Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Ditto: The Winners! 

I know it feels like we’re piling up on Trump a little today, but in a Photoshop contest about a Pokemon that can copy anything, lharm explained so much with a single image it had to win. As many readers pointed out, the Ditto that’s been delighting and creeping out Pokemon fans and appearing on…

Marcus Fenix Deserves All The Statues He Gets In Gears Of War 4

A teaser for the Gears of War 4 reveal happening during tomorrow night’s Fear The Walking Dead features the second statue of Gears hero Marcus Fenix since the marketing team’s gears started turning earlier this week. News of Gears of War 4‘s October 11 release date gave us a look at our first statue of…

New Punch-Out!! Tell Comes To Light 29 Years Later

Proving once more that scrappy hero of Punch-Out!! is actually a dirty cheater, Redditor midwesternhousewives shares the story of the bearded crowdmember whose nod tells Little Mac exactly when to knock out Piston Honda and Bald Bull the second time around. A lifelong NES Punch-Out!! fan, midwesternhousewives was inspired to scour the crowd to tells…

This Week In The Business: Virtual Reality Year One

QUOTE | “Year one of VR is not going to see huge, AAA budgets… as more headsets get out there, and as we’re growing our capabilities the scopes of the games will get bigger and bigger” – Ubisoft Red Storm creative director David Votypka, giving insight into why the publisher’s first two VR projects—Eagle’s Flight…

The Wild Eight is a co-op survival game with a story, quests, and established characters. It’s pretty atypical for the genre, and it makes for an enticing idea stew when paired with a deathly cold setting (ala The Long Dark). The game is on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight right now. It might also be a…

Being A Shopkeeper Is The Hottest Job In Steam’s Version Of The Hunger Games

The Culling is a Steam hit that’s essentially Hunger Games: The Video Game. Set loose in a massive environment with nothing but the clothes on your back, your goal is to be the last person standing. So of course, players have invented a 100 percent non-violent role. Yep, in a round-based competitive game of life,…

Metal Gear’s Original Snake Voice Actor Returns For A Car Commercial

Think Konami’s gonna shut this down? Three years ago, fans were shocked to learn that David Hayter, the longtime English language voice of Metal Gear lead character Snake, wouldn’t be returning to his most famous role. Hayter’s lobbed a few darts at publisher Konami and Snake’s creator Hideo Kojima since it all went down. So…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

It’s getting hot over here on the west coast. So hot! Better stay in and play games instead. Now that the big VR headsets are shipping and I’ve exhausted myself making videos of VR games, I’m taking a break from head-mounted displays and playing stuff on a regular screen. This weekend I’ll mainly be playing…

Looking Good, Rebel Scum

Mod Makes XCOM 2 More Like Fire Emblem

I have been a fan of both XCOM and Fire Emblem since I was but a wee pile of childish hope and bacteria, watching the extra-long Sacred Stones epilogue during a precious family Christmas dinner. I have dreamed of a game that includes elements of both. Thanks to mods, XCOM 2 is now that game.…

Quantum Break’s PC Version Sure Sounds Broken

I started playing Quantum Break on Xbox One last night and was surprised by how much I liked it. If I’d been playing on PC, sounds like it would’ve been a different story. I raised an eyebrow last week when I heard the PC version’s main menu didn’t have a quit button—never the sign of…

New Mario Maker Guidelines Still Don’t Explain Why Levels Get Deleted

Nintendo has been deleting Mario Maker courses for months without explanation, and the community is tired. The company updated its Mario Maker support page today with new guidelines, but it doesn’t have many answers. “A Course I Uploaded Seems to Have Disappeared. Where Did it Go?” reads the support page, in which the company declares…

Namco Teases ‘Big’ Dark Souls 3 News, Turns Out To Be Crappy Merch

When Bandai Namco’s Twitter promised “big” Dark Souls news was coming today, it could have been anything. A Dark Souls movie? Details on the game’s DLC? A remastered Dark Souls? Nope! Turns out it’s a really lame clothing line. Here’s how Bandai Namco set things up yesterday: And here’s what it ended up being: It’s…

The Gamble To Make A Video Game About Infiltrating A 1970s Cult

“You’re sort of buying a lottery ticket,” the game developer Richard Rouse recently told me while explaining the mindset of trying to make an indie game after spending many years doing big budget stuff for Microsoft, Ubisoft and others. “It might be really successful,” he said. “I certainly hope it is. But you shouldn’t go…

How A Total Novice Built A Solid YouTube Following Beating Dark Souls

One of the biggest misconceptions about Dark Souls is that it’s only for super-hardcore macho gamers looking to prove their mettle – players who are looking to test their already hardened gaming skills. The challenge is too intimidating, runs this line of reasoning, for anyone else to contemplate attempting. [The following is an excerpt from…