Jason Schreier

Dishonored‘s first piece of DLC, “Dunwall City Trials,” is out today. The PlayStation Blog’s got more details

Samuel L. Jackson Says He Likes Assassin’s Creed Better Than Pong

Sometimes you see Samuel L. Jackson walking down the red carpet at the Spike VGAs. And sometimes you feel compelled to ask him random questions about video games. Even if you get the feeling he doesn’t actually play video games.

Thirteen Things You Should Know About Metro: Last Light

The first thing I thought, while checking out Metro: Last Light during a demo presentation in a Manhattan hotel a few weeks ago, was “Another grey shooter? Seriously?” The second thing I thought was “Gee, this actually looks kind of neat.” The third thing I thought was “Okay, now I want to play the first…

You Can Buy Every Super Nintendo Game For Just $25,000

Just look at that list. This eBay user says he’s got all 721 Super Nintendo games ever released in the U.S., and he wants to sell them to you at the bargain-bin price of $25,000. “You are bidding on a complete set of every North American Super Nintendo (SNES) game ever released,” he writes. “This…

Internal Squabbles Made Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Better

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a fascinating game, a frenetic hybrid between Metal Gear and Bayonetta that trades in the cardboard box for a cyborg katana. It’s also gone through some serious trials and tribulations. For Rising, or Revengeance, or Raiden’s Rad Rampage or whatever you want to call it, development has not been easy.…

Valve Wants To Get Dota 2 Running On Tablets

Dota 2 on your iPad? It could happen. At the VGAs on Friday night, I asked Valve boss Gabe Newell if they were working on any interesting software projects. He said they were indeed. “We were working on getting Dota 2 running on some tablets,” he said. “That ended up being kind of a disappointment.…

Gabe Newell: Living Room PCs Will Compete With Next-Gen Consoles

Steam’s Big Picture mode was just the first step: according to Valve boss Gabe Newell, you’ll be able to buy a living-room-friendly PC package next year. Speaking to me during a brief interview on the red carpet at the VGAs last night, Newell said Valve’s current goal was to figure out how to make PCs…

No Random Encounters this week — sorry folks! Jason’s out in LA and had no time to put together a column this week.

Twelve Things You Should Know About Metal Gear Rising

This week in Los Angeles, Konami threw a three-day event to show off Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the oddly-titled action game they’re developing in conjunction with Platinum Games, the folks behind Bayonetta and Vanquish Although Kotaku typically turns down these sort of publisher-paid press events, I happened to be in Los Angeles this week anyway,…

Skyrim: Dragonborn: The Kotaku Review

I’ve never played Morrowind, but when people rave about it—usually in sentences punctuated with faux outrage and admonishments like “How have you never played Morrowind???”—they like to play up its creative, bizarre world, a place where gods interact with mortals on a regular basis and wizards live in houses carved out of overgrown mushrooms. Skyrim‘s…

This Is What It Looks Like To Ride A Dragon In Skyrim

Shot this afternoon, here’s what it looks like to ride a dragon in the world of Skyrim. You get this ability toward the end of Dragonborn, the new DLC that came out today for Bethesda’s open-world RPG. It’s kind of… disappointing. It doesn’t seem like you can actually control the dragon very much, so don’t…

Dragonborn Is The First Skyrim DLC That Actually Feels Like An Expansion

When Skyrim first came out, Bethesda had lofty promises for the game’s downloadable content. Skyrim‘s DLC will feel like expansion packs, the developers assured us. Reality has told a different story. Skyrim‘s first DLC, Dawnguard, was a disappointing add-on filled with boring, samey quests. The second DLC, Hearthfire, was basically Barbie’s Playhouse with dragons Third…

There’s a demo for PS3 role-playing game Ni no Kuni going live on the PlayStation Network today. Go check it out!

New Method for Fighting Malaria: Enlist Gamers

Video games! They’re not just for killin’ people. You can also use them to kill malaria. A recent study, published by a group of scientists in Spain, has concluded that a crowdsourced video game can be an effective way to identify and analyze malaria-causing parasites in the blood stream. How? Easy. Get a bunch of…

Steam’s Big Picture Is Now Out Of Beta. To Celebrate, Here’s A Steam Sale.

It’s official: Steam’s TV-friendly Big Picture mode is now live, out of beta, and ready for your living room. To celebrate, Valve is marking down a bunch of controller-friendly games on Steam. Games on sale include Left 4 Dead, Limbo, and Alan Wake. You can see the whole sale here Here’s the full press release,…

This Kickstarter looks like the Dungeon Keeper spiritual successor I’ve always wanted. They want £150,000.

Leaker Shows Off Supposed Skyrim: Dragonborn Screenshots, Details

Skyrim‘s next piece of downloadable content, Dragonborn, is out tomorrow for Xbox 360. Can’t wait til then? One person claiming to be a beta tester has sent some screenshots and alleged details about the new DLC to the website TheOuthousers.com. I’ve asked Bethesda whether or not this stuff is real, and will update if they…

Unlike previous Skyrim DLC, Dragonborn will actually make it to PS3, according to Bethesda. Expect it early next year.

Kickstarter Won’t Bend The Rules For Game That Missed Its Goal By $28

Over the weekend, a Kickstarter for a game called Alpha Colony missed its goal of $50,000 by $28. Twenty-eight dollars! By Kickstarter’s rules, the project should get zero funding, but would they make an exception for a bizarrely unfortunate situation like this? I reached out to Kickstarter this morning to ask. “That’s really, really uncommon,”…

Banned From Making Money, These YouTubers Share Their Stories

Last week, after I reported on Nick Reineke’s ban from YouTube’s AdSense service because of an over-zealous fan, two strange things happened. The first: just a few minutes after the story ran, Reineke sent me an e-mail to say that YouTube had reinstated his AdSense account. They didn’t say a word; he just found that…