The Tron: Legacy Lego Ideas Set Looks So Good

2010’s Tron: Legacy’s has nothing on the 1982 original in terms of character development and story, but it looked real good. It certainly makes for an attractive new addition to the Lego Ideas line of fan-created sets. You can almost hear the Daft Punk. Submitted to the Lego Ideas program by fan builders/reviewers BrickBros UK…

Nintendo Will Hold Smash Bros. Switch Tournament In June

The debut of Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo Switch is finally within spitting distance. On June 11-12, Nintendo will host a Smash Switch tournament at E3 where invited players will compete at the recently-announced title. At the same time, Nintendo’s Splatoon 2 World Championships will take place, featuring top teams from Canada, Europe, Australia…

The Switch’s Joy-Con Is Getting A D-Pad From Hori

This July, Japanese peripheral maker Hori is releasing a Joy-Con with a proper D-pad. Thank goodness for that! You will, however, have to trade some standard features for it. The current left Joy-Con features face buttons as does the right one. But if you mostly play in handheld mode, a left-side D-pad might be more…

Why You Shouldn’t Always Trust Job Listing Sites For Video Game News

Recently, Japanese job site CareerIndex posted that game developer Cave was looking for staff for a Yakuza game. The listing was, apparently, a mistake. According to IT Media, Cave’s stock shot up 7.1 percent. Cave is famous for its bullet hell games, but these days, it mostly makes smartphone games. The listing said Cave was…

Tokyo Just Got A New Godzilla Statue 

While this statue isn’t life-sized, this is a fitting tribute to a giant of Japanese cinema. The Shin Godzilla statue went up in Tokyo’s Hibiya, where Toho Studios was born. The plaza was previously called “Godzilla and Toho Plaza” and featured a much smaller statue that was unveiled in 1995. The plaza is now called…

Matsumoto Castle and the North Alps. Matsumoto, Japan. By Joey Elam. Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Surprise, Zelda Won Game Of The Year At The Game Developers Choice Awards

Nintendo’s latest Zelda adventure followed up its winat the 2017 Game Awards with GOTY honours at tonight’s Game Developers Choice Awards, held as part of the 2018 Game Developers Conference. It also won Best Audio and Best Design. Tim Schafer, meanwhile, was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and upon receiving it gave a lengthy,…

Sonic’s Original Backstory Took Place In World War II

The backstory of Sonic the Hedgehog used to involve a fighter pilot with Sonic painted on the nose of his plane, the game’s designers said today. Game designer Hirokazu Yasuhara and character designer Naoto Oshima were on hand Wednesday at Game Developers Conference to present a “post-mortem” of the design of Sega’s classic 1991 mascot…

There Must Always Be Two Starks In Winterfell

This is Ginny Di and Going Postale with a very convincing Game of Thrones sister act. Once you’re done admiring the overall likeness, check out the detail on those costumes. Sansa’s dress looks like it walked straight off the set. Photos by Ratio Photography

Tomb Raider LEGO Has Some Cool Moving Parts

This fan-made Tomb Raider piece is of course not an official LEGO product. There’s a bit too much going on for that. Less of a playset and more a mechanical diorama, it’s got a collapsing plane wing and, more impressively, a moving river/waterfall for Lara to navigate. It was made by Kevin Wanner, and you…

Former BioWare Studio Head Talks About Life Under EA

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Jason Schreier and I sat down with Aaryn Flynn, formerly of BioWare, to talk about his time working under EA on games like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Anthem Among other things we discussed the cultural shift when EA bought BioWare, leaving a studio after spending most of…

Wave Race 64 Player Spends Nine Years Shaving Less Than Two Seconds Off Record

Speedrunner Illudude has been playing Wave Race 64 since it was released in 1996 on the Nintendo 64. Yesterday, be set a new world record on the game’s Drake Lake level, breaking the 1:11 barrier he first introduced in 2010 and which speedrunners have been trapped ever since. Shaving five hundredths of a second off…

Harold Halibut is an adventure game where everything is handmade. “Almost every object you see in the game exists in real life,” one of the game’s developers told me during an Xbox event at GDC yesterday. The demo I played felt like a streamlined take on standard point-and-click adventuring (with some worrisomely clunky dialogue), but…

GTA Online’s Free New Update Is Like Nascar On Steroids

Rockstar’s latest free update for GTA Online, The Southern San Andreas Supersport Series, adds a racing mode that feels like NASCAR on steroids. It’s some of the most fun I’ve had in GTA Online in a long while. The new “Hotring Sabre” vehicle available in this update is inspired by the stock cars seen in…

Runescape’s 13-Year Pirate Quest Is Coming To An End

With the recent release of “Pieces of Hate,” the long-running MMO Runescape finishes up a quest line that’s lasted for 13 years. In 2005, Runescape started the Pirates series of quests with “Rum Deal.” Pirates is the story of the villainous, tentacle-armed Rabid Jack laying siege to the pirate base of Mos Le’Harmless, whose rum…