Steam’s Latest Hit Is A Tough-As-Nails Mars Base Building Game

I’ve been playing Planetbase for a couple hours now, and I feel like I’m only scratching the surface. Planetbase is a new outer space base-building game that just hit Steam, and it’s been in the service’s top three best-selling games all day. It takes some time to dig into, but I’m starting to really like…

All Games Should Unlock Every Level Right Away

Super Mario 4D Universe—or whatever the next one will be called—should come with every single level in the Mushroom Constitutional Monarchy unlocked. The next Grand Theft Auto should make all of its missions immediately playable in the very first minute. Uncharted 4 should let me jump into the middle of Nathan Drake’s adventures as soon…

How Nintendo Made The NES (And Why They Gave It A Gun)

Video game history could’ve gone a totally different way if Nintendo’s corporate headquarters were somewhere else. “If Nintendo wasn’t located in Kyoto, I wouldn’t have been there,” the man who lead the design of the Nintendo Entertainment System said last night. Good thing Masayuki Uemura’s parents never relocated to another part of Japan. It’s entirely…

With Hearts of Stone, The Witcher 3 Continues To Get DLC Very Right

A month or so ago, I would’ve told you I was done playing The Witcher 3. Turns out that’s not the case. This week, The Witcher 3’s first paid downloadable expansion, Hearts of Stone, came out. While CD Projekt Red already demonstrated their ability to confidently expand The Witcher 3 with those 16 pieces of…

That Time A German Hacker Leaked Half-Life 2‘s Source Code

Players have been waiting a while for Valve to release another Half-Life game. It’s taken long enough that it’s easy to forget all the drama that circled Half-Life 2’s development. You know, like a hacker leaking an early version of the game in September 2003, more than a year ahead of its actual release date.…

League Of Legends’ Best Team Streamrolls Yet Another Challenger

Going into the League of Legends World Championship match-up today, the question wasn’t if the Korean powerhouse team SKT was going to lose to Taiwanese challenger ahq e-Sports Club. It was: “Will ahq manage to take a game or two off of SKT’s perfect winning streak?” SKT just answered with a resounding nope. SKT is…

Chibi-Robo Zip Lash: The Kotaku Review

If Chibi Robo weren’t so cute, this review would be easier to write. Look at the little guy with his electric plug tail! Look at him dressing up as Link from the Legend of Zelda Look at him meeting new people: Unfortunately, this little scamp’s new game is an oddball mediocrity, a game with an…

Valve Explains Why Steam Customer Service Is Still Terrible

At the start of 2015, Valve told me Steam’s crappy customer service would be a big focus for them this year. It’s still terrible. Here’s what happened. During a recent interview with Valve business authority Erik Johnson, I asked why people still have to put up with unanswered support tickets and, sometimes, months of radio…

One Unexpectedly Awesome Week With Metal Gear Online

I’ve spent the last week playing through the multiplayer portion of Metal Gear Solid V—and I gotta say, despite the initial launch hiccups, I’m pretty sure I like it better than the base game. Let me explain. Metal Gear Online is everything that makes Metal Gear Solid V so damn good—the wonderful tension of sneaking…

The Town That Inspired The Silent Hill Movie Has A Real (And Tragic) Story

Is that an air raid siren signaling the arrival of terrible monsters? Naw, it’s announcing Worth Reading, our weekly roundup of the best games writing. Hey, You Should Read These “Survival Horror” by Duncan Fyfe Duncan Fyfe digs into the complicated fandom of Silent Hill, which intersects with the tragic history of a real-life American…

League Of Legends’ Trolliest Game Mode Returns, Teemo Immediately Gets Banned

Riot just reintroduced one of its whackiest creations back into League of Legends, the company’s inexplicably popular team-based multiplayer game where angry little gerbil things do battle against gigantic, vicious dragons. Only this time it’s missing everyone’s favorite bloodthirsty fuzz monster Teemo. “One For All” is a special alternate game mode that Riot first put…

Downwell Is the Best Three Dollars You’ll Spend on a Video Game This Week

Falling down in video games is usually a bad thing. Spikes wait for you at the bottom of many a playfield, along with bottomless pits, pools of lava and other instadeath hazards. But, falling down is a joy in Downwell. The deeper you go, the better—and harder—it gets. Developed by Ojiro Fumoto, this vertically-oriented roguelike…

Damn you, Walk a Bigger Eight (A3D9-0000-009C-D845). Watch the whole video here. Contact the author at [email protected]

A Simple Option That Can Help Stop Streaming Takedowns

The battle between video game streaming and copyright law is a nightmare, starring heartless YouTube robots, takedown notices and threatened livelihoods. If only there was a quick and easy way around this. Oh wait. There might be. One of the biggest—and most incidental—problems facing streamers is the use of game music in their clips. If…

Legendary Dota 2 Team Na’vi Disbands

The longstanding Dota 2 pro team Na’vi announcedthis morning that their current team roster is officially calling it quits and saying “GG” for the last time. And so ends the storied career of one of the longest-standing and most beloved teams in Dota 2’s eSports history. Na’vi’s decision to jettison their current roster and start…