Jason Schreier

Hypnotizing

Destiny: The Taken King Leaves Players Who Didn’t Upgrade Behind

Are you a Destiny player with no interest in buying The Taken King? You might want to find another game to play. As it turns out, The Taken King doesn’t just add a ton of excellent new stuff to Bungie’s ambitious MMO-shooter—it also locks out much of the old content both in PVE and PVP.…

Let’s Try To Decipher Activision’s Destiny Puffery

Here is a coded message from Activision, sent via press release this morning: SANTA MONICA, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Bungie and Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI), announced today that Destiny: The Taken King broke the record for the most downloaded day-one game in PlayStation history and set a new…

Dear Lord, Persona 5 Looks Incredible

You know what helps alleviate the pain of Persona 5’s big delay? This ridiculous trailer, which features the characters of Atlus’s upcoming cat RPG climbing things, jumping into paintings, and playing baseball. Looks like the characters will live in a big city this time around, where apparently they’ll go on stealth missions and run screaming…

Final Fantasy Adventure Gets Yet Another Remake

Final Fantasy Adventure, which came out in 1991 for the Game Boy and was actually not a Final Fantasy game but instead the predecessor to Secret of Mana, got a remake in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance called Sword of Mana, which isn’t a strict remake but in fact overhauls just about everything from…

Metal Gear Solid V Fan’s Comic Ending Is Better Than The Real Thing

Metal Gear Solid V is an excellent video game with a terrible ending. You may have heard this before Fortunately, we’ve got fan artists! Illustrator Cody Shaw, who runs all sorts of video game art on his Tumblr, drew this wonderful comic that ties a nice, satisfying bow on The Phantom Pain. It’s got GIANT…

Destiny: The Taken King Kicks Ass So Far

When Destiny first launched, it was a half-baked, punishing game with the barest hint of a story, delivered through crummy dialogue and repetitive missions that tasked you with shooting endless waves of enemies. One year later, everything’s changed. I’ve spent much of the past 24 hours powering through Destiny’s big Year Two expansion, The Taken…

Turns out Square Enix’s Project Setsuna—announced at E3 this year—is an old-school JRPG. Looks great. Almost Chrono Trigger-ish? And that music! I’ll take it.

Destiny‘s New Missions Are Way Better Than The Old Ones

I spent this morning powering through the first main story quest of Destiny: The Taken King, a video game about how cool Nathan Fillion is. I am happy to declare that everything about it is excellent. We’ll have day-one impressions later tonight—and a full review much later, once we’ve played through the raid—but for now,…

Watch Us Play Destiny: The Taken King [UPDATE: Over]

This morning, we’re streaming Destiny, a video game that exits beta and launches today. As of publication time, I haven’t touched anything in The Taken King, which went live this morning at 5am ET. So come join me and let’s see what this whole Destiny Year Two thing is all about. I’ll be streaming for…

We Talk About Metal Gear Solid V And Final Fantasy VI

Today we’d like to introduce Kotaku’s Splitscreen, a brand new video podcast hosted by us, Kirk Hamilton and Jason Schreier. You know. The two dopes up there. In our pilot episode, which you can watch right here, we talk about Metal Gear Solid V, Final Fantasy VI, and what we’d do if we were in…

Why Metal Gear Solid V‘s Ending Is So Disappointing

Metal Gear Solid V is a stellar game, with top-notch stealth action and a malleable world that leads to all sorts of memorable moments. Too bad the ending is such a mess. As I explained in my review—which you can read here—the latest Metal Gear Solid is saddled with incomprehensible characters and an unsatisfying, unfinished…

Final Fantasy V is coming to PC on September 24, Square Enix says. Looks like it’ll use those awful smudgey graphics from the iOS version, unfortunately. This version will also include the extra dungeon (Sealed Temple) and secret boss (Enuo).

GTA Online is getting some new public activities—they’re called Freemode Events, and our friends at Kotaku UK say they’re rad. Go read Kotaku UK’s impressionsfor more info.

Miyamoto Confirms That Super Mario Bros. 3 Was A Play

One of my favorite video game theories to emerge over the past few years is that Super Mario Bros. 3, with its hanging blocks and curtains, was actually just a stage performance. Turns out, according to Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, the theory is true If you’re not familiar with the theory, or by some chance…

Apple’s So-Called Gaming Console Is A Major Bust

For six years now, soothsaying analysts and bloggers have predicted that the rise of easy, affordable iOS games would dominate the gaming market and render consoles obsolete. Nintendo is dead, too, they’d say. And PC gaming. Even today, as the PC thrives and the PS4 and Xbox One have outperformed most game publishers’ expectations, the…

Apple TV Is Getting A Gaming Remote

Announced today at Apple’s live event in California, here’s the new Apple TV remote, which might look familiar to anyone who’s played a certain Nintendo system. You can hold it horizontally to play games on the Apple TV. Games showcased at the event included Asphalt 8 and Beat Sports. It’s got… a few buttons! And…

What’s it like when a video game totally flops, selling less than 150 total copies? Read this interesting Gamasutra blog by Airscape designer Daniel West if you want a glimpse at how tough it is to get games noticed these days. “It’s no longer enough to make a good game.”

What A Video Game Budget Looks Like

Here, via veteran game designer Ron Gilbert, is a detailed look at the budget for the upcoming point-n-click adventure Thimbleweed Park It’s a rare, fascinating look at where all that video game money goes and why it can cost so much to make a game—even when you’re a tiny team making pixel art on a…

Why Quiet Wears That Skimpy Outfit In Metal Gear Solid V

In September of 2013, not long after the reveal of Metal Gear Solid V’s scantily-clad sniper, Quiet, director Hideo Kojima took to Twitter to talk about one of his latest creations. “I know there’s people concerning about ‘Quiet’ but don’t worry,” he wrote ina series of messages. “I created her character as an antithesis to…