Jason Schreier

Why We Love The Disaster Artist

The Disaster Artist, the incredible true-ish story behind the making of one of the worst movies of all time, came out in theaters earlier this month. Allow me and Gita to tell you why it’s fantastic. Jason Schreier: Gita, today we are going to talk about The Disaster Artist, which might be my favorite movie…

Assassin’s Creed Origins Is Better If You Play It Slowly

Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, we’re revisiting our predictions for 2017 and seeing what we got right (aka: mostly wrong). We also talk about Danganronpa V3, Leeroy Jenkins, and the delights of Assassin’s Creed Origins First up, Kirk and I go through the news of the week, talking about Final Fantasy’s 30th anniversary, the truth behind Leeroy…

How To Stop Ads From Appearing On Your PS4 Homepage

If you’re a PS4 owner, you may turn on your console today and find a surprise home-page advertisement for Destiny 2, a video game in which players travel through space, battling against adversaries like the Fallen, the Cabal, and the Eververse. Here’s an easy way to stop that from happening: 1) On your home screen,…

The U.S. Is Way Behind On The Trails Series

In a world where Japanese publishers have finally started to embrace global simultaneous releases, and there’s no longer much stress over whether we’ll see niche role-playing games come to the West, one series remains woefully behind: Trails, also known as Kiseki, also known as the best JRPG series out there. Falcom, the prolific studio behind…

ROM Hacker Adds Color To Super Mario Land 2

Super Mario Land 2 is one of the more underrated games in Nintendo’s library, with a suite of interesting ideas and some truly weird levels. It was even the first Mario game to let you go to the moon. And now it’s in color. Thanks to ROM hacker toruzz, you can now play a sleek,…

Gaming PC Names Are Truly Embarrassing

I am in the market for a brand new gaming PC—thank you Kirk Hamilton—so today I decided to start browsing a bit. And I discovered the glory of video game PC branding. It’s sort of like Taco Bell crossed with Hot Topic. Here is a list of actual names of actual gaming PCs that you…

The Year In JRPGs, 2017

From Tales to Dragon Quest to a brand flippin’ new Persona, this has been a stellar year for Japanese role-playing games. We’ve come a long way from the dark days of, like, 2012. Perhaps this year’s biggest news for anyone who cares even the slightest about JRPGs is the success of Nintendo’s Switch. For nearly…

Four Years Later, Destiny‘s Music Of The Spheres Has Leaked [UPDATE]

In late 2013, veteran Bungie composer Marty O’Donnell finished Music of the Spheres, an eight-part musical work designed to be released alongside Destiny. It never came out. But today, thanks to an anonymous leaker, the elusive work is finally on the internet—at least until the copyright strikes hit. Composed by O’Donnell, his partner Michael Salvatori,…

Nintendo Eshop Goes Down For Christmas

As thousands (tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?) of people wake up this morning to find Nintendo Switches under their Christmas trees (Hanukkah bushes? Kwanzaa shrubs?), they are discovering that they can’t actually download any new games. For the past three hours, trying to log into the eShop has resulted in an error message with…

The Makers Of ‘Leeroy Jenkins’ Didn’t Think Anyone Would Believe It Was Real

It was one of the first memes ever, a viral sensation that went mainstream back when people still used dial-up internet. Yet the cameraman behind “Leeroy Jenkins” still seems stupefied that anyone fell for it. “We didn’t think anyone would believe it was real, we thought it was so obviously satire,” said Ben “Anfrony” Vinson…

Jason Schreier’s Top 10 Games Of 2017

This year, I published a book, fell in love with a brand new hardware system, and played a ton of video games. Here are the best ten. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild What else is there to say? Breath of the Wild is the greatest game of the year and perhaps the…

Podcast: Every Video Game Of 2017, Part Two

It is time for part two of our annual Kotaku Splitscreen tradition, where we talk about EVERY VIDEO GAME OF THE YEAR. This week, Kirk and I go from July to December, covering this summer’s gems (Pyre, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age) and then getting into the big games of fall, from Star Wars…

Xenoblade 2 gets a patch today that tweaks a few small things. You’ll get an extra zoomed-in map overlay when you press L3, and hitting X will now open the fast travel menu right at the area you’re in. “Tiger Tiger” gets an easy mode and there are a bunch of bug fixes. Sadly, this…

The Switch Gets An Excellent 2D Zelda Clone Today

Nintendo has not yet released a two-dimensional Zelda game for the Switch, but Blossom Tales is as close as you’re gonna get. If you’re looking for a new action-adventure to scratch that Link to the Past itch, this one’s for you. Blossom Tales, which came out for Steam earlier this year but is now on…

Apple Says Apps Must Now Disclose Odds For Loot Boxes

Apple announced a sweeping revision to the guidelines for its App Store yesterday, which now includes a provision that loot boxes must be transparent about their odds. “Apps offering ‘loot boxes’ or other mechanisms that provide randomized virtual items for purchase must disclose the odds of receiving each type of item to customers prior to…

SaGa Frontier Director Says Ending In The Middle Of The Final Boss Was Intentional

Square Enix’s Akitoshi Kawazu, director of the SaGa series, says he doesn’t want to go back to Final Fantasy. He hopes to bring more SaGa games to the West. And, believe it or not, that jarring ending to Blue’s campaign in SaGa Frontier was totally intentional. In 2016, Square released a mobile remake of Romancing…

Final Fantasy Is 30 Years Old

Final Fantasy and I have a lot in common. We’re both charming, aging rapidly, and occasionally haunted by anime ladies. Also, we both turned 30 this year. On December 18, 1987, the company formerly known as Square released Final Fantasy, a desperate game that mixed Dragon Quest with Lord of the Rings and added a…

Destiny 2‘s Lack Of Transparency Infuriates Players Yet Again [UPDATE]

There is a certain routine that every dramatic Destiny incident follows, and it popped up yet again this weekend thanks to a visit from everyone’s favorite tentacle-faced alien. The steps go as follows: 1) The game is opaque about a feature. On Friday, Destiny 2 re-introduced the Three of Coins, a consumable item from the…

Podcast: Every Video Game Of 2017, Part One

It is time once again for an annual Kotaku Splitscreen tradition: going through EVERY VIDEO GAME OF THE YEAR. This week, Kirk and I talk about all the major game releases in January, February, March, April, May, and June, a list that includes Persona 5, Horizon Zero Dawn, the Nintendo Switch, and many more gems.…

Episode Ignis Fills In More Of Final Fantasy XV‘s Blanks

Like Final Fantasy XV’s previous two pieces of downloadable content, Episode Ignis is short, action-packed, and exists to explain an unresolved plot point from the main game. This time, we get to learn how our boy Iggy got… changed. Episode Ignis, which takes place right in the middle of Final Fantasy XV’s Chapter 9, is…