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Call Of Duty‘s 1980s Shopping Mall Map Gets The Little Details Right

Maybe it’s the 2020 pandemic blues, but I can’t get enough of Black Ops Cold War’s retro shopping mall map. “The Pines” is a standard 6v6 multiplayer map that was added earlier this month with the launch of Cold War’s Season One. It’s a New Jersey-based mall filled with retail flashbacks. I’ve gotten so distracted…

By S.E. Doster Published December 28, 2020

Culture

Let’s Talk About How Much Mass Effect 2 Rules

Mass Effect 2. It’s widely regarded as one of the best games of all time, a sweeping space opera that set the standard for modern role-playing games. One of us (Ari Notis) is just now playing it for the first time, ahead of next year’s remastered trilogy. The other (Ash Parrish) basically has a PhD…

Ash Parrish & Ari Notis Published December 28, 2020

CultureOdds and Ends

Super Mario Sunshine Mod Turns Every NPC Into A Chuckster

Indie game developer Bread released a very special Super Mario Sunshine mod over the holidays that makes every NPC in the game able to heave Mario over their heads with no regard for his safety. What a great gift! This ability is lifted from the Chucksters, a group of throw-happy Piantas who form the crux…

By Ian Walker Published December 28, 2020

Culture

The PS4’s Spectacular Dreams Game Is Hurting From A Lack Of Players

When LittleBigPlanet creators Media Molecule launched the game-as-an-engine PlayStation 4 exclusive Dreams into early access in April 2019, I remember feeling a cautious optimism. The technology behind the game was impressive, letting people make their own music, games, and artwork with its robust toolset, then share it for others Dreamers to play within the platform.…

Jack Yarwood Published December 28, 2020

Culture

What Games On Your Backlog Do You Want To Finish This New Year?

I asked this same question last year and looking back on the list of games I hoped to finish, I actually am surprised I got to quite a few of them. That includes Deadly Premonition, Radiant Historia, Pikmin 3, Link Between Worlds, Trace Memory, and No More Heroes. The link between them all is that…

By Peter Tieryas Published December 27, 2020

CultureKotaku Game Diary

Lost Odyssey’s Ending Felt Like A Bittersweet Farewell To The JRPGs Of Old

I wish I were immortal just so I could play all the games on my backlog. Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360 is about immortals who’ve lived over a thousand years and they’ve experienced a lot. Maybe too much. Life has taken its toll and the only thing that’s made it bearable is the involuntary…

By Peter Tieryas Published December 27, 2020

Culture

The Week In Games: Birds

By Riley MacLeod Published December 27, 2020

Culture

Sunday Comics: Presents

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published Dec. 24. Read more of Corpse Run Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published Dec. 21. Read more of Awkward Zombie Clueless Hero by…

By Riley MacLeod Published December 27, 2020

Culture

Phantasy Star III Is A Flawed, But Ambitious, Entry Into The Series

Phantasy Star III was a game I wanted to love, especially since its predecessor was a science fiction classic and arguably one of my favorite games on the Sega Genesis. I still remember when I first heard about Phantasy Star III, which released for the Genesis in 1991, I was blown away by the idea…

By Peter Tieryas Published December 27, 2020

Culture

Who’s The Strongest Video Game Character?

If all the video game characters ever created got together in a big rumble, who’d come out on top? Kratos, the one who took down the gods of Olympus? What about Asura who fought off a deity the size of a planet? What about the ancients who wore Majora’s Mask and caused so much havoc,…

By Peter Tieryas Published December 26, 2020

Culture

The Brilliant 16-Bit JRPG About The Death And Rebirth Of The World

Considered part of the Quintet Creation Trilogy, Terranigma was the culminating tour de force from the Japanese studio behind 16-bit games like Actraiser, Illusion of Gaia, and Robotrek. It was never released in North America (though it received a translated version in PAL), explaining why most of us here in the States, including myself, never…

By Peter Tieryas Published December 26, 2020

Culture

7 PS4 Horror Games That I Hope Get PS5 Sequels

The PS4 had some great horror games. The best had a way of creeping into my mind subconsciously, lingering until a vulnerable moment and striking terror when I least expected. It’s interesting that with the increase in graphical power, the games that scared me most last gen weren’t necessarily the best looking ones; sometimes, that…

By Peter Tieryas Published December 26, 2020

Culture

How A Dark Time-Traveling Fantasy Game Became the Original Fallout

The end of the world was both darker and more humorous than anyone could have imagined, and in the original Fallout, released for the PC in 1997, gamers got to experience the apocalypse firsthand. The iconic, “War, war never changes,” introduction set the somber mood, which was written, strangely enough, during an episode of The…

By Peter Tieryas Published December 26, 2020

CultureSplitscreen

Why Ice Levels Keep Showing Up In Video Games, Even Though Most Of Them Are Bad

In games as in life, slipping and sliding on ice patches while torrents of snow transform your eyelashes into crystalline daggers can be frustrating, to say the least. And yet, ice and snow levels are a time-honored trope in video games. On this week’s episode of Kotaku’s Splitscreen podcast, we try to figure out why…

By Nathan Grayson Published December 25, 2020

Culture

CD Projekt Red Faces Investor Lawsuit Over Cyberpunk’s Messy Launch

Two weeks after the troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red is facing a class action lawsuit. But the filing isn’t on behalf of players who may feel burned over a pre-release cycle that hid the state of the game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Rather, it’s on behalf of investors. Yesterday, the…

By Ari Notis Published December 25, 2020

CultureOdds and Ends

I Went On Vacation And Ended Up In A Video Game

On a trip to a state park, I’m pretty sure my partner, my dog, and I stumbled into a video game. My own personal isekai Last weekend, my partner Travis and I took my dog and traveled three hours south to the Hocking Hills area of Ohio, where we stayed in a rented cabin for…

By Ash Parrish Published December 25, 2020

Culture

I Wanna Be The Guy Has Been Remastered

A group of fans have remastered I Wanna Be the Guy, improving the notoriously difficult platformer’s performance for those still willing to subject themselves to its dastardly tricks. “This is a mostly faithful remaster of the original I Wanna Be the Guy, trying to balance the spirit of the original game with the desire for…

By Ian Walker Published December 23, 2020

Culture

Cyberpunk 2077’s Latest Patch Resolves The PC Save File Size Limit

It’s no secret that Cyberpunk 2077 is plagued by a raft of technical issues, particularly on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Today, CD Projekt Red released another hotfix for the troubled game, aiming to address some of those issues, including the seemingly arbitrary filesize limit placed on PC save files. As Kotaku Australia reported,…

By Ari Notis Published December 23, 2020

Culture

20 Years Later I’m Still Thinking About The Bouncer

Sometimes a piece of pop culture worms its way into your brain, builds a comfortable, cost-efficient home in your cerebral cortex, and lives there happily for decades on end. My own tenant is The Bouncer, an odd beat ‘em up by Square Soft, which came out in Japan 20 years ago today before fading into…

Chingy Nea Published December 23, 2020