Nathan Grayson

Last-Gen Call of Duty Buyers Will Get A Free PS4/Xbox One Upgrade

I get the impression that Sony, Microsoft, and Activision reeeeally want you to buy a new console. Activision has announced a cross-buy deal in which all PS3/Xbox 360 digital purchases of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will also net you the PlayStation 4/Xbox One version as well. This applies to all purchased DLC (season passes…

Sony Won’t Make PlayStation Home For PS4, But These Guys Might

Neotopia isn’t PlayStation Home’s official follow-up. According to Sony there won’t be one after PS3’s virtual hub experiment shuts down once and for all early next year. It is, however, absolutely a PS4 spiritual successor made by vets of the original—for better or worse. Here’s how its development team, made up of PlayStation Home and…

Struggling Indie Sells His Game For Art Instead Of Money

Deep Under The Sky, a game about glorious glittering jellyfish, isn’t selling so well by creator Colin Northway’s own admission—especially not in comparison to his previous game, Incredipede. He still wants to give you the game for free, though. You just have to sit down and create something of your own first. Northway has named…

The Horror Of 554 Simpsons Couch Gags All Going Off At Once

Here’s 25 years’ worth of Simpsons couch gags. All playing at the same time. You (by which I mean your ears) have been warned. The horror. The collective lurching death dirge—as though 25 years of pop culture suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced—weirdly reminds me of the noise Futurama‘s Hypnotoad makes. COINCIDENCE?…

A Game That Makes BioShock Look Downright Normal

The Black Glove, which is being made by ex-BioShock devs, looks like BioShock‘s zanier child, but it certainly doesn’t play anything like it. For one, no guns. For two, space minotaurs. Three, it’s about a surreal trans-dimensional 1920s theater. It sounds really, really cool. And super weird. The Black Glove takes place in a trans-dimensional…

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is coming to PC in December. The open-world prologue game is hitting Steam on December 18th, to be precise. It came out on consoles earlier this year, and Kirk compared it to (very good) food.

Silent Hills P.T. In Minecraft Is Spooky, Hilarious

Seriously, this is so spot-on. For those not in the know, P.T. is an interactive teaser Konami released to announce that Metal Gear (more like Metal FEAR) creator Hideo Kojima and famed horror director Guillermo del Toro (more like Guillerm-boo del OhNo!) have teamed up to make the next Silent Hill, titled Silent Hills. P.T.,…

Every First-Person Shooter Crammed Into One

Bedlam (not to be confused with that otherBedlam) is a loving tribute to pretty much every first-person shooter since the dawn of time. Or at least, you know, the dawn of video games. It is, functionally speaking, a whole bunch of different styles of first-person shooter, all in one game. There are levels themed after…

The entire 164 track Banjo Kazooie soundtrack is available on Bandcamp. Ex-Rare audio maestro Grant Kirkhope put up the whole thing, which includes everything from level themes to cheerful, five-second victory chimes. You can name your price. Go revel in glorious bird/bear nostalgia and the happiest main theme ever.

Disney Kills Star Wars Game Without Telling Creator

Tiny Death Star‘s creator is not having a good day. A cursory look at the iOS App Store and Google Play reveals that Disney has fired its Mickey-Mouse-shaped Death Star at two relatively short-lived Star Wars games: Tiny Death Star and Star Wars Assault Team. The latter was a basic albeit solid card battler, but…

I Can’t Stop Watching Dudes Try To Play Mario On A Roller Coaster

Seriously, try to look away. I usually hate gimmicky stuff like this, but there is something uniquely, intriguingly cringe-worthy about Giant Bomb‘s pioneering work in the field of video game aeronautics. Which is to say, Jeff Gerstmann and Dan Ryckert decided to see who could get further in Super Mario 3 (via the 3DS Virtual…

If All The Apocalypses Happened At Once

Then you’d get Human Resources, an absolutely excellent-looking strategy game from the makers of the very good Planetary Annihilation. Oh, and the kicker? Humans are literally a resource. As in, you harvest them. In short, whoa. The concept is super nutty, too—drawing on Command & Conquer‘s lovable camp and the massive scale of games like…

Want A Destiny Halloween Costume? Here You Go

Yeah, it’s a DIY thing, but it doesn’t actually seem all that hard. As a costuming idiot, this pleases me. Over on HalloweenCostumes.com there’s a guide to assembling a quick makeshift Destiny costume that… actually looks pretty good. If you follow the guide, you’ll come out with some snazzy Awoken Hunter digs. So then, what’ll…

A Card Game Where You Draw Your Own Weird Monsters

Monstrocards is a card game with almost no rules. Almost. Think Cards Against Humanity, but with your own creations instead of pre-written words. Oh, and it’s been in the works for more than ten years. The basic idea is that you and a group of friends combine sets of cards from two decks—one with things,…

Don’t Kill Orcs, Brew Beer For Them

We’ve been slaying lots of orcs lately around the Kotaku office/converted anti-orc nemesis death fortress lately—lots and lots, all thanks to Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. But not all orcs want to kill or even fight. Some just want to drink. Orcish Inn‘s Animal Crossing-esque antics are for them. See now? Wasn’t that nice? Why…

A strange, beautiful sci-fi game about creating your own story. You might remember Elegy for a Dead World, which Evan took a look at not too long ago. It’s got a sort of alien beauty about it, and its goal is to let anybody feel like they can dream up cool stories—about dead worlds, no…

People Are Claiming To Be Popular YouTubers To Get Free Games

When Wastelands Interactive head Leszek Lisowski found a Steam key he thought he’d given to a successful YouTuber on a resale site, he knew something was wrong. Lisowski, whose company recently brought Worlds of Magic to Steam Early Access, wrote on Gamasutra about being ripped off by people claiming to be popular YouTubers. Under normal…

Dark Souls‘ Dodge Roll Would Get You Killed In Real Life

Think the dodge roll, a video game avoidance maneuver popularized by everything from Dark Souls to Legend of Zelda, is the height of armed combat, a stroke of tactical genius? This swordsman says you’re very, very wrong. Now, a comparison. Video game: Real life: Yeaaaaah. Turns out that it doesn’t take much effort to turn…

The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter: The Kotaku Review

Ethan Carter is a game about stories. It’s a disarmingly personal tale, a murder mystery about childhood alienation that resonated with me in unexpected ways. And yes, it was created by a guy who is best known for making an incredibly violent first-person shooter called “Bulletstorm.” I remember when I was little, I didn’t really…

Why Yes, I Would Like A Gritty Cyberpunk Grand Theft Auto

I very much like the look of Metrocide Metrocide is a top-down open-world-ish game in the vein of a classic (read: pre-GTA 3) Grand Theft Auto. Difference is, instead of grandly thieving autos or sticking to other small-time crimes, you’re a contract killer. Your goal? To hunt down various targets using an ever-expanding array of…