Dishonored: Death of the Outsider: The Kotaku Review

Dishonored has always been about the journey more than the destination, discovering secrets in its levels and finding creative ways to fulfill its objectives. Death of the Outsider, the game’s new standalone DLC, stays true to this strength. It doesn’t reinvent the game, but it doesn’t need to. Narratively, Death of the Outsider fits with…

Dragon Ball FighterZ Makes It Easy To Fight Like A Super Saiyan 

This weekend I spent hours playing Dragon Ball FighterZ in a closed beta on Kotaku’s Twitch channel. The game is gorgeous, but I’m more impressed with the number of tricks and tools it gives players to turn a match around. I’m an intermediate fighting game player at best. There’s something about the fine motor control…

Black Mirror’s ‘San Junipero’ Is Great Television Because Of Its Optimism

Charlie Brooker’s body of work is defined by its pessimism. From the pointed critique of lazy hipster irony in Nathan Barley to the gory satire of reality shows depicted in Dead Set, his work pinpoints the worst of humanity. Black Mirror continues that bleak trend, sometimes to the point of parody. Last night, Brooker won…

A Melodramatic Game About Foxes

You are a mother fox who awakes to find that your three babies have disappeared. As you set off through the vast wilderness to find them, a voice begins to speak. It’s the voice of a man named Joseph. At first he talks about your journey, but then the focus switches to his own story.…

Sure Looks Like This Guy Won Battlegrounds While AFK

It looks like one ludicrously lucky Battlegrounds player managed to be the last one standing and win the game, all while AFK. In survival shooter Battlegrounds, the playable area constricts around a seemingly random point on the map. The game’s inherent tension is that, to stay alive, players must travel to the playable area, thereby…

Do You Stand While You Play The Switch?

At my birthday party this weekend, I brought out my Nintendo Switch so I could be as cool as all those people in the commercials. Just like the people in the commercials, we all ended up standing while playing games, as well. It was super weird. On Saturday night, after I hooked up my Switch…

Why Video Games Cost So Much To Make

Video game publishers are notoriously secretive about the budgets behind their games, but when a number does slip out, it can be shocking. Games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, which is tough to fathom—until you do the math. While reporting for my recently released…

Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite Could Do Without Story Mode

Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite arrives this week, bringing a revamped two-character tag-team battle system and cinematic storytelling to the long-running crossover series. The fighting is a blast. The storytelling could use some work. Since X-Men Vs. Street Fighter back in 1996, Capcom’s been pitting heroes and villains from Marvel Comics with its own character creations…

Parasite Eve Had More In Common With Final Fantasy Than Horror Games

Square wasn’t pulling punches when they developed their very first M-rated survival horror game, Parasite Eve. In the opening scene, the main character, Aya Brea, attends an opera where the entire audience spontaneously combusts. But what makes Parasite Eve so unique is that it shares more in common with Final Fantasy than it does other…

Nintendo Games Used To Be Released On Japanese PCs

Nintendo characters very rarely appear on non-Nintendo hardware, but that wasn’t always the case. For a few years after the release of the original Famicom in 1983, Nintendo licensed its games to Hudson Soft, which produced versions for the major Japanese PC platforms of the day. As of late, many of the game shops in…

Japan Lines Up For Super Famicom Mini Pre-Orders 

This Saturday, pre-orders for the Classic Mini Super Famicom kicked off in Japan. At stores in Tokyo and Osaka, fans showed up in droves. The Classic Mini Super Famicom comes packed with 21 games, including the never released Star Fox 2. There were lines at stores across the country. At 5:30am on Sunday morning, there…

Misty Sunday Morning. Wilkens Fruit & Fir Farm, NY. By Narelle Ho Sang. 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! 

Here Are A Bunch Of Other Video Game Nipples

Last week the world was shaken by the startling revelation that everyone’s favourite former plumber has nipples. We should have seen this coming, really. Despite some debate, we’ve been told in no uncertain terms that Mario is a human. And the standard configuration of a human includes two nipples. But this revelation raises more questions.…

Old Soldiers Never Die

Victor Quaresma is an artist who works across both video games and animation at visual development studio Volta. You may have recently seen some of his designsin Mass Effect Andromeda. You can see more of Victor’s work athis ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the…