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CulturePokemonDelibird Gives The Best Presents
Every Pokemon is interesting and worth talking about. I don’t play a ton of Pokemon, but I do enjoy the universe and I love learning more about the creatures in it. So, Here’s Another Pokemon! It’s Delibird! Delibird Details Type: Ice/Flying Average Height: 2′ 11″ Average Weight: 35.3 lbs. First Added In Generation II On…
By Zack Zwiezen Published December 19, 2020 -
CultureSomeone Found A Weird Unreleased Simpsons Game On An Old Dreamcast Dev Kit
Sreak, a user over on the Dreamcast-Talk forums, posted the files from an old, broken Dreamcast dev kit hard drive. Users quickly found inside an unreleased, incomplete and odd Simpsons game, which it seems had never been publicly announced or revealed. Yesterday, Sreak posted that they wanted to upload some files from an old Dreamcast…
By Zack Zwiezen Published December 19, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsGhostrunner Is Actually The Fall’s Sharpest Cyberpunk Game
Ghostrunner is a lean-forward game. You know the position: When the going gets tough, anything short of absolute focus won’t cut it, so you lean forward, elbows on thighs, in order to close the distance between your eyes and the TV as much as possible. With a lean-forward game, the going is always tough. Ori…
By Ari Notis Published December 19, 2020 -
CultureMorning CheckpointOH NO, He’s Hot!
This week we catch up on ALL the Cyberpunk 2077 news, check out a bunch of Xbox consoles playing Crimson Skies, get yelled at by Santa, watch the new trailer for Fall Guys Season 3 and look at shirtless Sephiroth. Great Kotaku Content From The Past Week Cyberpunk’s character creator has some highs, but it…
By Zack Zwiezen Published December 19, 2020 -
CultureOdds and EndsThe United States Space Force Is Basically Setting Up Destiny
Earlier today, United States vice president Mike Pence announced that the members of the Space Force—a big dumb vanity project by the big wet toddler currently living in the White House—will be called “Guardians,” much like the player characters of the Destiny franchise. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons obviously got a kick out of that. I…
By Ian Walker Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryThe Sephiroth Boss Fight Is The Most Fun I’ve Had In Smash Bros. Ultimate In A While
It’s been a rough year for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and me, mostly because with the ongoing pandemic I haven’t been able to play it IRL with anyone. The game’s new limited-time Sephiroth boss fight has helped me fall back in love with it though, by giving me a brief but excellent new single-player challenge…
By Ethan Gach Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureOdds and EndsYoshitaka Amano’s Harley Quinn Cover Is So Good I’m Gonna Cry
Stephanie Phillips, writer on DC Comics’ upcoming Harley Quinn comic series, recently shared an excellent variant cover from the first issue, provided by none other than legendary Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano. I’m not much of a comic reader these days but, damn, if this isn’t a tempting reason to get back into them. Amano…
By Ian Walker Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureSplitscreenWhat Is Even The Point Of Giving Awards To Video Games
‘Tis the season to feel mildly embittered at basically all times. I speak, of course, of awards season, during which countless games take home trophies and plaques (or pictures of trophies and plaques), but not the ones you want to win. What, really, is the point, though? On this week’s episode of the Splitscreen podcast,…
By Nathan Grayson Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureCyberpunk 2077 Third-Person Bug Reveals V Is A Shambling Monstrosity
Cyberpunk 2077 is a disaster that the executives at CD Projekt knew full well was going to crash and burn. That said, one of its numerous bugs has the benefit of giving players what they’ve asked for since the game’s long-ago 2012 reveal: a third-person mode. In various videos uploaded since the game’s launch on…
By Ian Walker Published December 18, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsHivebusters Is A Great Gears DLC And A Fantastic Xbox Series X Showcase
Hivebusters is a new single-player DLC campaign released for Gears 5. It’s also one of the best-looking games on Xbox Series X and feels like a full Gears game compressed into a bite-size experience that has me excited for the future of Gears of War. This new $20 DLC campaign, which was released on December…
By Zack Zwiezen Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureCyberpunk 2077 Refund Options Expand, With Updates From Xbox, Best Buy, And CD Projekt Itself [Update]
Update (3:03 p.m. ET, 12/18/2020): Cyberpunk 2077 refund options continue to grow for disappointed players. In addition to both Sony and Microsoft loosening their refund policies, Best Buy and even CD Projekt itself have promised to make things right for customers. According to a Best Buy social media specialist, the retailer will refund physical copies…
By Ian Walker Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureReport: Cyberpunk 2077 Developers Grill Management Over Crunch, Deadlines, And Poor Launch
Staff at Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt Red asked tough questions of their leadership at an all-hands video meeting on Thursday, including about mandatory overtime and far-fetched production goals, according to a new report by Bloomberg “Developers asked blunt questions about the company’s reputation, the game’s unrealistic deadlines and the relentless overtime in the months…
By Ethan Gach Published December 18, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsCall of Duty Season One Brings Much-Needed Maps To Cold War, But Warzone‘s ‘New’ Map Doesn’t Quite Work
Call of Duty’s Season One arrived earlier this week, bringing an ambitious number of new maps and modes to Black Ops Cold War and Warzone, as well as integrating the new level progression system into last year’s Modern Warfare. New maps were sorely needed and are appreciated, but the large rollout came with some problems On…
By S.E. Doster Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureControl Comes To PS5 And Xbox Series X/S With Ray-Tracing In February
Remedy Games’ paranormal office thriller Control will come to next-gen consoles digitally on February 2, followed by a full retail release on March 2, the studio announced on Twitter this morning. The next-gen version of the game will include a performance mode to run at 60 fps on both platforms, while the standard 30 fps…
By Ethan Gach Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureDota 2 Gets New Hero And Massive Mistwoods Update
Dota 2‘s Mistwoods update dropped yesterday, making a ton of changes to the game and adding its 120th hero: a crossbow toting woodland creature named Hoodwink. Update 7.28 is Dota 2‘s fifth of the year, but arguably also its biggest, adding a completely new mechanic right before the holidays called Aghanim’s Shards: items that can…
By Ethan Gach Published December 18, 2020 -
Kotaku EastChinaMcDonald’s China Has A Spam and Oreos Burger, It Seems
Goodness. In what sounds like a dare, McDonald’s China is offering a Spam burger with crumbled cookies. As pointed out by Daniel Ahmad on Twitter, the burger will go on sale in China starting December 21 and will apparently be limited to 400,000 Spam Oreo sandwiches Do note that the fine print does mention the…
By Brian Ashcraft Published December 18, 2020 -
AnimeWatch The First Episode Of Mamoru Oshii’s New Anime Right Here
Mamoru Oshii is famous for influential anime feature films like Patlabor 2: The Movie and Ghost in the Shell. Prior to that, he made a name for himself directing the Urusei Yatsura TV series in the early 1980s. He’s now returned to TV anime with Vlad Love Created by Oshii and co-directed with long-time collaborator…
By Brian Ashcraft Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureTrack: Late Evening In Jersey (from Heat) | Artist: Brian Eno | Album: Film Music: Crime Pays
By Brian Ashcraft Published December 18, 2020 -
CultureA Final Goodbye To The Last Generation
For the past month we’ve been taking a look back at the winners, losers and defining trends of the PlayStation 4/Xbox One era of home video game consoles as part of a feature series called The Last Generation In that time we’ve covered Nintendo’s smooth exit from the console arms race, said goodbye to my…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 17, 2020