Stephen Totilo

The First Screen You See When You Start The New Yoshi’s Island

I don’t remember any other Nintendo games starting with the above message, but, hey, sure, Nintendo. Why not? I’ve rated a level or two in Assassin’s Creed. I’ve agreed to let my crash bugs be sent back to Microsoft. I just never thought that you, Nintendo, would need to see my gameplay data to make…

The Least-Hyped Xbox One Game Has The Most Potential

Someone already made a Star Fox for the Xbox One. Someone made a Flappy Bird. Someone recreated the first area of the first Fable. And, yes, a whole bunch of people have re-made Super Mario Bros. 1-1. They’re doing this all in a thing called Project Spark that we’ve told you about a bit, but…

​This Month’s Xbox One Console Update Changes At Least 15 Things

The March firmware update for the Xbox One will do a lot more than improve party chat in advance of the launch of the system’s big multiplayer March 11 game Titanfall. It’ll also tweak a bunch of other things on the console. Microsoft officials were kind enough to provide us with a list. We’ve numbered…

Yes, This Nazi-Killing Video Game Hero Was Of Jewish Descent

There’s been speculation for more than two decades that the hero of the iconic Wolfenstein first-person shooter games—B.J. Blazkowicz, the guy who you use to machine gun hordes of Nazis—was Jewish. But the game’s creators have long been coy about the character’s origins. Not so much anymore. It’s not clear if the next Wolfenstein game,…

Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku‘s reader-run community: Cubone! Pokemon One a Day! • The Road to E3: 100 Days To Go • Anime Review – Devil Survivor 2 TAY Classic—TAY Open Forum—Beginner’s Guide To TAY Follow them here.

The Best of Kotaku, The Week of February 24

Gather ’round, everyone. It’s the weekend. It’s March. It’s the month of Titanfall, South Park, Dark Souls II, Ground Zeroes, Yoshi’s New Island, the Game Developers Conference and, here in the northern hemisphere, spring. Hooray! Celebrate by catching up on the finest original Kotaku stories from the past week over atKotaku Selects Very cool top…

Old-School Gamer Hate Mail, Tim Schafer Edition

Here’s a fun little extra from my interview with Double Fine’s Tim Schafer that I couldn’t leave on the cutting room floor. It’s about one old-school gamer’s arguably-legitimate complaint about one of Schafer’s classic creations. To set this up, Schafer and I were nearing the end of a half-hour conversation in Las Vegas at the…

How To Write About Video Games

There are many ways to write about video games and many reasons to do so. Kotaku‘s own comic-creating duo, Cara Ellison and Elizabeth Simins, have their own several-panel suggestion for how to do it well. Follow Ellison’s writing on her blog. She’s on Twitter, too, @carachan1. You can find more of Simins’ art, much of…

Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku‘s reader-run community: Quick-Quack: Why I Love Terrible Games • Gaming in Russia: From the 90s to This Day. Part 2 • Interview with Art Director of 3D Collect-a-Thon Platformer, A Hat in Time TAY Classic—TAY Open Forum—Beginner’s Guide To TAY Follow them here.

Surprise new Wii U game on the horizon: Swords & Soldiers II, a sequel to the very good side-scrolling real-time-strategy game that debuted on the Wii in 2009, is in the works for Wii U and will be playable at PAX East in April.

Someone Put a Bloody, Playable Flappy Bird In Grand Theft Auto IV

Welcome to Liberty City, where our bird-headed anti-hero can flap his arms to stay aloft and get points every time he bounces off a pedestrian. You know, same as how it works in Flappy Bird. This is a real GTA IV mod for PC, slated for release this weekend. The mod, called Flappy IV, was…

Tim Schafer Is Happier Now

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with one of video gaming’s most creative people to talk about… money. Money. Business. And how things are so different and so much better in this, Tim Schafer’s 25th year making video games. We were at DICE, a gaming convention in Las Vegas. It’s really more of…

How I 3DS

The 3DS turns three years old today. This is how I’ve used the thing. I take it with me to work every day. I use a 32GB card, so I can hold all of this in one system, which is insane: That’s right. Two Mario RPGs, a Pokémon, Animal Crossing, the new Phoenix Wright, two…

How About A 2D Brawler With a More RPG-Like Combat System?

Last year we showed you Treachery In Beatdown City, an interesting brawler with an unusual combat system that is being made by a very small team in New York City. They’re targeting PlayStation Mobile first and have taken to Kickstarter to help finance development. Lead creator Shawn Allen joins us below to answer your questions…

Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku‘s reader-run community: What Fire Emblem Gets So Right • Pushmo: The TAY Review • Should More Games Let You Choose Your Gender? TAY Classic—TAY Open Forum—Beginner’s Guide To TAY Follow them here.

This Man’s New PS4 Should Have Been Free

Thought: if you’re going to go to a PS4 launch event in Japan wearing this costume, you should get your console for free. What a costume! At least he didn’t bring a fake machine gun to the launch. No, that was this guy! Both scenes are from Friday’s PS4 launch event in Tokyo. Both show…

Fans Transport GTA V‘s Snowy North Yankton To PC

Modders don’t wait. They take action. So while everyone else is waiting, waiting, waiting for Rockstar Games to make/announce Grand Theft Auto V for PC, enterprising modders are trying to transform the last official GTA released on PC into GTA V. First they brought the entire GTA V version of Los-Angeles-styled San Andreas to GTA…

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: The Kotaku Review

Let me tell you about a moment in world five of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. It’s a little late in the game, but it’s oh so typical (and not a spoiler, unless you count the placement of platforms as a spoiler). How you feel about this moment will determine how you feel about this…

Meet The Game Makers Who Actually Enjoy Reading Internet Comments

Rex Crowle and Christophe Villedieu don’t say the kinds of things most of the video game developers I’ve ever spoken to say. For example, when they’re feeling down they… go to Twitter to see what people have to say about their game. Really? I get that their recent game, the PlayStation Vita adventure Tearaway, was…

The Lego Movie Videogame: The Kotaku Review

Is the Lego Movie Videogame for you? It probably is if you can bring yourself to enjoy the following politically-controversial, looping video: How about this one? Really, what else needs to be said when assessing a video game other than the line: “You can play as Shakespeare and Batman.”? That says it all. Or at…