Culture

Players Find Half-Life And Left 4 Dead Demos Buried In Valve’s VR Code

Valve’s new VR performance test program contains a two-minute snippet of the infamous Portal-themed Aperture Robot Repair demo. But there’s also more, if you know where to look. SteamDB and ValveTime dug through the code of an older version of the performance test, and they unearthed all sorts of interesting artifacts from Valve’s earlier attempts…

Witch House Looks Like Gothic XCOM

Supernatural crimes? Turn-based tactics? A detective main character who sounds like when he says he wants a whiskey on the rocks, he means jagged shards of gravel? Gee, Witch House, it seems an awful lot like you’re trying to get my attention. Witch House takes place in the prohibition era. More specifically, it’s set in…

Our Favorite (And Least Favorite) Vita Memories

The PlayStation Vita turns four today in North America, which makes for a good excuse to look back and reminisce about Sony’s much-criticized portable console. Come join some of Kotaku’s staff for a chat about the Vita and what we’ve done with it over the past few years. Jason Schreier: Hi guys! Four years ago…

Snacktaku Eats Stale Munchkins And Sadness At LaGuardia Airport

After spending nearly a week in New York City eating Taco Bell and attendingToy Fair 2016 I was more than ready to fly home to see my wife and children. Due to uncooperative weather I spent the night on the floor at LaGuardia instead, eating the worst version of tasty things. My flight to Atlanta…

The Many, Many Faces Of Nathan Fillion

Brad Shortt is a Senior Character Artist at 343 Industries, the (current) developers of the Halo series. For Halo 5, Brad got to play around with Nathan Fillion’s (slightly improved) video game face. A lot And everyone else’s face too, mind. But they’re not quite as interesting as seeing the Firefly star look like he’s…

Track: Dust | Artist: Glitterbug | Album: Dust Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

The Week In Games: Enter The Beastmaster

Thog love kitty. Kitty Thog friend. Thog and kitty always together. Thog name kitty Phsteven. Good Phsteven. Games come. Thog fear games. Games scare Thog. Phsteven keep Thog safe. Thog want to play Agatha Christie. Tuesday, February 23 Far Cry Primal — PS4, Xbox One Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders — PS4, Xbox One, PC…

Sunday Comics: Snake Sex

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published February 19. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published February 15. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…

This Week In The Business: Casual Casualties

QUOTE | “[O]ur games for core audiences did extremely well, but the casual audience has not yet emerged on next gen consoles.” – An Activision Blizzard representative explaining why the company laid off developers after disappointing debuts for Skylanders SuperChargers and Guitar Hero Live. Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week… QUOTE | “Up…

Devil Daggers Keeps Kicking My Ass, And It’s Great

My first play session with Devil Daggers, a new ‘90s-inspired shooter on Steam, lasted five seconds. When I’m playing Devil Daggers, my face pretty much always looks like this: Because of this: Devil Daggers is not what I would call a kind game. Everything about it is leering, hostile, agonized. The game’s sole room is…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The shortest month of the year is cruising into the home stretch, and there are still so many games to play. What will you be playing this weekend? I’ll go first: I’m in the thick of an XCOM 2 playthrough that is likely going to end with the fall of the Advent, though who knows…

A Game Disappeared From Steam, And Nobody’s Saying Why

A few weeks ago, a pirate-themed RPG called Vendetta: Curse of Raven’s Cry vanished from the Steam store. At that point, it was surrounded on all sides by (unproven) allegations of fake reviews and shady dealings. Flash forward to now: people still can’t figure out precisely why it disappeared. I’ve been keeping a close eye…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: My Girlfriend Won’t Stop Cheating On Me With Her Ex

Hello, Internet! Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the first dating advice column to break through to the 8th dimension with the power of the Oscillation Overthruster. On occasion I get a reader letter that’s so complex and dramatic that the only thing to do is go through it piece by piece, peeling back the layers…

Track: Car Song | Artist: Elastica | Album: Elastica Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

New Counter-Strike Map Met With Outcry From Turkish Players

There’s a big new Counter-Strike update out, and it’s really good! …Mostly. On top of everything else, the update added a whole host of community maps, including one set in Turkey. Problem: some players claim that one is full of insulting inaccuracies. The map, titled Mikla, was initially just a footnote in an update that…

Space Pilot Unable To Pack His Own Lunch

Franklin Chan is an artist based in Hong Kong who has done freelance work in the video game business. You can see more of Chan’s work at his personal site and ArtStation page To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click…

Houston, Vega Has A Problem

Today on Highlight Reel we have powerful Street Fighter moves, Just Cause cows, crazy legs, bullet alternatives, and much more! Watch the video above or on our Youtube page, then talk about your favorite highlight in the comments below. Be sure to check out, like, and share the original videos via the links below. Just…

Nice Wordplay, Cities: Skylines

Whoever wrote the text for the Steam page of Cities: Skylines’ Snowfall expansion belongs in the punnitentiary. Here’s the full thing. It really is… something: Thanks to Campo Santo’s Ben Burbank for tweeting this out.

Podcast: Playing All The ‘Wrong’ Games

There are a ton of games to choose from at any given moment. So why does Kotaku Editor-in-Chief Stephen Totilo play all the wrong ones? That question and many more on today’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen Jason’s out this week so I take over hosting duties, joined by our esteemed boss Mr. Totilo. We try…

Track: 23 | Artist: Unblock | Album: 23 Single Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.