Culture

Super Mario Galaxy‘s Spin Won’t Be As Annoying In Super Mario 3D All-Stars

Super Mario Galaxy is an incredible game, but let’s be honest: the motion controls were annoying. In its appearance as part of Super Mario 3D All-Stars, launching on Switch on September 18, some of this inherent frustration will be removed by allowing players to use the Y button to perform the game’s all-important spin technique.…

The Best And Weirdest Ways People Used To Fight Screen-Peeking

Every couple of years, someone on the internet demonstrates how they adjudicate screen-peeking. Two kids tape a Toy Story blanket to their TV, ensuring an airtight barrier between both halves of the CRT display. One player stands up in the middle of a Halo deathmatch, while his two friends are condemned to their own MacGyvered…

How Xbox Series S Compares To Series X

Microsoft is releasing two consoles this fall, and while they’ll both play all the same games, they won’t play all of them the same way. So just how much more powerful is the Xbox Series X than the Series S? It’s impossible to say without actually being able to test both consoles, but based on…

The Xbox Series X Launch Lineup Is Looking Better

Gears Tactics and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla make the Xbox Series X lineup look better than it did a week ago. Prior to this week all we knew was that the Xbox Series X was coming sometime in November. The Series S hadn’t even been officially confirmed. Now we know both will come out on November…

Crash Bandicoot’s Girlfriend Gets One Heck Of A Glow Up

Remember Tawna, the busty bandicoot who served as Crash’s girlfriend/motivation in the first game? She’s back and buffer than ever as the hero of her own personal universe in Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. Crash Bandicoot 4‘s October 2 release date is less than a month away and developer Toys For Bob is still…

EA Play Coming To Xbox Game Pass At No Extra Cost

Tucked into today’s announcement of the Xbox Series X pricing and release date was the announcement that EA Play, EA’s subscription game service, is coming to Xbox Game Pass at no extra fee. Available only in the PC and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate bundles, EA Play grants players access to exclusive in-game content, early access…

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Release Date Moved Up A Week

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is now set to come out November 10, Ubisoft announced on Twitter today. That’s a week earlier than its previous release date of November 17. It’s also just in time to make it a launch game for the Xbox Series X, which Microsoft revealed this morning is also coming out that day.…

Xbox Series X Will Cost $499, Out November 10

This morning, Microsoft confirmed the price and release date of the new next generation Xbox. With a suggested retail price of $499, the Xbox Series X, Microsoft’s beefier, terafloppier, next-gen console, will be available for pre-orders beginning September 22, with a retail release date of November 10th. This news comes just one day after the…

Alien Crush Made Pinball Weird, Squishy, Gross

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’ll hit our first PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 chip soundtrack, the brief but memorable Alien Crush. Weird pinball! (That was my nickname in high school.) In theory video games and pinball are a great…

Track: Fade Away (War Child ver.) | Artist: Oasis | Album: Help!

Report: Nintendo Asking Studios To Make Switch Games “4K-Ready”

Tucked away ina Bloomberg story about Nintendo ramping up manufacturing of the Switch in the lead-up to the holiday season is yet another mention of an upgraded version of the console, one that will allow for 4K visuals. Thelast we heard about this was only last month, but this new report goes a little further,…

A Very Dashing Han Solo

Yeeky Zhang is a Chinese student who has re-imagined Star Wars from the ground up, taking inspiration from both the middle ages and steampunk, and ending up with something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Final Fantasy XII You can see more of this idea—and of his work in general—at his ArtStation page

Former Paradox Testers Say “We Were Severely Underpaid” Before Being Laid Off

Paradox Interactive, one of the biggest developers and publishers of PC strategy games—they’re responsible for this month’s Crusader Kings III—closed their internal Quality Assurance (QA) department last year, and a report on Rock Paper Shotgun alleges it was done in about the worst way possible. Speaking with former employees of the department responsible for testing…

Joy-Con Fighting Game Character Is So Accurate, It Constantly Drifts Left

Smash-like platform fighter Rivals of Aether allows players to create custom characters and put them up for download through the Steam Workshop. One such character, modeled after the Nintendo Switch’s ubiquitous Joy-Con controllers, is pretty dang accurate. So accurate, in fact, that it even drifts like a real Joy-Con. The fighter, simply named Joy Con,…

Among Us‘ Improbable Rise To The Top Of Twitch

When Among Us, a game of deception set in deep space, was first conceived a few years ago, online multiplayer wasn’t in the cards. It wasn’t even going to be on PC. Streamers were the last thing on its developers’ minds. And yet, over the weekend, the game solidified its status as a Twitch phenomenon,…

I Can’t With These Confusing Xbox Names

With the price of one of the next-generation Xbox consoles confirmed and the other one likely forthcoming as Microsoft and Sony’s big game of next-gen pricing chicken drags on, there needs to be a frank discussion about the names of these consoles. A discussion wherein I sit down with Mr. Microsoft and ask a simple…

EA Sports Adds Colin Kaepernick To Madden NFL 21

Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback whose political activism made him a divisive figure, has today been added to Madden NFL 21 as a free agent after being left out of several previous iterations due to his status with the league. “Knowing that our EA Sports experiences are platforms for players to create, we want…

How’s It Going? Young Wallander Edition

Younger is not always better, especially when it comes to rough-and-tumble Swedish police inspectors. Welcome back to our daily open thread. I am a big fan of Kurt Wallander. He’s a detective whose adventures were chronicled by Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell. He’s the star of a series of novels, a bunch of films, a…

New Hyrule Warriors Is A Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Prequel, Arrives In November

Nintendo’s not ready to tell us more about the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but they’re fine springing a surprise prequel on us. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, due out November 20 for the Switch, is a hack-and-slash RPG set 100 years before Breath of the Wild. Developed by Koei…

Everything You Need To Know About Kamala Khan, The Star Of Marvel’s Avengers

When you think of the Avengers, you think Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, and Black Widow, comic book characters who’ve been around for over half a century. The main character in the Marvel’s Avengers video game, however, has only been in existence since 2013. That makes it pretty easy to read up on Kamala…