Culture

Sunday Comics: It’s Not Like Anyone’s Getting Hurt

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomicsl. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Guest comic published January 16. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published January 11. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry…

This Week In The Business: Digging Just The Right-Sized Hole

QUOTE | “We don’t want to dig too big a hole.” – Oculus VP of product Nate Mitchell, explaining why the company isn’t selling the Rift hardware below cost, at least for now. Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week… STAT | 38% – GameStop’s year-over-year increase in holiday software sales for Xbox One…

Slime Rancher Is A Very Cute Game About Ranching Slimes

Slime Rancher is a popular new Steam game where you adventure around, vacuum up smiley little slime creatures, plop them in a cage, and harvest their, um, poop. All the while, you try to stop them from growing miserable. It kills me to see them frown. A well-crafted start screen, I think, can provide a…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I didn’t do a “what are you playing?” post for January, so instead I’m going to do one for this coming weekend. Weekends are people, too! So: What are you playing these days? I’ll go first: If you’ve been listening to our Kotaku Splitscreen podcast, you already know that I’ve been playing a lot of…

Command & Conquer, Texas Style

Mike Colonnese is art director at the small studio Superweapon. He’s previously worked on games like Bastion and the Command & Conquer series. Superweapon’s latest game is Dawn of Steel. Oh, and Command & Conquer fans, the cel-shaded vehicles below (and the one up top) were concepts for Generals 2 You can see more of…

Someone Is Making A 3D Version Of Undertale

As you’ve heard us say over and over and over, Undertale is brilliant. It certainly didn’t need 3D to achieve that. The prospect of an extra-dimensional Undertale, though? Innnteresting. Russian game developer Edik Zykov doing the deed, applying Undertale’s 2D sprites to a 3D world. The end effect is… surprisingly not-horrible! It’s got a snazzy…

Pro Counter-Strike Team Collapses, Blames Cheating Team Member

Titan had all the potential in the world, but they were never able to capitalize on it. Cheating-related troubles punctured their boat back in 2014, and now the org’s founder is claiming they ultimately capsized it. And yet, fans seem more mournful than angry. If you’re a casual observer of eSports, you might remember Titan…

Track: Chlorine & Wine | Artist: Baroness | Album: Purple Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Ark: Survival Evolved’s PC version just got a new dinosaur and, uh, dung beetles. The dimetrodon sounds like a cool protective creature, but the dung beetle is downright intriguing. Described as a “wondrous organic biofactory,” it can eat excrement to produce a special oil (note: not for sex stuff) that powers generators and fertilizes crops.…

Terrific Fallout 4 Cosplay 

Nick Valentine, is that you? Arcanum Order’ssynth cosplay is unreal, from the eyes to the paint to the decay effects. That filthy wasteland business shirt is a nice touch, too.

Rebel Pilot Appears To Be Stuck

Today on Highlight Reel we have stuck pilots, sneaky deathclaws, kill streaks, karma and much, 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. R6 Siege – Tom…

Podcast: Learning To Love Speedrunning

Just what makes speedrunning so appealing? Why is it so much fun to watch people break the hell out of games we love? PODCAST TIME! Kotaku’s resident Australian Luke Plunkett joins me and Kirk on this week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen to talk about everything from Assassin’s Creed to Arkham Knight. We discuss the appeal…

Iron Man Figure Is Actually Iron (Well, Close Enough)

Plastic Iron Man figures are all well and good, but its hard to maintain the illusion of metal armor when your toy is light as a feather. Weighing in at four pounds, Comicave’s Iron Man Mark XXXVIII Igor figure is pretty heavy metal. Courtesy of my friends at Bluefin Distribution, bringers of all things amazing…

Track: Leaving Hogwarts | Artist: John Williams | Album: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Original Soundtrack Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Oh, Don’t Give Me That Look

Zezhou Chen is a freelance artist from China working in the video game business. You can see more of Chen’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 on the “expand” button in…

Trash Talk Generator Has Produced Some Wicked Insults On Steam

“You know all those times your parents said video games would get you nowhere? They were right.” Last week, I spoke with the creator of the Shittalk Generator, a crowdsourced effort to create sick (read: actually decent) burns that can be automatically queued up in games like Counter-Strike, DOTA 2, and Team Fortress 2. I’ve…

Watch Someone Murder Everyone In Undertale At Record Speed

Killing everyone in Undertale is a harrowing experience, one that will likely bring you to tears and lead you to question all of your life’s decisions. Unless you do it really fast Speedrunner TGH, who has spent the past few months trying to beat Toby Fox’s indie gem as quickly as possible, set a new…

Steam VR Stealth Game Looks Like A More Violent Portal

It’s always interesting to see old genres learn new tricks. Stealth—with all its methodical maneuvering and frantic flights—might seem like an odd fit for Valve and HTC’s only slightly mobile virtual reality face squid, but that’s just forced the folks behind Budget Cuts to get creative. So, a few things set this one apart. Let’s…

Steam’s Latest Hit Has You Manage A Starving Kickboxer

Punch Club first got everyone’s attention with an extremely transparent Twitch-based marketing scheme. Ever since its release, however, it’s been one of the top games on Steam. Is it actually any good? With some reservations, I’m gonna say yes. Punch Club is a boxing (or fighting, really; there are also kicks involved) management tycoon game…