Heather Alexandra

AGDQ’s Shovel Knight Speedrun Race Was Tense

Speedrunning charity event Awesome Games Done Quick is in full swing and already producing some amazing runs. Yesterday, a speedrun race between two Shovel Knight players stole the show. Awesome Games Done Quick or AGDQ showcases some of the best speedrunners in a week long charity drive for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. In addition to…

Undertale Creator Shares Notebook Full Of Early Concepts And Art

Undertale creator Toby Fox took to social media yesterday to show off some early notes about the game’s creation. The notes feature early concepts for gameplay systems as well as early sketches of some beloved characters. The notes were scrawled in a notebook that Fox used in college. Some of the initial pages show the…

Apparent Leaked Footage Reveals Cancelled Mega Bloks Halo Game [Updated]

It seems that Master Chief almost ended up blasting Covenant made of Mega Bloks. After showing the Diddy Kong racing sequel that never was and a scrapped sequel to Oni, archivist Andrew Borman is now reporting on the prototype for Mega Bloks Halo in a new video on his YouTube channel Borman reports that the…

Up Close With The Nier Automata Demo’s Constantly Surprising Combat

Nier Automata put out one hell of a demo. Even though it is only around half an hour, it has better design that most full length titles from last year. The combat is a highlight and a few simple design techniques keep it fresh throughout. We take a closer look in this video. Transcript: NieR…

Let It Die‘s End of Level Replays Are Great

The world is confusing. No one tells you how to do a damn thing until it is too late. This happens in games too. It’s hard to know where mistakes were made. Let It Die’s end of level replays make it easy to grasp the big picture. Let It Die has been my major gaming…

California Has Become An Unstoppable Force In Let It Die‘s Multiplayer

Let It Die is full of tough enemies. Climbing the game’s massive tower is a dangerous affair. But thanks to the game’s multiplayer, there’s one monster that reigns above the rest: California. In Let It Die, players never fight each other directly. Instead, they are able to raid each other’s home base by riding the…

The Roguelike Platformer Where Anyone Can Lose A Limb

Catacomb Kids is a mix between a roguelike and a platformer, with equal parts magic potions and goomba stomps. You can also chop body parts off pretty much everything. It’s one heck of a challenge and a damn Cool Indie Game. Game designer Tyriq Plummer wanted to do many things with Catacomb Kids. He wanted…

Overwatch’s latest map, Oasis, is now live to the public. It is a control point map set in an advanced city in Iraq. Among some of its major features are jump pads and a bustling street full of traffic.

YouTuber Beats Final Fantasy XV At Level One With No Items

A determined player has beaten Final Fantasy XV without gaining a single level or using items. YouTuber BOYvsVIDEOGAME played through the entire game with nothing other than his skills and obsessive perseverance to sustain him. This isn’t the first time that BOYvsVIDEOGAME has completed a game under extreme conditions. He’scleared Dragon Age: Inquisition solo on…

The Nier: Automata Demo Lets Players Kill Themselves By Unequipping An Item

The demo for Nier: Automata released last week. Playing as a super fashionable android, players slice and dice their way through waves of robot enemies. But un-equipping one essential item gives an instant game over. The item in question is the OS Chip. In Nier: Automata, players can equip various skill chips to enable or…

A Game About Meeting Cool Weirdos At Train Stations

Traveling for the holidays, I spent a lot of time sitting in trains and waiting on platforms. In the real world, it’s a pretty dry affair. In The Endless Express, it’s full of charm. Strange sounds play as bright trains shuttle wobbling creatures to and fro. It’s relaxing and makes for a Cool Indie Game.…

Pirates Leak Pokémon Prism After Nintendo Shuts It Down

Pokémon Prism is a fan-made ROM hack for Pokémon Crystal. Over the course of eight years, creator Koolboyman and his team crafted a new Pokémon experience, which they hoped to release this Christmas. Nintendo hit them with a cease and desistfour days before release. Thanks to a group of pirates, the project still made it…

Battlefield 1‘s Christmas Truce Didn’t Quite Come Together

Battlefield 1 players hoping to recreate World War One’s Christmas truce couldn’t rein back the bloodlust of those eager to kill the fresh wave of new players. In real life, the Christmas Truce of 1914 was a near-miraculous cease fire across many fronts in World War One. It came after Pope Benedict XV suggested a…

The Stanley Parable is receiving a new update to remove a mysterious black obelisk found in one of its hidden endings. The ending in question requires players to partake in a four-hour-long joke mini-game. According to creator Davey Wreden, the strange obelisk is actually the result of a bug.

On Its Fifth Anniversary, Star Wars The Old Republic Is Interesting Again

Star Wars: The Old Republic is celebrating its five year anniversary right now and has added some major changes. BioWare’s narrative heavy online experience keeps expanding. Last year, they began a large storyline that’s continuing forward in the new Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion. I sat down with producer Ben Irving to talk about…

Heather Alexandra’s Top Ten Games Of 2016

If there’s one thing I do for this site, it’s play a ton of games. 2016 was an amazing year and offered some of the best video games in recent memory. I sat down to list my personal favorites for our year in review. 10. Tyranny Obsidian’s latest RPG is compelling and prescient given today’s…

Another Pokémon Fan Game Says Nintendo Shut Them Down

The creator of Pokémon Prism, afan made hack for Pokémon Crystal that was due to release on Christmas, says he’s received a cease-and-desist from Nintendo and will have to shut down the project for good. On Twitter early this morning, Pokémon Prism creator Koolboyman broke the news and shared a copy of the letter he…

Our Thoughts On Overwatch‘s Tracer Being Gay

With the release of Overwatch’s holiday comic, gamers saw the game’s first openly gay character: Tracer. Many of us here at Kotaku, an Overwatch fansite, took time to sit down and reflect on how Blizzard has treated the topic of diversity in our favorite team based shooter. Update—5:40 p.m.: Shortly after publication, Blizzard sent Kotaku…

Telltale’s The Walking Dead: A New Frontier Is Off To A Great Start

I’m a staunch defender of Telltale’s The Walking Dead’s less popular second season. It served as a sort of zombie bildungsroman for Clementine, a coming of age story after the end. But for all the season’s strong character beats, it lacked a sense of forward momentum. The third season, A New Frontier, breathes some much-needed…

It Took Five Years For One Man To Find The First NES Advertisement

A neat little piece of gaming history has been archived in full thanks to preservationist efforts. The original advertisement for the Nintendo Entertainment System has been catalogued after a five year search. Archivist Frank Cifaldi managed to get his hands on an issue of Consumer Electronics containing the advertisement after an extended search period. The…