Stephen Totilo

Important Fire Emblem Fates Petting Update

The confusion around the self-censored Fire Emblem petting/touching mini-game is finally ending. We now must clarify that, while the American version of Fire Emblem Fates will not let you rub allied characters in exchange for gratitude, it will indeed let you tap your spouse in order to wake them up. We bring you this update…

Wrestling With The Witness‘ Most Difficult, Divisive Puzzle

“This piece of the game is supposed to be difficult,” the game designer Jonathan Blow recently said to me as we discussed the hardest puzzle in The Witness, the so-called bonus “Challenge” that only 3.3% of PS4 players and 4% of PC players have managed to complete. He was helping me make peace that I…

Antonin Scalia’s Landmark Defense Of Violent Video Games

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who unexpectedly died at the age of 79 today, will be remembered as one of the most polarizing figures in American government, famous, or perhaps infamous, for his strong conservative stances on abortion, campaign finance, the death penalty and gay marriage. On June 27, 2011, he also delivered an opinion…

Here’s What’s Changing For The Division‘s Second Beta

Patch notes for Ubisoft’s open beta for the company’s early-March shooter The Division have some good news for those who tried the game’s recent closed beta and saw some flaws in its promising quasi-player-vs-player Dark Zone section. The notes indicate, among other things, that the Dark Zone will have more enemies and give a little…

Excellent Art Direction In The Newest Assassin’s Creed Sidescroller

The third and presumably final 2D Assassin’s Creed Chronicles game is out this week and looks even better than last month’s one set in India. We captured video of its first level. Look at that smoke! Look at this skyline! The game’s mouthful of a title is Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia. It’s set in 1918…

No one told me Gravity Rush has a flaming windmill: I was expecting Gravity Rush Remastered to be a game about flying, walking on walls and kicking enemies in mid-air. I was even expecting a cat. But this windmill? No wonder Kirk and Evan like the game so much. A good addition to my PS4.

WWE Star Daniel Bryan Says He Is Retiring

WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan, considered one of the best of his generation for his dynamic hard-hitting style, just announced on Twitter that he is retiring from wrestling for medical reasons. With pro wrestling, anything could be a storyline, but there’s reason to think it’s true. We recently chronicled the concussion issues he’s facing, his desire…

The tricky, challenging mobile game Sage Solitaire is now also available for Android. We praised the game glowingly when it launched for iOS in September. The basic modes are free, so you’ve got little to lose.

Dragon Eats Nazi Zombie

From the new Call of Duty Black Ops III: Zombies map Der Eisendrache, we’ve got a a wall-mounted dragon chomping on a freshly-shot Nazi zombie. The zombie-eating dragon is a step toward one of the mode’s more involved easter eggs, but watching a dragon eat a zombie is a reward unto itself. See it with…

The Division Is At Its Best When You’re Stabbing People In The Back

The only technical testing I’ve done with the beta of Ubisoft’s upcoming game The Division is seeing whether I’ll like it. So far, it has passed that test. The third-person online shooter, the full title of which is Tom Clancy’s The Division and which I’ve been playing on Xbox One, is designed to at least…

Tips For Playing The Witness

I’d rather not spoil anything. I’d rather you figure out everything in The Witness yourself. But if you need some general advice, here goes. Keep A Notebook Nearby You’re going to start this game drawing lines through easy puzzles and you’ll wonder why in the world people said this game was difficult. Then you’ll get…

Colorblind And Hearing-Impaired Players Won’t Be Able To Do All The Puzzles In The Witness

A small number of puzzles in The Witness will be difficult or impossible for some color-blind and hearing-impaired players to solve, though those puzzles are optional and the game can be completed without them. The puzzles in question comprise just a fraction of the many challenges in The Witness, which came out yesterday for PS4…

The Witness: The Kotaku Review

While playing The Witness for this review, I wrote an email to its lead creator, Jonathan Blow. It was a moment of weakness. I feared that Blow’s magnificent new puzzle game had deadended my ability to reach a solution. I sent it on a Saturday afternoon. “I’ve been playing for much of the day and…

The Daniel Bryan Dilemma

I am sure that Daniel Bryan, who is possibly the greatest pro wrestler in the world, wants to wrestle this Sunday. If he does—if he competes in WWE’s 30-man Royal Rumble—then I hope that the thousands of Daniel Bryan fans who’ve been rooting for him to make a comeback don’t discover one day that we…

The PS4’s Tomorrow Children Looks Beautifully Bizarre

With minutes to spare, I jumped into the Tomorrow Children closed beta this morning. I didn’t have enough time to get my head around Q Games’ Communist-kitsch, co-op, resource-mining/town-building game, but I did have time to grab some screens. The closed beta will resume in the coming days. I’ll definitely be playing. To contact the…

New Assassin’s Creed Set In India Won Me Over With Its Beauty

The recently-released Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India plays ok (very much like ACC: China before it), but, wow, does it look pretty. The game’s artists took splendid advantage of how rare it is to see a game set in India. I had to capture some footage to show you. Enjoy! To contact the author of this…

Diablo III Has Hooked Me Again

I thought I was done playing Diablo III, a game I happily zipped through as a demon hunter when it came out on PS4. I played with friends, cleared the story, hit level 70, barely understood what Adventure Mode and Paragon Points were and put it down. That was more than a year ago. Here…

Report: Iran Frees Imprisoned American Game Developer

Amir Hekmati, the former U.S. Marine and one-time game developer, has been freed from an Iranian prison after more than four years in captivity, according to an Iranian news report. The Iranian-American was serving a 10-year prison term, reduced from a death sentence, related to charges of espionage against Iran. His family and the U.S.…

ARK: Survival Evolved On Xbox One Gets First Big Update, More Servers Coming

The absurdly popular Xbox One early access game ARK Survival Evolved is supposed to be getting more than a hundred extra servers, according to a press release today. They’re not live yet, as the game’s several hundred servers remain stuffed. The promise of added support should give people a slightly better chance to get into…