Game of Thrones Recap Podcast: Whose Advice Should Daenerys Follow?

By popular demand, we’re back with another bonus Game of Thrones episode of Kotaku Splitscreen Last week we asked if you wanted us to do shows for each episode this season, and you told us in no uncertain terms that, yes, you would be into that. So here we are. I even recorded some special…

Video Game Publishers Sure Like ‘Extending’ Betas

Yesterday, Bungie announced a two-day extension for the Destiny 2 beta, continuing a long-running video game industry tradition of announcing the same surprise news again and again. It’s as sure a thing there is in video games: If there’s a beta, it will be extended. In video game parlance, a “beta” is a near-final version…

Dream Daddy, As Told By Steam Reviews

Dream Daddy is the best dad-oriented dating simulation game out on Steam right now, and its Steam users declare, “I’m gay.” Love dads? Like grilling? Into the History Channel? Dream Daddy might just be for you. If that’s not enough, these Steam reviews will run you down the pros and cons of the game, from…

Hyper-Realistic Splatoon 2 Images Are Becoming A Thing

Splatoon 2‘s been out for a few days now, and players keen to post their images in-game are moving beyondhasty scribbles and into the realm of painstaking recreations of real-world people, places and things. One guy’s even created a program to do it automatically. Any image can be turned into a Splatoon 2 graphic, as…

What Makes Wolfenstein: The New Order So Great

Following the less consistent Heavy Rain, it was a joy to finish our playthrough of Wolfenstein: The New Order onKotaku’s Twitch channel. While Wolfenstein might look on the surface like a mindless Nazi killing simulator, it’s actually a deeply human game. In the beginning of The New Order, World War II is going poorly for…

Pyre: The Kotaku Review

Pyre is a sports game about starting a revolution. In a worse game, that would be a joke, but Pyre takes both its sports and its politics seriously and combines them in an unexpectedly compelling way. This new game is from Supergiant, the small studio behind the lauded Bastion and Transistor games. Their first was…

ESL Lifts Lifetime Ban On Counter-Strike Match Fixers

Esports organization ESL announced on Monday a number of changes to its rules regarding cheating, doping, bribery, and most notably, match-fixing. In accordance with these changes, four former players from iBuyPower who were lifetime banned for fixing a match will be allowed to compete in ESL events After consultation with “a number of” Counter-Strike: Global…

Saying Farewell To Three Decades of Weird Sonic the Hedgehog Comics

Remember that time Sonic cried because changes to the timeline caused his children to never be born? He had previously been king of the planet, but in the new timeline, Shadow the Hedgehog was actually king and had married Sonic’s longtime love interest, Princess Sally (Sonic the Hedgehog #166)? No? What about when he would…

Fans Turn Butt-Bumping Wrestling Anime Into Real Sport

Today in “anime was a mistake,” fans of the anime Keijo, in which women in swimsuits fight with their boobs and asses, are making the anime sport a reality. Yesterday, anime site Goboiano reported that Portuguese fans of the Fall, 2016 anime are merrily registering participants for Keijo training sessions. Women are testing out its…

First Look At The Latest Pokémon TV Anime HD Remaster

Last night, a digital remaster of the first Pokémon episode debuted on Japanese television. The episode originally aired on April 1, 1997. The episode has been remastered before. Below you can see how the 2012 remastered version compares with a 2014 Kids Station re-airing of the original. That remaster celebrated Pokémon’s 15th anniversary. In the…

Final Fantasy XIII‘s Lightning Is Now Selling Nissans In China

Last year, Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII was moonlighting as a Louis Vuitton model. Now in 2017, she’s back with another gig. This time, she’s selling cars in China. She’s joined by Snow Villiers in a somewhat perplexing TV spot. People are wearing VR in Nissans? So they can take car trips with FFXIII characters?…

“Hamburger Straws” Are Japan’s Newest Online Meme

For the past week, some people in Japan have been buying McDonald’s hamburgers and piercing them with drinking straws. The name of this meme is called “drink x hamburger” (ハンバーガーxドリンク or hanbaagaa x dorinku) or “hamburger straw” (ハンバーガー ストロー or hanbaagaa sutoroo). Everyone isn’t doing this (yet!), but there are enough for the trend to…

Triple Digits. San Antonio, Texas. By Phil Lewis. 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!

The Art Of Strike Vector EX

Strike Vector EX is a dogfighting game that’s fresh out on Steam (it was released on console last year). And it has some of the best art you’ll see on this feature in 2017. EX is actually a re-release of Strike Vector, a game we featured on Fine Art in 2013. This new version came…

A Brutal Recap Of The Very Bad Pokémon Go Fest

So Pokémon Go Fest was a disaster. If you were lucky enough to not be there, and want to catch up on just how awful the whole thing was, this video recap by bobvids will get you up to speed. Spoilers: there is a lot of booing.

Now Here’s Demon’s Souls Running On A PC

In case seeing Persona 5 wasn’t impressive enough, here’s footage of another big PS3 game—Demon’s Souls—being entirely playable on a PC courtesy of an emulator. It’s running through a fresh update of RPCS3, the same emulator that was powering Persona 5 the other day. And while it’s not a perfect emulation—and has some hefty hardware…

The Week In Games: Come On Baby Light My Pyre

The creators of Bastion and Transistor are coming out with their latest and it shows how times have changed. We likened it last fall to a “mystical sports RPG.” Unlike Supergiant Games’ previous focus on story and exploration, Pyre shifts the focus to arena style-showdowns. Which I’m looking forward to, personally. An esport you play…