The U.S. League Of Legends Finals Games Were Over Before They Even Began

The North American League of Legends Championship Finals (NA LCS) that went down this past weekend at Madison Square Garden was a mostly epic affair. There was one major exception: the actual finals match that took place on Sunday night. Playing in the standard best of 5 playoff format, Counter-Logic Gaming (CLG) dominated its first…

My Five Favorite Kotaku Stories From Last Week

I’m back from a week of sort-of vacation, and there’s plenty to catch up on. The site looked good while I was away. Here are my five favorite pieces. Hero Completes Fallout: New Vegas Run That Nobody Thought Was Possible – Patricia regularly chronicles the adventures of some of the most daring gamers out there.…

Konami Slams GameSpot For Report On MGSV Microtransactions

When reports come out that renowned pachinko manufacturer Konami treats its game developers like prisoners, you won’t hear much. But when a website suggests that the new game Metal Gear Solid V has required microtransactions? Konami comes out swinging. Last night, the website GameSpot reported that a section of Metal Gear Solid V—specifically, the PVP…

River City Ransom‘s Crowdfunded Sequel Lives On

When Arc System Works bought the rights to River City Ransom and some other games, it wasn’t clear what it meant for the fan-made River City Underground. Thankfully, it’s not dead. River City Underground was funded in October 2013, which means we’re approaching two years since it was first announced. The game was planned for…

This “Mega Yarn Yoshi” Amiibo is coming to wreak havoc on American cities like a super cute Godzilla on November 15th, Nintendo announced this morning. The downside is that it’ll cost $39.99 to get your hands on all that adorableness.

Until Dawn: The Kotaku Review

My wife and I fell for one another while drinking crappy beer and watching horror movies of questionable quality. This last week has been a repeat of that experience, but rather than watching a movie, we’ve been cackling our way through a video game. Until Dawn is a new horror game developed by Supermassive Games…

Proof That Daniel Was The Real Bully In The Karate Kid

So apparently the 1984 classic The Karate Kid is not about Daniel LaRusso, the new kid in the neighborhood, becoming the target of “Cobra Kai” member Johnny Lawrence. Nope. It’s the other way around! Johnny is the real hero, trying to make things work, but Daniel, the violent sociopath, doesn’t let him. And he even…

Warlords of Draenor‘s Story In Reverse Is A Tale of Friendship and Love

World of Warcraft’s current expansion pack takes us back in time to the orcish homeworld Draenor, prior to its destruction. With time travel and all kinds of timelines included, it’s not the easiest thing to follow. But with everything reversed, it all makes sense. In the expansion we set foot on Draenor, build our Garrison…

Here’s Nintendo’s Game Lineup for the Rest of the Year

The company revealed its plans for the year in a press release, and a hefty one at that. Look below for the full list of games and releases. Notably, Nintendo has specified exact release dates for a couple games: October 22 for the Wii U Fatal Frame game, Maiden of Black Water, and December 11…

As Redditor KongoBoom discovered, one way of passing time until Fallout 4’s release is designing a New Vegas Monopoly board A physical version of the set is in the works, with NCR, Legion and Pre-war money used as currency instead of caps. There’s higher-res pics of the board and some cards below. (via Polygon) Dayshot…

Mario and Luigi as Japanese Gods

Mario is Raijin (雷神), the Japanese god of thunder and storms. Luigi is Fujin (風神), the Japanese god of wind. And this is one incredibly cool piece of art. In Japanese art, Raijin and Fujin are traditionally paired, and in Japanese video games, the same is true of Mario and Luigi. This screen painting, done…

The Longest Hug Pillow in the World (Apparently!)

If anyone can find one that measures over seven meters (22.96 feet), then, yes, this is the longest hug pillow on Earth. Note: One of the images below *might* be NSFW. The hug pillow features the human-snake lady Miia from Monster Musume, a manga and anime about monster girls. The pillow is one-to-one scale with…

Odd Meme: Comparing Anime Cards with Magic the Gathering

This isn’t the first comparison I would make, but it looks like enough other people are doing so. On Twitter in Japan, people are comparing similar poses in Idolmaster: Cinderella Girls and Magic the Gathering. As noted on Togetter, there’s even a hashtag for the comparisons: #モバマスの画像をアップすると近い構図のmtgのカードが送られてくる (loosely, “If I/you upload a mobile Idolmaster game…

(via SyFy City)

League Of Legends Cosplayers Were Killing It This Weekend

Whenever you get thousands of fans together to watch a video game live, you can bet there are going to be cosplayers out in force, and this weekend’s LCS Summer Playoff Finals were no exception. There were a ton of fans in costume at both events, in New York and Stockholm, and below are some…

My What A Big Mako You Have

Wayne Haag is a veteran sci-fi artist from Australia who has worked on movies like Lord of the Rings, The Fifth Element and Superman Returns, along with TV shows like Farscape. You can see more of Wayne’s work at his personal site To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big…