Culture

Dark Souls to Super Mario World: Highlights From Our 12-Hour Stream

Yesterday, my colleague Jason Schreier and I spent 12 hours sitting on my couch and streaming video games. We ate some pizza, sang some songs, and beat some bosses. It was fun. Each of us picked three games for the other one to play. Jason had me play Suikoden 2, Super Mario RPG, and Super…

Track: Instant Karma! | Artist: Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band | Album: Live in New York City Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Track: Silver Tongues | Artist: I The Mighty | Album: Where the Mind Wants to Go / Where You Let it Go  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Art Of Darkest Dungeon

What do you get when you mix a little of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy with some pure despair? You get Darkest Dungeon, one of the most visually distinctive games on the market. Below you’ll find some examples of the art that has gone into the game. I mean, yes, thanks to its visual design you could…

Super Mario Maker Community Reveals New Speedrun Playlist With Exciting Race

Twenty eight Super Mario Maker creators have banded together and created an exhaustive series of courses push the game’s speedrun potential. Super Warp World, a community-made speedrun ruleset,brings their levels into an impressive pack full of numerous paths and secrets. The game debuted last night in a blind race and it was awesome. Mario games are popular…

We’re Making Each Other Play Video Games For 12 Hours

Today on a very special MARATHON LIVE STREAM of Kotaku Splitscreen, Kirk and I will be playing video games for 12 hours. Here’s the catch: they’ll all be video games that we picked for one another—games we’ve never played before. From Splatoon to Suikoden, this will be a packed day full of us playing video…

Track: Smells Like Nirvana | Artist: “Weird Al” Yankovic | Album: Off the Deep End  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Robots Want All Our Ice Cream Jobs

It’s not just the factory jobs that robots are taking, but the ice cream ones. For example, look at Yaskawa-kun, a robot that serves soft serve ice cream in a cone. The bastard. Yaskawa-ku has been doing this for years. After putting in a 100 yen coin ($.92), you select what you want via touch…

The Best Cosplay From Sri Lanka’s Comic Con

The thirdSri Lankan Comic Con was held on August 26-27 at the SLECC in the country’s largest city, Colombo. Just like last year, there was a lot of great cosplay! Below is a selection of some of the best of it, courtesy of photographer Prasanna Welangoda. You can see more shots of the show at…

May We All Be As Chill As This Very Chill Cat

HJW is an artist from Korea working in the games business. You can see more of HJW’s work at their ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of…

The Closest Game To A Modern Robocop

miniLAW: Ministry of Law’s cyberpunk aesthetic of pay phones, pagers, robotic-suited cops, along with the underpinnings of a totalistic police system make it an intriguing game. It’s also the closest thing to a modern Robocop game we’re going to get. It doesn’t have the biting satire of Robocop but it does have a seeping dread.…

Game Of Thrones Recap Podcast: Even When It’s Good, It’s Become Predictable

Season seven of Game of Thrones has drawn to a close. Before we brave the long winter between seasons, it’s time for one final bonus Kotaku Splitscreen episode. We spoil the episode in its entirety, and also occasionally talk about differences between the show and the books. However, we do not discuss any leaked show…

What We Mostly Liked About Netflix’s Death Note

The much anticipated and dreaded American adaptation of acclaimed anime and manga Death Note dropped on Friday. To our surprise, we kinda liked it. Spoilers! Gita Jackson: Heather, Heather, Heather. How do we even begin this? We’re here to talk about the Netflix adaptation of Death Note, which is a movie we both definitely watched.…

We Tried Arby’s Game Of Thrones Turkey Leg

In honor of the season finale of Game of Thrones, Arby’s graced nine locations across the country with that king of Renaissance Fair fare,the giant turkey leg. Snacktaku journeyed to the restaurant’s seat of power in Atlanta to capture this rare, tasty prize. In a clever bit of unofficial cross-promotion, Arby’s selected nine cities in…

Track: The Message | Artist: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five | Album: The Message Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Best Cosplay From Sydney’s Biggest Anime Convention

Sydney’s biggest anime convention, Smash, has come again to Rosehill Gardens, bringing with it a cavalcade of bright and colourful cosplayers. With a focus on the Japanese side of things, Smash gets quite a different range of costumes to the ones you’ll regularly see at gaming expos or comic cons — though there are some…

Track: Proteck Ya Neck II The Zoo | Artist: ODB | Album: Return to the 36 Chambers Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Lost

Erica June Lahaie, aka aurahack, is a 2D artist and UI designer who has worked on games like The Shrouded Isle and Children of Zodiarcs You can see more of Erica’s work at her personal site, she sells prints hereand you can check out her Patreon here To see the images in their native resolution,…

The Week In Games: Rabbids Ahead 

Summer must be winding down because the release schedule is starting to ramp up. Knack II is just around the corner! But this week belongs to Mario and the Rabbids and a few other late August slackers. Absolver’s out this week, along with another episode of Life Is Strange. And of course, the long awaited…

World’s Best Geralt Cosplayer Meets Geralt’s Voice Actor

Here’s German cosplayer Maul,who may as well be Geralt of Rivia in real life, meeting voice actor Doug Cockle outside GamesCom. This is…maybe not the worst approach to handling the upcoming Netflix series?