Culture

I Love When Video Game Music Is So Good I Forget To Actually Play The Game

One of my favorite games of the last several years is Facepalm Games’ The Swapper.I like it for a lot of reasons: it’s got this beautiful stop-motion clay art style, an immediately compelling hook in the titular Swapper, a gun that lets you clone yourself and zap your consciousness between those clones, and a disconcerting…

Track: Lost in the Supermarket | Artist: The Clash | Album: London Calling  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Ronald McDonald’s Name Is Slightly Different In Japan

One of the world’s most famous corporate mascots has a slightly different name in Japan, where Ronald McDonald is known as Donald McDonald. In Japanese, the character’s name is written as ドナルド・マクドナルド (Donarudo Makudonarudo). Similarly, the McDonald’s backed charity is locally known as the Donald McDonald House. The burger chain first came to Japan in…

Tako Tako Osaka, Japan. By Brian Ashcraft | Twitter JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

But That’s None Of My Business

Chi Ngo is an artist from Vietnam currently working in Los Angeles You can see more of Chi’s stuff at her personal site and Instagram

The Video Games That Made People Question Their Beliefs

When Scott Udall first played Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance shortly after it came out in 2005, he was in a vulnerable spot. Udall, who grew up Mormon in Salt Lake City, Utah, was very religious, and his family were all politically active Republicans. His parents had gone through a messy divorce, and he’d lost…

The Randomly Generated Art Made By My Dwarf Fortress Dwarves Is Terrible

One of my favorite parts of playing Dwarf Fortress is the randomly generated legendary artifacts that my dwarves make. Usually, they’re epic pieces of armor or furniture or crafts that are decorated in brilliant gems and images from the dwarves’ memories. In the game I was playing yesterday, the dwarves kept giving me dumb pieces…

Track: Hunger Strike | Artist: Temple of the Dog | Album: Temple of the Dog Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Dotombori. Osaka, Japan. By Jeremy Weiss. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

Beautiful Paintings Of Pokemon’s Kanto Region

Games artist Simone Mändlhas been doing a big series of paintings all about Pokemon. Specifically, the landscapes (and cityscapes) of the Kanto region. They’re taking something we normally only see in a top-down game or a cartoon series and breathing life into them, and I cannot get enough of them. You can see more of…

Twitch’s New Subscriber-Only Streams Might Violate Game Publishers’ Terms Of Service

Last week, Twitch announced a new feature that’s already proven divisive: subscriber-only streams. True to their name, they’re like regular streams, but only people who’ve subscribed (with real money) to a particular streamer are able to watch them. It’s an option that many streamers say they won’t be using, for fear of dividing their audiences.…

In case you missed our stream earlier of Super Mario Maker 2, here’s me playing some levels that some of you made! Feel free to keep tweeting them at me too. Follow us on Twitch for more streams.

Dr Disrespect Apologizes For E3 Bathroom Stream ‘On Behalf Of The Dr Disrespect Brand’

Three weeks ago, Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm live-streamed himself walking into an E3 bathroom and, ultimately, walked out without a Twitch channel or an E3 badge. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, he didn’t seem to be taking his suspension very seriously, despite the fact that he may well have broken the law by…

Valve Index Is Luxurious, But A Hassle

The other day, a talking robot ball was taunting me, saying I couldn’t raise my arms and pump my fists like him. This, he proclaimed, was my ultimate failing, and I would forever marinate in my shame. I raised my own physical hand and slowly unfurled my real-life middle finger. My in-game finger shot up…

One Trick To Getting Better At Mario Kart: Relax

This weekend I learned the key to not sucking ass at Mario Kart: relaxing your hands. My general stance on competitive multiplayer games is that I play them to have fun with friends, and therefore I can’t be stressed about whether or not I’m good at them. That was again the case this Sunday when…

The Week In Games: Summer Things

Stranger Things season 3 is almost here and next week, to coincide with the new season, a game based on the popular show launches on all major platforms. Will Barb return? (Probably not.) Speaking of strange(r) things, if you scan through this list, you might notice something odd. In the year 2019, we have a…

Track: Zensen | Artist: Ai Higuchi | Album: Zensen  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Late Night Eats. Osaka, Japan. By Timothy Shill. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

ColossalCon 2019, aka Cosplay’s Great Pool Party

Once again ColossalCon looks like it was one of the biggest and best cosplay shows on the calendar, continuing its tradition of combining a regular convention with a massive pool party and outdoor nature shots. What’s cool about the combination is that while cosplayers bring their regular costumes to the show itself, the pool allows…

Cyberpunk 2077’s Special Cover Art Is Very Nice

Comic artist Josan Gonzalez, whose The Future is Now we featured last year, has a new entry in the series up on Kickstarter. He’s also done some work recently for CD Projekt Red, illustrating the steelbook cover art for Cyberpunk 2077’s collector’s editions. You can check out The Future is Now: Nightfall on Kickstarter, and…