Shenmue‘s World Is Full Of Wonderful Junk

Shenmue I and II’s HD remasters released on Steam today and I’ve been playing all morning. Yu Suzuki’s 1999 adventure game helped set a standard for open world exploration. Its secret is simple: lots of and lots of “pointless” but satisfying interactions. One of Shenmue’s key features was an explorable open world with NPCs to…

The Queen Of Soulcalibur Is Back

Evo 2018 played host to multiple tournaments over its three-day run for established games like Street Fighter V and Dragon Ball FighterZ as well as the as-yet-unreleased Soulcalibur VI, which is still in development and set to come out on October 19. Marie-Laure “Kayane” Norindr, a veteran competitor from France known for, among other things,…

People Keep Trying To Scam Their Way Into Free Video Games

When Sean Noonan announced the Steam release date for his game, an infinite runner called Jack B. Nimble, he started getting emails from people who wanted review copies. Normally, this would be great news for any developer. Getting enough attention from media outlets and streamers can pull a game from the dregs of Steam and…

Shenmue III Will Be Released On August 27, 2019

After a couple delays, Shenmue III has a new release date. It will be out on August 27, 2019 on the Windows and PS4. Hopefully. In June 2017, the game was delayed from December of that year to the first half of this year. Then, this past May, Shenmue III was once again delayed to…

The Real-Life Totoro House People Could Sleep In

Previously, Kotaku introducedthe real-life version of the My Neighbor Totoro house that Studio Ghibli had built in Aichi Prefecture. You cannot stay the night in that house. In this one, you could. Japan isn’t home to one replica, but two. Located in Nagasaki Prefecture, this “Satsuki and Mei House” used to be available for 5,000…

Thank Gundam For This Photo Meme

The key art for the upcoming animated film Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative features a ridiculous pose which is spawning silly meme photos. Here, have a look at what people have been coming up with, posting their photos under the tag #ナラティブチャレンジ (or “Narrative Challenge”). Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative will open on November 30 in Japan.

The Best Affordable Japanese Whisky You Can Buy

Japanese whisky sure can be expensive. While older bottlings can easily fetch thousands of dollars or, at the super-premium end, hundreds of thousands, there are Japanese whiskies that are both affordable and excellent. Last Friday, one bottle of 50-year-old Yamazaki went for a staggering $343,000. While the prices of Japanese whisky has gone up, there…

Texan. Junction, Texas. By Nicolas Henderson | Flickr JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

Get Back, Peasants

Hey there, Medieval Shotgun. Wilhelm Nylund, the CEO of Landfall games (most recently of Totally Accurate Battlegrounds fame), has been messing around with the arrows in their older Totally Accurate Battle Simulator It is some good shit. This is the part where I was going to link to our prior coverage of Totally Accurate Battle…

Neon Genesis Evanhellion

Douglas P. Lobo is a digital painter based in Montevideo, Uruguay. You can see more of Lobo’s work at his personal site Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you’re in the business and have some concept, environment, promotional…

Total War: Rome II Still Kinda Sucks

Creative Assembly, the studio behind the Total War series, recently decided to revisit 2013’s Rome II—seen by many fans as the weakest game in the series in years—with a brand new expansion. In the five years since Rome II, there have been two excellent games based on Warhammer, an expansion for Rome’s siblingAttila and Creative…

Through the Darkest of Times, A German Game That’s Allowed To Use Swastikas

It’s only been a matter of days since Germany’s classification board agreed to start allowing video games to depict overt Nazi symbols, something that had previously been forbidden. Which means a game about The Third Reich already in development is going to be one of the first to be able to implement the change. Through…