Square Enix Is Sorry for Parodying a Disgraced Scientist

Well, I guess that didn’t go as planned, now did it? Then again, maybe it did. Japanese researcher Haruko Obokata caused one of the biggest science scandals in recent memory after her botched stem-cell research was proven highly questionable. Obokata resigned due to research misconduct, and currently, there’s talk of criminal charges against her. Square…

So That Was Law & Order‘s GamerGate Episode

When Law & Order: SVU takes on video games, the results are usually not pretty. Tonight’s episode—a GamerGate special—was no exception. “They’re playing a game,” Ice-T’s character says at one point, referencing a group of misogynistic terrorists who have kidnapped a female video game developer. “We’ve gotta play too.” If just reading that line made…

Crazy SNES Controller Had All The Buttons

In the late 90s, Canadian company TranDirect Holding had an idea: what if you could connect a Super Nintendo to a phone line, and use it to do your banking on? And what if instead of using a regular SNES controller, you used a sweet custom BANKING CONTROLLER. Look at that thing! It’s like a…

Grim Fandango Has Aged Terribly, But So Have We

First: a list of things that are greatabout Grim Fandango and will always be great about Grim Fandango. Consider this an attempt to appease the angry mob congregating outside the Kotaku Australia office 30 minutes after I hit publish on this article. Grim Fandango has fantastic dialogue. To this day it remains stylish, funny, clever…

Slot Machines Might Soon Require Some Skill

It’s possible your next trip to Las Vegas could benefit from your many years of video game playing, Kotaku readers. The Las Vegas Sun reports the Nevada senate committee is currently mulling a bill that would would pave the way for regulators to allow games that reward skill. Here’s how the publication puts it: “That…

Makeup Wizard Turns Himself Into Dragon Ball Z’s Frieza

Cosplay doesn’t always need costumes, or props. Sometimes, all you need is makeup.* Watch as Pinkstylist transforms himself into Dragon Ball Z’s greatest villain, using make-up to make himself look like he came right out of the anime. It’s fantastic, if not a little weird—Frieza looks so life-like, but those aren’t his mannerisms, nor is…

Evolve On PC vs PS4 vs Xbox One

It’s time for another graphical throw-down, this time featuring thelatest big monster hunting game,Evolve. GameSpot brings us a graphics comparison video, where you can note the differences between all the versions of Evolve. Overall, there don’t seem to be huge differences between the versions—they all look great—but, if you’d like to view the fearsome monster…

The White House Is Trying To Sell Obamacare To Gamers

The deadline for getting health insurance through Obamacare is February 15, and the White House has enlisted heavy hitters from the eSports community to encourage players to sign up. The White House explained how this came about in a blog post today, too: “Don’t know what eSports is? You should. Electronic sports — or eSports…

Alien: Isolation had a really cool save-game system. In a new postmortem over at Gamasutra, Creative Assembly’s Gary Napper talks about how that system came to be

How To Make Darkest Dungeon Easier (Or Harder)

Darkest Dungeon is remarkably polished for a Steam Early Access game, but it’s also remarkably difficult. Some would even say that, in its current (evil) larval phase, it’s too difficult—to the point of being unfair or un-fun. Thank goodness for mods. A modder who goes by the handle Maester Silvio has taken apart Steam’s out-of-nowhere…

New Superman Story Tries to Re-Write Man of Steel Movie’s Big Mistake

Superman: Earth One – Volume 3 is not a good comic-book story. But it’s one that stands in direct opposition to the sorta-okay Superman movie that came out in 2013. It pushes back at that thing that happened in the movie. You know, the thing that pissed off a lot of Superman fans. (That was…