who wants to bust your skull. It can be daunting on an initial playthrough. Here are some tips to keep you alive as you escape from…

Staaarrrrsss… I’m streaming through Resident Evil 3 right now on Twitch. Keeping it pretty chill even if an unstoppable Nemesis is gonna chase me. Come join chat to talk about zombies, sandwiches and whatever else!

Resident Evil 3: The Kotaku Review

About five minutes into the Resident Evil 3 remake, I uttered the word “brilliant.” I don’t use that word often. I don’t know if I should have used it then. Brilliance is an incredibly rare thing, but Resident Evil 3 hooked me from the start. So I used the word. It is an explosive game…

Even Final Fantasy XIV Is Freezing House Evictions

Final Fantasy XIV has one of the most competitive housing markets in an online game. Buying a cozy digital home requires lots of money and the patience to fight with other players—including big guilds and bot owners—to place a bid on a home. If you don’t use it, you also lose it. In light of…

Star Wars Episode I Racer is coming to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. There is no release date yet but it remains an underrated classic. Curious about it? Here’s a post we did in 2018about how great it was.

Doom Eternal: The Kotaku Review

2016’s Doom reimagined the classic shooter into a frantic but modern mold. The bloody escapades of the Doom Slayer were rife with bullets and guts. It was a grimy video game hamburger. Doom Eternal is bigger and bloodier, almost to the point of excess. It’s the same hamburger dipped into a vat of delicious special…

Nioh 2 Shocked Me At The Buzzer With A Throwback To The Original

Nioh 2 isone of the most exciting gamesI’ve ever played. A lot of that is thanks to a fantastic combat system where each battle is a tense yet intuitive slash-fest. But Nioh 2 is also a smart prequel that plays around with characters that players might know from Nioh. That playfulness comes to a head…

Staaarrrs! I’ve made the questionable decision to stream the Resident Evil 3 demo right now on Twitch. Come for zombies and scares, but also to relax and chat. Let’s chill and play some games, y’know?

Physical Copies Of Final Fantasy VII Remake May Be Delayed Due To Pandemic

The current covid-19 pandemic has left many things uncertain. As businesses struggle to adjust to the situation, video game publishers are preparing players for unexpected disruptions to their gaming plans. Square-Enix is now cautioning players that while the Final Fantasy VII Remake will release as planned, physical copies might not reach everyone who ordered them.…

Phantasy Star Online 2 Shows Its Age, But It’s Still Great

Phantasy Star Online 2’s open beta kicked off on the Xbox One last night. The loot-gathering, monster-bashing multiplayer game originally released in 2012 but never came to the West. How does it feel eight years later? A little clunky but oddly addictive. Phantasy Star, which started on the Sega Master System in the 1980s, is…

Rebuilding A Virtual City As The Real World Crumbles

It’s a very strange time in the world right now, to say the least. As the world’s governments address covid-19, there’s one major nation that’s been dragging its feet: the United States of America. As Wall Street receives cash injections while workers worry about losing their jobs, it’s fallen to local communities to look after…

Nioh 2: The Kotaku Review

The Dark Souls formula is tried and true. It’s been adapted into science fiction settings, placed into 2D, and refined time and time again. 2017’s Nioh is arguably the most successful spin on the genre, adding flashy combat and the turbulent politics of medieval Japan. Nioh 2 is an improvement on every front. There’s no…

Heather is settling in for some deviously delicious demon demolishing in Nioh 2 right now on Twitch Come for character creation, katanas, and more.

In Defense Of Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII is ten years old today, which means that 2019 is officially running out of ways to remind us of our mortality. It was a controversial entry in the Final Fantasy series, shifting the series’ usual approach to combat and ditching old traditions to tell a techno-thriller story starring deeply flawed heroes. To…

Castlevania’s Third Season Is A Violent Slow Burn

By the end of its second season, Netflix’s Castlevania show seemed to have reached its apex. Dracula was defeated, and the story—largely based on the NES’ Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse—was over. Season three could have gone in a lot of directions. It ends up focusing on the characters that viewers have come to know and…

Planet’s dyin’ Cloud! I’m streaming the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo alongside Highlight Reel maven Chris Person right now on Twitch. Join us to talk about mako reactors and how Shinra is ruining the damn world!

Maverick, one of EA’s Star Wars projects, has apparently leaked onto the PlayStation Network. Kotaku can confirm that this is EA Motive’s “smaller, more unusual project” we previously reported on in February.

How Speedrunners Can Now Beat Ocarina of Time In Under Eight Minutes

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, one of the most beloved games of all time, has always had a devoted community of speedrunners—people who try to complete the game as quickly as humanly possible. Ocarina of Time, released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64, usually takes around 20-30 hours to finish. Using bugs and…

Battlefront II‘s New Update Makes Ewoks Scary

Star Wars Battlefront II was limited at launch in 2017 but has expanded since to add battles from the Clone Wars and odd new hero characters. The latest update brings two new specialized units: the cunning Imperial Security Bureau agent and a small Ewok scout. Both are deadly, but the Ewok is a special kind…