Stephen Totilo

Oh. Aero Porter is a Yoot Saito Game. That Explains Everything.

I used to love SimCity so much that I bought SimEverything, which is why I didn’t just play SimTower but studied a game guide in a bookstore in order to discern how to best manage the game’s elevators. Elevator management! The joy. I liked my GameCube enough that I gave Odama an honest try, despite…

IGN‘s Greg Miller says his cancer is in remission. To all out there still fighting cancer, we’re rooting for you, too.

10 Ridiculous PlayStation 3 Themes

Are you tired of waves of color filling your TV while you’re navigating the menus of the PlayStation 3? Were you hoping for a theme that was a bit more dynamic? Something sexier and more gangster, maybe a little less lava lampy? Oh, you’ve got options. Tons of them available for purchase for the PS3.…

This Game Might Embarrass You, But That’s No Excuse Not To Own It

We all looked a bit silly playing Wii Sports and sillier still when we played Dance Central or Just Dance or just about any other Kinect or Wii motion game. Now comes the latest game to make its players look like crazy people: Matt Parker’s Recurse This iPad game is as simple as it gets.…

Wait A Minute. Two Smart Critics Really Like The Wii U’s Allegedly Inferior Black Ops II.

Once could be an aberration. Twice? We’re approaching a trend, people. Two sharp critics have both spent some time this week saying that Call of Duty: Black Ops II is good. Better than that, one of these chaps suggests that Black Ops II might be, PC notwithstanding, best on Wii U. What in the world??…

The Ups and Downs of a Night Out at the Official Zelda Concert

Nintendo’s Zelda games are usually very good. Their music is among their better qualities. So an official Zelda concert should be good, right? I went to one last night. I liked it, didn’t love it… meaning it was a little more Zelda II for me, not so much Ocarina Of Time. And definitely not Majora’s…

Today’s Argument That Call of Duty Is Finally In Decline

Forget whether you like Call of Duty or not. The thing to ponder today is whether the world likes Call of Duty as much as it used to. A swarm of vultures might be premature. Black Ops II has already sold millions of copies. And it’s a good game (at least we think so). But…

Entertainment Weekly Picked The 10 Best Games Of the Past 10 Years. Be Happy. Be Angry. Vote?

Why wait for a year ending in nine or zero or one to pick the best games of the past decade? Entertainment Weekly is picking the best games of the decade this year, 2012. It’s not that they wager the world is ending and that we’re wrapping up the final decade ever. It’s that Spike…

Meet a Man Who Made It Through ZombiU Without Dying. He Has Some Tips For You.

ZombiU is the Wii U’s extremely difficult survival horror first-person shooter. You’re not supposed to be able to make it through it in one life, though the game’s Survival mode challenges you to do that. A few brave souls have cleared Survival mode. About 13 of them so far, it seems. Most of them have…

The New Lego Lord of the Rings Game Apes Peter Jackson’s Movies Brilliantly

The new Lego Lord of the Rings game for consoles and PC is terrific in many ways. One amazing aspect: how closely it matches up with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. The game uses the voices of the actors from the films. You’re hearing Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Andy…

Go read games writer Jenn Frank’s beautiful, sad tribute to her mother.

9 out of 10 Game Creators Who Praised The Wii U Made a Wii U Launch Game

E3 is a time for a lot of huffery and puffery about video games, much of which turns out to be true—just not all of it The bluster is biggest when a new console is being launched. Promises are made or at least implied. Then the system comes out. So. The Wii U. It just…

From Far Cry 3 PC’s day-one “critical” patch: “Health regeneration option no longer has inverted functionality.” Huh?

Two free browser games from Adidas and Old Spice are actually pretty cool. Ad games that don’t stink!

Crashmo: The Kotaku Review

My enthusiasm for 2011 puzzle game Pushmo was borderline unprofessional. Also: nearly irrational. Pushmo was a block-pushing game and, really, the last thing the world needs is a game that doesn’t just feature more block-pushing puzzles but is all about them. But Nintendo did good with Pushmo. I’ve long said it’s the best game on…

ZombiU Creators Weren’t Sure Their Game’s Hardest Mode Could Be Beaten. But Someone A Bunch of People Just Did.

If you play ZombiU‘s special Survival mode you only get one life for the whole game. Death is death. No respawning as another character, which is what happens in ZombiU‘s already-tough (and very fun) normal mode. The creators of the game say they didn’t even know if that tougher Survival mode could be cleared, not…

About That Halo Couple From The Best Buy Ad…

I saw two movies at two movie theaters this weekend and the same Best Buy commercial aired before both of them. I usually tune out the commercials at the movies (strange that we can avoid commercials on TV but get smacked with them in theaters, no?). This big-screen commercial did get my attention since…. wow!…

And Here’s Why Women In The Games Business Put Up With So Much Crap

Earlier today we showed you some of the many, many Tweets describing the sexism that women in the video game-making business put up with. These were all issued with the hashtag #1reasonwhy This morning, something else happened. Author Rhianna Pratchett decided to create #1reasontobe, a complementary tag that would collect reasons women have for working…

New Super Mario Bros. 2‘s New, Free* Levels Are Re-Makes Of Old Ones

The new Nintendo Direct Mini isn’t about the Wii Mini. It’s about new/old New Super Mario Bros. 2 levels that are temporarily free on the Nintendo 3DS. Not too confusing, right? Skip to 3:50 to see the levels. They may ring some bells. Nintendo Direct Mini — November 27, 2012 [YouTube. Thanks, Philip!]] UPDATE: So……

Little Inferno: The Kotaku Review

Here’s an odd one. One of my favorite games on Nintendo’s new console is an interactive fireplace. It’s an emotional, interactive fireplace. And it’s the first console game I’ve played through without ever turning on the TV. Little Inferno is a download-only game for Wii U and PC/Mac/Linux. It was mostly made by two friends…