Kotaku Game Diary Archives - Page 24 of 31

Dwarf Fortress Has Destroyed My Perception Of Time

This weekend I played Dwarf Fortress until the sun came up. Again. I don’t know why this keeps happening when I play Dwarf Fortress. On Saturday evening, after I got back from my boyfriend’s place and had thrown my laundry in the washing machine, I was alone in my apartment and not in the mood…

By Gita Jackson Published April 1, 2019

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My Sims Won’t Freaking Stay In One Place To Finish A Meal

Where do you eat dinner? At the table? On the couch? In your bed? If you’re a Sim, you eat all of your meals at all three of those places consecutively during the same meal. I’m freaking sick of it. In The Sims 4, Sims refuse to sit and stay seated while they eat. I…

By Gita Jackson Published March 29, 2019

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The Messy Princess Management Game I’m Still Playing Anyway

From the moment I saw NIS America’s The Princess Guide I was intrigued. The screenshots barely made any sense, but they looked gorgeous. Crisp, bold black lines, vibrant colors, and tons of incomprehensible but delicately arranged icons. After a few hours of actually playing the game, I barely understand it any better, but I feel…

By Ethan Gach Published March 28, 2019

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It’s Jarring To Play Earth Defense Force With A Hero I Made

Sandlot’s Earth Defense Force series is about generic soldiers fighting hordes of poorly animated insects. Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is about a player-customized character fighting hordes of poorly animated insects. Giving my EDF trooper a recognizable face changes things. Since I’m a longtime fan of the series, in-depth character creation was the last thing…

By Mike Fahey Published March 27, 2019

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New Sci-Fi Shooter Generation Zero Is A Let Down

I expected Avalanche Studios’ new sci-fi sandbox shooter to win me over immediately. Set in Sweden in the ’80s after mysterious circumstances cause the nation’s robotic defense force to go haywire, Generation Zero’s setup seemed algorithmically designed to appeal directly to me. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. In the few hours I’ve spent…

By Ethan Gach Published March 26, 2019

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Baba Is You Is A Brilliant Puzzle Game

There’s a certain trick that smart game designers use to mess with their players. You’ll finish a level, all satisfied and cocky about it, and then the next stage will look exactly the same, with a twist. Maybe it’s missing the crate that was the lynchpin of your first strategy, or maybe there’s an extra…

By Jason Schreier Published March 25, 2019

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The Division 2’s Tree Crates Are A Good Idea

Your average video game puts loot in boxes that sit on the floor or on the bodies of enemies who drop it when you kill them. The Division 2 does all that, but they are raising the game, folks, by also putting loot in trees. I support this. I was maybe 20 hours into The…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 22, 2019

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Should A Dead Deer In The Division 2 Drop Meat?

Game creators make the rules of the worlds they design, setting the physics and establishing what’s acceptable or lucrative to do in the world. Currently, killing enemy people in The Division 2 gives players loot, but a recent jocular chat among two of the game’s developers got me thinking about whether shooting the game’s animals…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 21, 2019

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A Letter To The Apex Legends Player I Probably Disappointed

Dear person I played Apex Legends with the other night: I am so sorry. We got off to a rocky start. Our third player disconnected before the match began, so we were a duo in a world of trios. You landed hot, dropping straight into an area with a couple other teams, and I was…

By Gita Jackson Published March 20, 2019

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There’s Nothing Like That Three-Star Puzzle Game Feeling

Every time I feel like I’ve grown past the need for validation from triple-starring a level in a puzzle game, I find myself drawn into a game like King’s latest, Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga Say what you will about Candy Crush Saga creator King, the Activision-owned developer knows how to make puzzle games feel good.…

By Mike Fahey Published March 19, 2019

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I’m Trying Not To Panic About A Bug In The Division 2 [Update 3: Fixed?]

The Division 2 is mostly very good, but a bug that the developers acknowledged on Saturday has me scrambling through my checklist of what to do when a game isn’t working right. The bug involves in-game skills, which are special attacks tied to gadgets such as drones and seeker mines that players use throughout the…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 18, 2019

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Making My Friends In The Sims Also Means Including Their Flaws

It’s always weird to make versions of your friends in The Sims I’m friends with these four guys: Mike, Dylan, Sam and Julian. They’re in a band called The Hell Yeah Babies, and I think they’re pretty great. One day while in a group DM with Dylan, I offered to make Sims of them. I…

By Gita Jackson Published March 15, 2019

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Never Let Your Friends Choose Your Smash Main

Long-established is the purpose of friends. When you feel like you can’t do anything right, they remind you of the times you did. When you feel like the world’s against you, they loyally stand by. And when you triumph, they celebrate your successes alongside you. All of this, it turns out, it crumpled up and…

By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published March 14, 2019

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A Game About Bizarre, Randomly Generated Lives

Yesterday, in BitLife, I was playing as Basil Andre, a french businessman, when disaster struck. I had been slowly climbing the corporate ladder, amassing a family, when suddenly, I got diagnosed with penis cancer. BitLife is a mobile game that bears a lot of similarity to RealLives, a free educational game that was intended to…

By Gita Jackson Published March 13, 2019

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Fake Smash Balls And Bees Might Be The Worst Custom Smash Bros. Mode

On Saturday night I invited some friends over to play Smash Bros., and I’m sorry. I’m not great at Smash, but I think it’s a fun party game. When you get people of varying skill levels together it turns into a raucous, chaotic experience you can’t get anywhere else. I was also hoping that my…

By Gita Jackson Published March 12, 2019

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The Best Stories Hidden In The Division

The Division 2 launches this week, and I can’t wait to hear its audio logs. I mean, sure, the rest of the game might be good, but did you know that the first Division had some great audio logs? The serious, politically fraught main story of Tom Clancy’s The Division is the only narrative element…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 11, 2019

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Trying To Solo Overcooked Perfectly Was A Mistake

Here’s what I knew about Overcooked when I started playing it for the first time yesterday: It’s primarily meant to be a multiplayer game, it can be stressful as hell, and solo play requires controlling two quirky little chefs plucked straight out of a claymation exposé on failed health inspections. All this to say: I…

By Natalie Degraffinried Published March 8, 2019

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My Favorite Thing About Far Cry New Dawn Is Seeing How Far Cry 5‘s Locations Changed

I’m a sucker for a game series that lets me revisit a place I’ve explored in an earlier game. I loved it when I played Super Metroid, and I’m having a great time with it now in the new Far Cry. I’m not talking about old levels being recreated in new games. I’m talking about…

By Stephen Totilo Published March 7, 2019

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Everything About Anthem’s In-Game Stores Is Bafflingly Bad

Every time I log into Anthem I stop by one of its in-game stores, and every time I am disappointed. The selection is bad. The three-day refresh is bad. Even the locations of the in-game shops are bad. It boggles the mind. Pictured above is Prospero, the first vendor players come across in Anthem’s home…

By Mike Fahey Published March 6, 2019

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I Wish This Charming Anime Game Wasn’t A Roguelike

RemiLore: Lost Girl in the Lands of Lore is a game filled with things I love. An unlikely anime hero finds herself in a magical world, where she must defeat mechanical creatures using ridiculous weapons. Oh, and the robots drop snacks when they die. It would be a perfect game if only it didn’t have…

By Mike Fahey Published March 5, 2019