Stephen Totilo

Good Child of Light Joke, Assassin’s Creed Rogue

Last year’s Assassin’s Creed included references to Watch Dogs. This year’s Assassin’s Creed Rogue for PS3 and Xbox 360 has a joke about another Ubisoft game, the lovely Child of Light. Check it out, if you don’t mind a tiny spoiler about where part of Rogue takes place. I ran into these guys by accident…

Ubisoft has published a handy rundown of known technical issues with Assassin’s Creed Unity as well as the status of fixes. Framerate’s on the list for all platforms, with the following workaround offered pending more fixes: “If playing single player, we suggest that you disconnect from your internet connection (wifi or network cable). It could…

Assassin’s Creed Unity Takes Video Game Kissing To A Whole New Level

Assassin’s Creed Unity may be taking some lumps from critics, but—not kidding—we need to all appreciate how good the game’s kissing is. Don’t snicker. Video games have a tough enough time animating individual characters and tougher times animating the interactions between two. Even at that, they can do violent interactions between bodies fairly well, but…

Regarding post-release review embargoes... Yesterday, I gave readers a heads up about the timing of several of our upcoming game reviews. In that note I mentioned that Ubisoft has stipulated that reviews of Assassin’s Creed Unity, based on copies sent in advance by the publisher, couldn’t run until noon of release day. Some readers asked…

​Assassin’s Creed Unity: The Kotaku Review

Assassin’s Creed Unity is my least favorite major Assassin’s Creed since the 2007 original. It’s also the first Assassin’s Creed that I didn’t feel better about the more I played it. I didn’t expect to be telling you this. Unity is a gorgeous game, which is just about the only high praise I can offer…

A note about our review plans for some of this week’s biggest games: As I mentioned last week, we’re not necessarily reviewing every game by its release date these days. Some games, particularly those with a focus on online, play merit a little more waiting before we review them. That said, there are a bunch…

Watch the Blizzcon 2014 keynote here. But, don’t worry if you can’t watch. We’ll have all of Blizzard’s biggest new on Kotaku as soon as it breaks.

Ridley to the rescue! In this Super Smash Bros for Wii U clip, one of us uses the famous Metroid villain to our advantage. Ridley only shows up on the Pyrosphere level and attacks everyone until one player smashes him enough to make him an ally. As Nintendo showed, you don’t actually control Ridley.

Splatoon, Nintendo’s oddball early-2015 four-on-four Wii U shooter, will have a singleplayer mode, too. A new trailer shows off how wonderfully bizarre it looks.

Our Watch Dogs 2 Wishlist

Last week brought news that Watch Dogs has now shipped more than nine million copies. (Not sold; game companies don’t talk about that as much). It’s another sign that Watch Dogs 2—and probably Watch Dogs 3—is inevitable. Well, Ubisoft people, if sequels will be made, we have some requests… Figure out what Watch Dogs is…

​Four Years Ago, I Watched Video Games Win

I have two stand-out Election Day video game memories. One involves Fable II. The other involves a highlight of my career: going to the Supreme Court on November 2, 2010, to see a gaming industry lawyer argue—successfully—that games deserve the protection of the First Amendment. It’s an important episode in video game history, one that…

What A ‘Yak Farm Mission’ Says About Gaming In 2014

I responded to last week’s news about a new pre-order-“exclusive” yak-related mission for Far Cry 4 with a snort. Was this a joke? Was this what gamers are supposed to get excited about these days? So many questions. It’s not a joke. And maybe it’s not even a big deal. Or maybe it’s 2014 pre-order…

How Kotaku Reviews Work

I was recently asked some questions about how Kotaku reviews work and figured it’s as good a time as ever to provide a refresher. We use a review system that I explained and implemented in early 2012. It has largely gone unchanged. It’s simple. To a review a game, a Kotaku reviewer writes about a…

A Sad Reminder About How Slow And Expensive The Internet Is In America

Internet speeds in America are pathetic, which you probably already knew if you…live in America. A new piece in The New York Times report makes that more clear. Choice quote: “Downloading a high-definition movie takes about seven seconds in Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Zurich, Bucharest and Paris, and people pay as little as $30 a…

Former EA CEO and Wire fan John Riccitiello has a new job. He’s now going to run Unity, the company whose game engine powers many popular indie games on mobile and console platforms. Outgoing CEO Dave Helgason announced the change today.

​We’re All Tired Of Gamergate

I know many people who don’t like Gamergate who are tired of it. They’re not alone. I was talking to a Gamergater last week who seemed tired: tired of all the Tweeting, tired of all the arguing. I watched a video of a Gamergater who seemed downright exhausted. And then another: he seemed tired, too.…

Another Woman In Gaming Flees Home Following Death Threats

Game developer Brianna Wu fled her home last night, following what is becoming a distressingly frequent case of women in the gaming scene expressing fears for their safety due to online harassment. Wu, a developer in Boston who recently released the well-received Revolution 60 mobile game, said on Twitter last night that she and her…

Former Kotaku reporter Owen Good made his debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night, in the funniest possible way. We’re all so proud, Owen!

Newbie Lessons Learned After A Few More Hours Playing Diablo III

Following a four-hour Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition online co-op session with Kirk Hamilton last night (I’m a Demon Hunter, expert difficulty, was at level 50 and at the end of Act III) and still being a novice to the whole thing… Expert difficulty level is too easy for level-50 characters. (We switched to Master…

​The Future Of Kotaku‘s Video Game Coverage Is The Present

On the occasion of Kotaku‘s 10th anniversary earlier this month, I’d like to tell you all about a big change we’ve been working on since June. If you’ve been paying really close attention to the site you might have already picked up on it. But probably not. It’s been a slow but, I think, essential…