Jason Schreier

You Can Beat Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes In Ten Minutes

The new Metal Gear Solid is short. Really short. Kirk called it “a sliver of a larger, more complete game,” and even Hideo Kojima admitted last year that it’d have been ideal if Ground Zeroes was part of the real Metal Gear Solid V, which will be out at some undetermined point in the future.…

XCOM‘s Creator Wants To Make A New Strategy Game

Julian Gollop, the Bulgaria-based designed best known for creating the original XCOM game, has just launched a Kickstarter for a new “wizard tactics” game called Chaos Reborn Wizard tactics! Awesome. Here’s Gollop describing the game: Based on my cult classic ZX Spectrum game ‘Chaos’, first published in 1985 by Games Workshop, Chaos Reborn is part…

RollerCoaster Tycoon Is Back, And Fans Aren’t Happy

Atari announced today that they plan to revive RollerCoaster Tycoon, a series of video games in which you invite people to a theme park and figure out how to properly murder them. But RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile, as it will be called, isn’t the proper PC game that fans might have expected. Instead it will…

The Good And Bad Of South Park‘s Combat

There was a point in South Park: The Stick of Truth—somewhere between performing an abortion and farting on Nazi zombies—when it occurred to me that Obsidian’s new RPG isn’t just ridiculous—it’s also kind of brilliant. Much has been made about Stick of Truth‘s impeccable comic timing—and it is impeccable!—but just as impressive is the game’s…

Bravely Default‘s Success Is Good News For JRPG Fans

Nintendo announced last night that Bravely Default, the excellent role-playing game released last month for 3DS, sold over 200,000 copies in three weeks in the United States. Sales numbers can sometimes be misleading or difficult to properly contextualize, and while that’d be peanuts for an AAA console game, it’s a great number for a handheld…

Layoffs Hit Popcap

Popcap, the EA-owned game studio behind Plants vs. Zombies, has just laid off a number of employees, Kotaku has learned. One source pegs the cuts at 30-40 people, and we hear the company has been gradually laying people off for the past year. EA won’t confirm the number, but they did send over a statement…

The Final Fantasy Type-0 Fan Translation Comes Out In August

The story of Final Fantasy Type-0 is long and depressing: released for PSP in 2011, Square Enix’s role-playing game never made it outside of Japan, despite being announced at E3 in North America, and for years now, fans have been wondering whether we’ll ever get to play it in English. (Adding insult to injury: I’ve…

Eight Minutes Of New Footage From Infamous: Second Son

The PS4’s first big exclusive is out next week, and here’s some shiny new footage to celebrate, featuring superpowers, exploding vehicles, and haters. Infamous: Second Son is out next Friday. PS4 only.

Here’s a new developer diary for Alien: Isolation, which comes out later this year for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

Come See Kotaku At PAX East

Dear friends, frenemies, straight-up bad guys, and anyone else who reads Kotaku—if you are headed to Boston for PAX East next month, be sure to catch our panel: Kotaku’s Incredible Fantastic Panel Extravaganza XVIII-2. We’ll be hanging out, talking about video games, taking questions, and maybe even bringing some surprises—if you’ve ever wanted to see…

Sony Takes Another Shot At Xbox Policies

It’s been a while since we’ve seen any mud-slinging in World Console War V, but Sony took another shot tonight, going after Microsoft’s controversial console parity policy. Although many independent developers have praised Microsoft for ramping up its indie support on Xbox One with the new ID@Xbox program, some have criticized the Xbox maker for…

Charity Helps Disabled Gamer Complete GTA V

Here’s a lovely little story: Lee, a British gamer with spinal muscular atrophy, was able to play and complete Grand Theft Auto V thanks to the British charity Special Effect. His testimony is worth your time—it’s interesting and poignant. Video above. (via Tim Schafer)

An Epic Adventure To Fix The Internet (Voiced By Sterling Archer)

I could listen to H. Jon Benjamin—the voice of Sterling Archer and Bob Belcher—read just about anything, which is why I’ve watched this silly video three times already this morning. This video is an adaptation of a McSweeney’s story of the same name. (thanks, Greg!)

Hearthstone is “like, really fun,” Blizzard just announced in a press release. Also, the card game is out of beta now, and free-to-play for all

The JRPG-styled Earthlock: Festival of Magic—formerly just called Festival of Magic—is back on Kickstarter after a failed campaign last year. Now they’re asking for $150,000 in an attempt to bring the colorful RPG to PC and consoles next year.

The Man Who Promised Too Much

Peter Molyneux is crying. I’m not sure how to react to this. Legendary game designers don’t often get emotional with the press. But here’s Molyneux, who has made so many games and done so many interviews over the past two decades, openly weeping into my voice recorder. We’re talking about promises. Molyneux, who has helped…

Watch Telltale’s Entire Borderlands Panel Here

In case you weren’t at SXSW this weekend—and my deepest apologies if you were—Telltale has recorded their full panel on Tales from the Borderlands, the upcoming adventure game set in Gearbox’s sci-fi world. Watch the whole thing up above for more details on Tales from the Borderlands, which will include comedy, shooting, and that smart,…

Indie Hit Gone Home Comes To Consoles This Year

Indie adventure Gone Home, which made waves last year on PC, is coming to consoles later this year, the developers at Fullbright Games announced today. The game will be published by independent publisher Midnight City—run by former IGN boss Casey Lynch—and they haven’t yet specified which consoles, though it’ll be a digital release.

Unnecessary Censorship Makes The Last of Us Much Grosser

“Sorry for ****ing your horse.” This semi-spoilery censored take on The Last of Us, put together by YouTuber NormalDifficulty, is both funny and disgusting. Enjoy.

Some Things Never Change

Here’s an excerpt from the magazine Computer Gaming World, reporting on E3 1997. Replace “real-time strategy” with “first-person shooters” and bump up the numbers a little bit—50-75MB!—and this could be from 2014. Some trends just don’t go away. (Facebook, via NeoGAF)