Patricia Hernandez

In the latest episode of Fave This, Gita Jackson and Maddy Myers talk about the never-ending debate around games like Bayonetta What do people miss when they obsess over whether or not something is ‘sexist’? Beyond their lurid character designs, what do games like Nier: Automata and Soul Calibur actually say or accomplish? Listen here.

14 PS4 Features You Might Not Know About

Even if you’ve been using the PS4 since launch day, chances are good that you don’t know about everything the console has to offer. Turns out, some neat tricks are kind of hidden! Fortunately, we’re here to tell you about them. Before we start, I highly suggest taking a look at our initial tips post…

Steam’s Notorious Sex Game Publisher Keeps Churning Out Incomprehensible Games

While Steam has gained a lewd reputation, the specifics of who brings risque games onto the platform is largely unknown to the general public. In trying to find out whether or not Steam was actually being overrun by sex games, I accidentally stumbled on a controversial yet popular publisher who distributes incomprehensible erotic games on…

Zelda Fan Breaks Down BOTW’s Most Overpowered Move

Ever heard of Breath of the Wild’s “bow spin”? It’s an advanced technique that helps Link terrorize his enemies, perhaps in ways that Nintendo never intended. Here’s how you do it. The bow spin entered the general public consciousness with RinHara5aki’s phenomenal Zelda video “27 obscure combat secrets and tricks,” which he uploaded at the…

Monument Valley Designer’s New Game Shows What Digital Comics Could Be

Florence, out this week for iOS, bills itself as an “interactive story” about a young woman’s first love. I’ve never played anything like it. Florence is a tale made for the smart phone age. You aren’t just reading the story, you’re swiping to move through the scene, you’re interacting with objects, you’re customizing elements as…

Four Years Later, Twitch Is Playing Pokémon Red and Blue At Once

The iconic streaming experiment Twitch Plays Pokémon is not only still alive and kicking, it’s now taking on a new challenge: controlling two games in one go. After playing nearly every Pokémon game imaginable, it’s impressive that the channel continues to find new ways to keep the social experiment alive. A quick recap, for those…

A Free Game That Captures Shin Megami Tensei’s Unsettling Atmosphere 

Persona games are known for their incredible art direction, but the main series, SMT, is equally if not more striking. Where Persona games are optimistic and bubbly, the main SMT games often depict apocalypses that are stark, surreal, and contemplative. Until now, I’d never played another game that came close to capturing such a specific…

Fortnite Continues To Crush It

Last weekend, the cartoonish battle royale game Fortnite hit 3.4 million concurrent users across all platforms. Before that, Chance the Rapper was begging Epic Games for a Switch port. And this week alone, we’ve gotten two hefty updates from the development team detailing new tweaks, item/weapon additions, and upcoming changes. All this hype and development…

The Cloverfield Paradox Is Trash, But We Love It Anyway

On Super Bowl day, I wasn’t all that interested in the outcome of the football game. I was excited for something else—the rumor that a new Cloverfield movie was going to drop that same night. 10 Cloverfield Lane was fantastic, I thought, so maybe this will be too. I’m totally going to stay up and…

Logan Paul’s Eye-Rolling Return To YouTube

Even Logan Paul’s comeback tour sucks. The brawny social media star who built an image around being a maverick was shamed early last month when a YouTube video crassly showcasing a suicide victim in Japan convinced the internet that he was an insensitive asshole. Scorched by nearly universal criticism, he took a break from his…

Celeste Is Brutal Without Being A Jerk About It

Last weekend, I spent hours chasing after a single elusive strawberry in Celeste. Over and over again, I kept dying to the toxic muck surrounding my collectible prize. Hundreds of wasted lives, an endless number of fuck-ups, a complete halting of progress. There was only failure, but I was stubborn. I was going to get…

11 Free Steam Games Worth Playing

While Steam gets a lot of hype for discounted prices, you don’t actually have to spend any money to enjoy some of the best games the service has to offer. Over the years, Steam has accumulated a number of great games that are free-to-play, and I’m here to tell you which ones you should check…

Genital Jousting’s New Story Mode Lets You Play As A Penis With Problems

By now you may have seen Genital Jousting’s party mode, where players compete to penetrate their friends (with consent, of course). The game finally came out of early access this month, and the full release includes a story mode that works way better than it should. It’s kind of like The Stanley Parable, but with…

You should watch this fascinating Trainer Tips documentary on the world’s top Pokémon Go player, and the incredibly competitive gaming scene he inspires in Singapore.

Understanding The Hype (and Hate) For Nintendo Labo

Nintendo’s upcoming grand experiment with cardboard is unexpected enough that people have reacted dramatically to the announcement. Largely, fans seem to fall into two camps: either they’re psyched to build their own contraptions, or they don’t understand why something like this exists at all. Isn’t Nintendo a video game company? What are they doing messing…

The Secrets Behind Fortnite’s Massive 40 Million Player Success 

When Epic Games originally announced a Battle Royale mode for its co-op zombie survival game Fortnite, the internet seemed skeptical. Battlegrounds had already taken over the world, so it was easy for Fortnite: Battle Royale to look like a trend-chasing copycat. Months later, the studio’s enormous player base seems to have proven everyone wrong. Much…

In the first Fave This podcast of 2018, Gita Jackson and I discuss the controversy around fans shipping Rey and Kylo Ren as a couple in Star Wars (31:08) what the No Man’s Sky community is up to, and where open world games go next. Listen below. Download the MP3 here.

‘Suckin Dick While My Man Plays 2K‘: When Video Games Meet Sex

Back in September 2017, one Twitter user informed the world that she was “suckin dick while my man plays 2K.” At first glance, it seemed like she was boasting about some video game foreplay, but no. She later clarified, “LMAO y’all thought i meant my mans dick?😂 fohhh.” Months later, I can’t stop thinking about…

Five Reasons I Like Fortnite BR Way Better Than Battlegrounds

Battlegrounds may have sparked the current Battle Royale trend, but these days, I’d much rather log into Fortnite. Over the last few months, developer Epic Games have crafted a game with a unique identity, if not a better one. Here’s why I prefer to play Fortnite over Battlegrounds. It works I’ve been playing Fornite for…

We’re looking for a hungry journalist to be Kotaku’s new freelance weekend editor. If you want to write about games and the people who play them, or if you’re itching to tell the stories nobody else is covering, apply here!