Stephen Totilo

Call of Duty is Turning Into Mass Effect

Many Mass Effect fans lamented the recent metamorphosis of BioWare’s signature sci-fi series from a role-playing game with shooter elements to a shooter with role-playing game elements. So what are we to make of the new Call of Duty playing a bit more like a Mass Effect? This new Call of Duty: Black Ops II…

Black Ops II’‘s Zombies Is Amazing… And It’s Killing Me

Don’t try to solo the extraordinary Zombies mode in the new Call of Duty. You won’t last long. The new zombies mode should probably be its own game and is definitely designed for co-op. I learned this after wrapping up the campaign and trying to play the new TranZit part of Zombies on my own.…

“They have good things,” Ubisoft chief says of THQ when asked if he’d want to buy THQ assets. Like…Patrice Désilets??

How to Get a Sword in Black Ops II

Call of Duty isn’t exactly Skyrim, but it does include a sword. You can get it in a campaign mission (maybe more than one) to slice bad guys up. The video above shows where we first found it. We captured this footage from “Old Wounds”, the third level of the campaign. The sword is really…

This Is Awkward: David Petraeus Is In the Next Call of Duty As America’s New Secretary of Defense

A sex scandal may have prompted David Petraeus to resign from running the CIA last Friday, but the new Call of Duty predicts that he’s got a really bright future. The new first-person shooter features the former general as the Secretary of Defense in the year 2025, serving loyally to a female President who looks…

Shoot People as Bobby Kotick Tomorrow In This Free Online Game To Celebrate Black Ops II

Tomorrow, you can play the new Call of Duty. Separately, you will also be able to play as Bobby Kotick, chief of CoD publisher Activision, in the free (well, mostly free) online shooter Offensive Combat Kotick’s character is called “Money Sack” and will be available for purchase of free rental in the game. Offensive Combat…

They’re Still Not Showing Enough of Dead Space 3

Someone somewhere has decided the best way to show off Dead Space 3, an EA game only four months from release, is to keep only showing the tiniest bits of the thing. The latest third-person horror/shooter adventures of space miner Isaac Clarke could be wonderful. They could be terrible. It’s impossible to tell. The latest…

Our Video Editor’s Current Favorite Thing In New Super Mario Bros. U

Kotaku video editor Chris Person declares that the best part of New Super Mario Bros. U is the game’s Boost Rush Mode, in which the sidescrolling game sidescrolls faster as you collect more coins. Chris is a man of taste and a devotee of Dyad. Speed-racing is his thing. He hasn’t played that much of…

#firstWiiUproblems: Not Knowing Which Screen To Look At

I have a Wii U, so I shouldn’t be complaining. I’m not. I’m observing. And my observation is this, my friends: observing a Wii U game is a brand-new skill I have not yet mastered. When I play this new console, I’m looking at the wrong screen half the time! Or I think I am.…

The Amazing J.S. Joust And Three Other Indie Sports Games Need Your $150,000 To Make It to PS3 and Computers

Have you heard people rave about the graphics-less multiplayer game Johann Sebastian Joust but never been able to play it? Have you noticed that it is played with PlayStation Move controllers and wondered why in the world Sony hasn’t greenlit it for an official PlayStation 3 release? Yes? No? J.S. Joust is a clever 21st…

My Wii U Is In the Living Room, But I Can Play Its Games In My Bedroom

I’ve had the Wii U for one day, and the way I play console games at home has already been forever transformed. I think you should know how. It’s the only rational reason I have for sharing half of the floor plan of my apartment with you. (Please don’t turn it into a Counter-Strike map!)…

The Creators of the New MechWarrior Online Are Here To Answer Your Questions…Right Now! [UPDATE: Interview’s over]

Everyone loves the idea of driving a giant mech, yes? Maybe fighting other mechs while in the process? That’s what MechWarrior is known for, and that’s what the new IGP-published MechWarrior Online is bringing back. The upcoming free-to-play game looks cool, but perhaps you have a few questions about it? We’ve got developers from MWO…

Watch Mass Effect 3: Omega Right Here (And Maybe Learn a Couple of Things About It)

BioWare will be livestreaming some of the upcoming Mass Effect 3 downloadable expansion Omega at 1:30 pm ET today. You can watch it in the player embedded below. While you’re getting ready, here a few details about it that you might want to know: It’s a single-player adventure. It will be accessible to anyone who…

Assassin’s Creed III‘s Best Argument That It Doesn’t Really Matter What The Founding Fathers Thought

Fictional British historian and Templar-fighter Shaun Hastings is not cowed by the greatness of the United States or its history. It is in Hastings’ voice that the Assassin’s Creed series’ excellent historical databases are written. In previous games, he skewered figures from the Renaissance. In Assassin’s Creed III he finds some American targets. The game’s…

Nintendo Adding New Japanese Word To American Vocabulary: WaraWara

The welcome area that will appear whenever you start up Nintendo’s new Wii console, the Wii U, will be called the WaraWara Plaza. As our Osaka-based Brian Ashcraft points out: “Warawara” (わらわら) is Japanese for “bustling”. It’s a suitable description for the crowd of virtual friends and other gamers you’ll see when you turn the…

Four Years Ago.

If you’re like me, you play a lot of video games and just might have a game or two baked into your memory of major historical events. I will always associate election night in 2008, for example, not just with Barack Obama’s historic election as America’s first black president but as the night I had…

The new Donkey Kong world record is 1,138,600 points! Set by Hank Chien, who was breaking his own record.

Obama Crushes Romney in Ohio (Among Players of Maple Story)

President Barack Obama basically annihilated Mitt Romney in a new poll in the key swing state of Ohio. Too bad for Obama that the vote only involved players of the online game Maple Story It’s not going to be that easy, Obama. Nexon, the creators of Maple Story ran the third of three polls of…

Assassin’s Creed III Recreates Another Key Moment of American History: Ben Franklin Doling Out Sex Advice.

In 1745, all-time-great American Ben Franklin wrote a letter to his friend advising him that if his friend was still going to “persist in thinking of a commerce with the sex inevitable” after getting married, this friend should get a mistress—an old mistress. It’s a hell of a letter And, for some reason, Franklin’s “wisdom”…

We’re doing a live reader Q&A with the makers of Mech Warrior Online (now in Beta) on Wednesday, 2pm ET. Join us then!