Jason Schreier

Ice Cold

Goddamn, Peach. The Year of Luigi seems so far away. (Screenshot via an early copy of Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. We’ll have a review up later this week or next.)

Does Obama Collect Amiibo Or What [UPDATE: Wait]

This afternoon, U.S. president Barack Obama took interviews with a few YouTube celebrities, and hey wait a minute are those Amiibo? Does Obama collect Amiibo? Which do you think is his favorite? Does he really have TWO Luigis? UPDATE (4:37pm): Wait a minute. As our commenters have pointed out, these aren’t in fact Amiibo but…

Fox Is Rebooting 24 Without Jack Bauer, Which Is Horseshit

Fox announced today that they plan to launch a reboot of 24 without Jack Bauer, which is sort of like Konami making Metal Gear Solid without Hideo Kojima. It’s just not going to work. The new series is called 24: Legacy, asEW reports. It’ll star someone named “Eric Carter”—lmao—and they’re looking for a totally new…

Cool New Destiny Strategy: Go AFK

It is time once again for Destiny Trends, presented by well-known Destiny fan-site Kotaku dot com. Out: Strategizing with your teammates to carefully pick apart your opponents one by one as you try to win each hard-fought, grueling match of Trials of Osiris. In: Putting your controller down. (via r/destinythegame) You can reach the author…

Dark Cloud 2 Coming To PS4 Next Week

When Sony announced last month that the PS2 game Dark Cloud would be coming to PlayStation 4, the immediate reaction from most readers was to ask when Dark Cloud 2 is coming. Now we have an answer: January 19. Speaking on Sony’s PlayStation Blog podcast yesterday, the folks on Sony’s communication team announced that the…

The Unsung Story Kickstarter Is Still Breaking Promises

Two years after launch, Playdek’s Unsung Story remains one of the biggest Kickstarter disappointments to date, a $660,126 disaster that just keeps breaking promises. And now they’ve been MIA for three months. Originally pitched as a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics with the involvement of series creator Yasumi Matsuno, Unsung Story excited strategy fans…

Podcast: Learning To Love Speedrunning

Just what makes speedrunning so appealing? Why is it so much fun to watch people break the hell out of games we love? PODCAST TIME! Kotaku’s resident Australian Luke Plunkett joins me and Kirk on this week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen to talk about everything from Assassin’s Creed to Arkham Knight. We discuss the appeal…

ESPN Is Getting Into Esports

Earlier this month, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick declared that he wants to build the “ESPN of video games.” Turns out ESPN wants to do that too. Today, the sports conglomerate and Deadspin nemesis launched ESPN Esports, a vertical dedicated to competitive gaming. They haven’t gotten too specific about their plans, but they’ve got segments dedicated…

Video Games Raised $46 Million On Kickstarter Last Year

Video games took in $46,177,705 on Kickstarter in 2015, according to new stats released today by the crowdfunding company. That’s significantly more than 2014 but not quite as much as Kickstarter made from games in 2013. Close to 25% of that money came solely from Shenmue III and the Castlevania spiritual successor Bloodstained, which raised…

The children of Angolan resistance leader Jonas Savimbi are suing Activision over their father’s portrayal in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. They’re unhappy with the game making him out to be a “barbarian,” they say in the suit.

Watch Someone Murder Everyone In Undertale At Record Speed

Killing everyone in Undertale is a harrowing experience, one that will likely bring you to tears and lead you to question all of your life’s decisions. Unless you do it really fast Speedrunner TGH, who has spent the past few months trying to beat Toby Fox’s indie gem as quickly as possible, set a new…

Metal Gear Online PC Temporarily Disabled After Players Bypass Microtransactions

Well-known carpet distributor Konami has disabled the Metal Gear Online beta on PC following the discovery of an exploit that allowed players to get free MB coins, the in-game currency that costs real money. “Due to a possible exploit, we’ve removed access to the Beta temporarily while a hotfix is being prepared,” Konami community manager…

Fallout 4 Mod Gives You Actual Seasons

Forget nuclear winter—a new Fallout 4 mod for PC lets you play the whole game in actual winter. The Fallout 4 seasons mod (via Eurogamer) gives you access to spring, summer, fall, and winter, just in case you want to prance around like it’s football season all year long. This one’s pretty cool. Watch YouTuber…

We’re bringing back our regular “Video Game Industry Layoff Stories” feature, where we round up layoff stories from the volatile game industry. If you’re a game dev who wants to share a story—totally anonymously—e-mail me

EA Access Is Coming To PC

EA Access, a subscription program that allows people to play and download a variety of Electronic Arts games, is coming to PC, the publisher said today. The new plan is called Origin Access and it’ll offer everything that EA Access on Xbox One does: Free versions of old games; early access to brand new games;…

Failed $73,000 Kickstarter Offers Refunds (Sort Of)

In October of last year, the director of the video game Kickstarter Midora, which had raised $73,470 but run out of money, wrote in a backer update that he was looking for outside investments. Shockingly, he didn’t find any buyers—hard to imagine why investors wouldn’t want to latch onto a Kickstarter with no money—so now…

Destiny‘s Nightfall Is Totally Broken [UPDATE: Fixed]

These days, there aren’t a ton of reasons to bother with the Nightfall in Destiny, a video game about the power of true friendship. But if for some reason you do decide to take on this week’s Nightfall challenge, you won’t make it very far. Around halfway through the strike—The Sunless Cell, if you’re curious—after…

The PS2 version of Psychonauts will come to PS4 this spring, Double Fine announced today. Big year for Raz and crew.

Watch One Man Break The Hell Out Of Secret of Mana

There are few things more satisfying than watching someone tear apart one of your favorite childhood video games. Thanks to glitches, tricks, and the power of using two controllers at once, speedrunner Yagamoth blazed through the classic Square RPG Secret of Mana in under two hours at Awesome Games Done Quick 2016 last week. If…

If You Have Three Hours To Spare, Watch This Final Fantasy IV Speedrun

If you have a few extra hours today, spend them watching this three-and-a-half-hour speedrun of Final Fantasy IV, an RPG that was certainly not designed to be completed in fewer than four hours. Using a technique called step manipulation to determine exactly when each random encounter will spawn, AGDQ 2016 speedrunner nocashnocash is able to…