Yannick LeJacq

The Sims Bug Abducts Men, Makes Them Pregnant

The Sims 4’s first expansion pack launched in late March with a lot of exciting promises. New careers, and corresponding workplaces! Better yet, aliens! If only we knew then what we know now. We might’ve been able to prepare for the extraterrestrial invasion and the sudden spate of unwanted male pregnancies. Shortly after the Get…

Magical Snowball Sends League Of Legends Players Flying Across The Map

Man. Is there anything better than an in-game ability so ridiculous people can’t tell if it’s a bug or an intended feature? League of Legends developer Riot added something called “Mark/Dash” to its popular multiplayer game this week. It’s a magical snowball that you can throw at enemies (the “mark”) and then teleport over to…

Ubisoft is conducting a charity drive to draw in more donations for the Nepal Region Earthquake Drive, the company announced today. The developer of Far Cry 4—a shooter set in a region inspired by Nepal—will match up to $100,00 in donations given to the Canadian Red Cross for disaster relief. You can donate here.

200CC Is So Fast It’s Starting To Break Mario Kart 8 Courses

The above image gives a marvelous view of Mario Kart 8 racetrack Music Park. It’s also a screenshot the player shouldn’t have been able to capture. Normally, busting outside of the normal confines of a level in Mario Kart 8 requires a) some sort of glitch or bug to be present and exploitable, or b)…

Game Developers Can Now Ban Steam Users

In a move that’s bound to yield some very interesting results, Valve just announced that it was changing the way it administers bans on its ridiculously popular gaming service Steam. Rather than adjudicating the entire process on its own, the company is effectively handing over power to individual game developers. Here’s how Valve explained the…

Track: Tear It Off | Artist: Method Man & Redman | Album: Blackout Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment

Losing In MOBAs Should Be More Fun

I’ve had a bad losing streak going in League of Legends the past few nights, which made me realize a fundamental truth about the game and others like it: they’re a lot less fun when you’re not on the winning team. Uniquely so, I mean. Saying something like, “a competitive game isn’t as enjoyable when…

Why League Of Legends Should Never Have Voice Chat

League of Legends becomes much more enjoyable once you invest in a solid headset and start playing games with friends on Skype, Mumble, or Curse. It’s so much better that you might wonder why the hell Riot doesn’t just make its own voice chat system. Because it would be a terrible, terrible thing. YouTuber and…

Mario Kart 8 Courses, Ranked

48: Excitebike Arena 47: Sweet Sweet Canyon 46: Electrodome 45: Dry Dry Desert 44: Wario Stadium 43: Donut Plains 3 42: Rainbow Road (SNES) 41: Bone-Dry Dunes 40: Ice Ice Outpost 39: Wario’s Gold Mine 38: Moo Moo Meadows 37: Royal Raceway 36: Wild Woods 35: Music Park 34: Animal Crossing 33: Water Park 32:…

League Of Legends Is Completely Rebuilding Two Of Its Original Champions

Bits and pieces of any big multiplayer game start to gather dust over the years. For League of Legends, the game’s age reveals itself in champion characters who become less and less interesting—and therefore less popular—with time. Over the past few weeks, Riot has introduced a number of major updates for two of the very…

A $50 “Game Of The Year” edition of Shadow of Mordor is coming out May 5th—as in, next week—for the Xbox One, PS4, and PC. No word on last-gen versions. If you haven’t played Mordor yet, this is a good chance to get all its post-release goodies without having to pay extra for the crappy…

League Of Legends Gets Skins Modeled After Championship Players

In case winning $1 million wasn’t enough to properly reward Korean League of Legends team Samsung Galaxy White for their victory at the 2014 World Championship, Riot has come up with another way to keep the players’ glory days going a bit longer. A lot longer, actually. The snazzy “Samsung White Championship Skins” that were…

Dota 2 Is Getting Faster

Valve finally got around to releasing its anticipated 6.84 patch notes for Dota 2 last night, meaning that there are some big changes coming to the popular MOBA this week. The updates are characteristically extensive. And insane. There are too many buffs, nerfs, tweaks, and reworks in 6.84 to list them all here. But let…

Custom Smash Bros. Moves Can Make Kirby A Total Nightmare

Kirby turns 23 today. Let’s celebrate the pink blob’s early twenties by looking back at the times he proved himself a worthy foe in Super Smash Bros. When I went looking around for legendary Kirby moments in preparation for his birthday, however, I ended up feeling a tad disappointed. Despite Kirby’s ubiquity in the casual-friendly,…

Mario Kart 8’s 200CC Mode Makes Fire Hopping Useless

Ever since Mario Kart 8’s second DLC pack arrived last week, fans and players have been deliberating on just how game-changing the new high-speed 200CC difficulty mode truly is. Apparently, it changes things up enough to render “fire hopping,” the game’s most controversial exploit, effectively inert. Fire hopping was first discovered shortly after Mario Kart…

Mario Kart 8’s New DLC Is Stuffed With Inside Jokes

Nobody does self-referential humor quite like Nintendo, that’s for sure. Mario Kart 8’s new DLC is no exception to this rule. Ever since the awesome new DLC came out last week, players have been collecting the best easter egg-type findings they’ve come across in whatever spare time they have between, say, trying not to die…

Mario Kart 8’s 200CC Mode Changes Everything

Ever since Nintendo made its surprise announcement that Mario Kart 8 was getting a new high-speed difficulty level, excited fans have had one question: what would it do to Mario Kart? Yes, 200CC speed certainly looked faster. But how much faster was it, exactly? [Insert your favorite Fast and Furious quote about driving really fucking…

Track: King Kunta | Artist: Kendrick Lamar | Album: To Pimp A Butterfly Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Top League Of Legends Player Retires Following Persistent Wrist Injury

Hai Lam, the team captain and accomplished player for the North American League of Legends eSports team Cloud9, has been pushed into retirement due to a longstanding wrist injury. While Hai said that he’ll stay on in C9 as its “Chief Gaming Officer,” his departure comes at a critical time for his beleaguered team. Just…

The League Of Legends Subreddit Is Having A Rough Month

Vote manipulation. Banned journalists and YouTubers. Reddit moderators who enjoy a disproportionate amount of influence. Not all is well in the community of one of the most world’s popular video games. Over the past few weeks, the Reddit page for the game League of Legends—a vibrant community that’s home to over 670,000 subscribers—has run into…