Culture

​What Are You Playing This Month?

It’s October! A time of turning leaves and too much candy, when the crisp fall air makes it easier to stay in and play video games, and the flood of new games means there’s always something to play. What are you playing this October? We’re just beginning the real deluge, and I’m curious which games…

Forza Horizon 2 Takes Traffic Jams To A Whole New Level

Traffic is bad enough when there are cars all around you. It’s worse when they’re on top of you and you’re floating in a void. Also in today’s Highlight Reel, a new Mario Bros world record, Destiny meets Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and more! You should note that in the Forza Horizon pileup, thanks to…

Can Game Characters Die?

“This cart is now a coffin”, posted UK games writer Richard Stanton, adding “RIP Hamlet the best Labrador in the world :’(“. I can’t help but wonder what’s happened to Hamlet, trapped inside that little plastic bit. This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK In the case of a Nintendog cartridge the end is probably swift…

Cheer Up Wolverine, You’re Famous

Dmitry Gaborak is a 3D character artist with over a decade’s experience in both film and video games. Most recently he’s worked on games like Evolve and Arkham Knight. You can see more of Dmitry’s work at his personal site To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so…

Lara Croft. Cosplay by IthinkIwasInHeaven, photo by MFZ

Mass Effect’s Miranda Lawson. Cosplay by KassandraLeigh

The Potato Salad Kickstarter Festival Actually Happened

Remember the potato salad that raised $55k on Kickstarter? The instigator Zack Brown promised to use some of the money for a festival. It happened, it was called PotatoStock, and that’s him eating the food in question. This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK PotatoStock took place in Columbus Ohio last Saturday, where portions of…

When Bad Controls are Good

The best comedy is undercut with tragedy. The apocalyptic satire of Dr Strangelove, the claustrophobic awkwardness of The Office, Basil Fawlty wailing impotently on his car with a tree branch in Fawlty Towers. It helps to laugh at our own shortcomings. This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK Life is hard, and if we can…

Metroid Cosplay Is So Good It Might Be Witchcraft

There are a few ways you can make an impressive suit of cosplay armour. You could cast it. You could forge it. You could sculpt it! Or, you could do what Chelsea did here, and use the dark sorcery of 3D printers. Not everything here was made using a magic box, which is able to…

Kojima Is Watching You. Always Watching.

Elvira Trofimova is an artist who has done work for various social gaming companies over the past few years. You can see more of Elvira’s stuff at her 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…

How Nintendo Convinced The World To Buy A Weird Mario Game

Gail Tilden used to work at Nintendo. She was one of the founding editors of Nintendo Power, so knows better than most people how the company was able to sell one of Mario’s strangest moments – a game that wasn’t even really a Mario game – to the world. In this excerpt from Jon Irwin’s…

None Shall Pass This Awesome Monty Python Cosplay

This is Daniel, cosplaying as The Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. He’s also known as the guy who won the Edmonton Expo.

The Most Intense League Of Legends Match Ever

In addition to our usual roundup of amazing plays and glitches, this weekend’s League of Legends tournament brought one of the most incredible moments in the game. Also, an amazing play in CS:GO from Dreamhack, and more! If you don’t want to see tournament spoilers, stop watching after Wolfenstein at 1:47. If you want to…

We Need More Taco-Themed Multiplayer Modes In Our Shooters

Over the years I’ve defended countless flags from the enemy, but I can’t recall defending a single grilled taco. This gross oversight is fixed tomorrow, when the free “Legends of the Lawn” update launches for Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. If you were to seat me at a table and arrange in front of me…

​Someone Beat Ninja Gaiden II‘s Hardest Setting Without Taking Damage

If you’ve played Ninja Gaiden II, you know that it’s a game that’s pretty tough on its third-hardest Mentor difficulty. On the Master Ninja setting, it makes grown men cry. Except for the Chinese player who seems to have beaten the game at its hardest without getting a scratch. A set of four videos on…

Keeping League Of Legends’ Champions Moving

Rory Alderton is a senior animator at League of Legends developers Riot, where he’s one of the people responsible for putting the moves in the game’s Champions. In a post over on Riot’s site, he goes into great detail on the process behind animating the game’s characters, including the revelation that the Champions are animated…

The Week In Games: Shadow Walking Into Mordor

With surprisingly positive reviews all over the place, this week belongs to Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. That’s right, Super Smash Bros. 3DS, get in line. This week is packed! Not only do the underdog and the sure thing face off, we’ve got a new Forza, an updated Persona fighting game, Sherlock “Mother-Fornicating” Holmes and the…

Sunday Comics: Misunderstood Friends

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 September 27. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published September 22. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…

This Week In The Business: The Dorky-Looking Goggles People

QUOTE | “We’re going to be remembered as the dorky looking goggles that people were putting on in the beginning.” – Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, talking about what he sees as a vast future for Virtual Reality. Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “We’re fighting the good fight…

The Last of Us sure could be eerie looking. No wonder, then, that real-world photographers find it a morbid and fascinating muse. These haunting images were made by Sam Javanrouh, using only the PS4’s standard capture features in the game’s Left Behind chapter: Check out more of Javanrouh’s work on his website To contact the…