Stephen Totilo

Truly ‘Adult’ Video Games

A funny thing happened at a showcase for new PlayStation games last week. A rep for Sony was showing me the PS3’s slick new online store, flicked through some of the new classifications for games on the store, each of which has a number next to them indicating how many games fit that category and……

Aubrey Norris Writes The Best Press Releases In Video Gaming. Here’s Proof.

Every day, many, many PR people send us very boring press releases. And then there’s Aubrey Norris, PR rep for Deep Silver. Her press release e-mails are masterpieces. They succeed because they actually make me want to read them through to the end. Even when they’re not entirely about Dead Island. Really, no one else…

My Best Guesses For This Scribblenauts Tease Involve Nintendo Characters. Yours?

This image for the 3DS/WiiU-exclusive Scribblenauts Unlimited was teased by GameStop today. Who are they graying out? My first guess regarding the silhouette on the right: Epona, from Zelda. And on the left? Isn’t that Princess Peach’s crown? I guess she’s with Mario and Luigi. Or I’m completely wrong. Thoughts? Photoshops?

The Unfinished Swan: The Kotaku Review

In the first chapter of The Unfinished Swan, you will paint a wall. In the second, you will water plants. The third lets you walk next to a river and then build a staircase. In the fourth you will feel tall. You don’t want me to tell you much more. All that I’ve mentioned will…

Wii Drops Price To $130

In advance of the Wii U’s November 18 launch, Nintendo is cutting the price of the current Wii console to $129.99. The console, which will be black, will be sold in a bundle with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort (on one disc, interestingly enough), a Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk. The bundle will start…

Sony Wants To Make a PS3 Controller That Gets Hot Or Cold

OK. My mind is blown. Sony published a patent this week for a video game controller that heats up or cools down as you’re playing a game. It sounds kind of dangerous. And it sounds kind of awesome. You can read the patent application here and gawk at all the patent imagery, but let me…

Meet Scott Maxwell: Star Wars Fan. Gamer. And, Oh Yeah, He Drives a Rover on Mars.

Some people have cool jobs. And then there’s Scott Maxwell, who has one of the best gigs on two planets. He’s one of the people who drives the Curiosity Rover on Mars. How do you get that job? What’s it like? And how does it compare to all the sci-fi and video game fantasies we’ve…

Mass Effect 3‘s Omega DLC will be out on Nov. 27, will be “double”-sized and cost $15, according to a Eurogamer report

Try And Guess How Many Gaming References Are In This Game (Hint: There’s Billions)

Kotaku video editor Chris Person and I are really into Retro City Rampage, which is a parody of just about… every game we played as kids. Chris played 13 minutes or so of the PS3 version of the game. You can watch that here and listen to us try to identify as many of the…

I Can’t Quit You: EA’s Odd SimCity Social Friends and Neighbors Policy Makes Zynga Look Good

Here’s a story about a very strange way to run a multiplayer game and the effects it might have on friends. Well, “friends” in the Facebook sense, at least… I got a Facebook message from my ex-boss’ ex-boss the other day. I hadn’t heard from him in years. He thought he’d detected a glitch in…

Here’s the New Look for the PlayStation 3’s Online Store [UPDATE: Comes To U.S. On 10/23]

No word yet on whether the new design for the PlayStation 3’s online store will be coming to North America or other parts of the globe, but, today, Eurogamer has coverage of what Europe is getting UPDATE: Sony tells Kotaku that the new store will be available on U.S. PS3s on October 23. UPDATE 2:…

Pokémon Super-Fan To PETA: ‘You Guys Are Just Sick And Wrong’

Chris loves Pokémon games. He’s been playing them since he was 10 or 11. And he thinks the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are unethically treating his favorite gaming franchises. In the video here, he defends Pokémon and attempts to obliterate PETA’s argument that Nintendo’s popular franchises celebrates the subjugation of animals. PETA…

Fool Me Again? The New Sonic Racing Trailer Looks Good

The problem with the Sonic Cycle these days—the experience of getting excited by the hype for a Sonic games before playing the mediocre game that Sega then delivers—is that recent Sonic games have been pretty good. Sonic Colors. Sonic Generations. People like those games and aren’t embarrassed to admit it. Still, any new trailer for…

The First Minute of Microsoft’s New Kinect Game Doesn’t Exactly Instill Confidence in the Kinect’s Tech

One of Microsoft’s big holiday-season Kinect games, Fable: The Journey, came out today. As our reviewer notes, it’s not very good, because Microsoft’s popular Kinect sensor often fails to properly detect the movement of the player trying to control the game. It seems that even the people at the Microsoft-owned development studio behind the game…

Buying the Total Recall Blu-Ray that goes on sale on Dec. 18 will get you God of War: Ascension‘s E3 demo. Details here.

Watch The Makers of SimCity Play Their New Game Live… Right About Now

Starting at 1pm ET, 10am PT folks from the Maxis studio behind The Sims 3 and next year’s very promising SimCity revival are going going to be showing off the newest stuff in their games. This is a two hour event and at some point, the Maxis folks have promised, they’re going to be playing…

The Endless Classic Gaming References in This Amazing Retro City Rampage Trailer

Retro City Rampage will be out tomorrow for PlayStation Vita, PS3, Steam and GoG. We already told you that. But what we can’t possibly do on our own is identify every gaming in-joke packed into this amazing launch trailer. So let’s do it together. Pick a screen from the trailer. Cap it. Put it in…

Can You Figure Out How Much This Game Really Costs?

Good news: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment chose today to reveal how much their December 4 MOBA/DOTA-style Guardians of Middle-Earth game will cost. (The game is like League of Legends but with Lord of the Rings characters. Got it?) Not so good news: You’ll have to read very closely and will still have to be an…

Tuesday is Officially Ridiculous, Because There Is Yet Another Cool Game Coming Out Tomorrow

It is now official: October 9, 2012 is the new May 15, 2012. May 15 was the day we got Max Payne 3 and Diablo III. October 9? The world will receive Dishonored and X-COM: Enemy Unknown, both of which are incredible (see? see?). AND there will be a new episode of the acclaimed Walking…

Angry Birds: Star Wars Arrives on November 8. We’re Not Making This Up!

Yep. Angry Birds + Star Wars. Just announced this morning by the Angry Birds folks at Rovio. The game will be out for iOS, Android, Amazon Kindle Fire, Mac, PC, Windows Phone and Windows 8. Peter Vesterbacka, chief marketing man at Angry Birds studio Rovio calls the game “the best Angry Birds game we’ve ever…