The Best Gifts You Got For The Holidays This Year

Every year there are bound to be some Christmas-spirit-raising gifts and a few well-intentioned duds. So we’d like to know…what’d you get? Best and worst gifts? Did you send someone one of our gift guides as a helpful nudge? Or maybe you bought someone something so perfect you just have to share? Here’s your venue…

Merry Christmas! Did Your Presents Make You This Happy?

By now, most households should be buried in shredded wrapping paper, unless yours is home to a fastidious person always ready with a trash bag and a dustbuster for those flecks of styrofoam packing that get everywhere. Anyone get any games? Anyone get a console? My parents live in town, and before I drove over…

Disney Characters Without Their Beards Are Frightening

People sure do like to mess around with Disney characters. We’ve seen the princesses as Final Fantasy characters but, even after that, seeing all the old, bearded characters from classic Disney movies without their essential hair just confuses me. This funny redesign, made by Annie Erskine, would probably have ruined the childhood of a lot…

A Fitting Finish For The Year Of Luigi

This was the Year of Luigi, but it didn’t feel like the Year of Luigi. At least not until today, when Japan’s Good Smile Company revealed the Nendoroid Luigi figure, and I fell in love. Nendoroid is probably the most popular toy line in the world for fans of giant heads on smallish bodies. Not…

Check Out the Most Amazing Warship Models You’ll Ever See

Holy cow… Models are awesome. The more detailed the better. Still, there is a limit to how detailed you can make things depending on the scale. When it comes to battleships, usually the largest scale models you’ll find on sale are 1/350 scale. If you want bigger, well you’re kind of out of luck –…

Playstation Plus For $35, And A Discount On LIVE

Best Buy has a 1 year Playstation Plus membership for $35, which is $15 off retail, and the second cheapest the subscription has been. Playstation Plus is, in our opinion, the best value in gaming. It was the most popular Black Friday deal we posted, and was the fifth most taken advantage of deal of…

Studio of Indie Sensation Hello Games Flooded on Christmas Eve, Devs Say

“We have learned that laptops float sometimes,” one of the developers of small indie studio Hello Games Tweeted late today, breaking what appears to be the unfortunate news that the offices of one of 2013’s most exciting indie studios have all but been ruined. Happily, there are no reports of injuries, but the fate of…

Up for a challenge? See if you can beat Claw’s Titan Souls, a free game in the Shadow of the Colossus mode that pits you against four massive beasts with only a single arrow and a single hitpoint. Amazingly enough, the game was made in only four days as part of Ludum Dare 28. (via…

Evan’s Top Ten Games of 2013

A DLC add-on. A trippy mobile psychodrama. A triumphant rebirth. A chilling sci-fi future. A giant arcade cabinet that lives in New York City. This is what I’ll remember most about my video game experiences in 2013. Some of what I loved this year told great stories, tapped into my own ancestral history or messed…

If This is a Practice Mode for NBA Live 14, Better Late Than Never

This weekend NBA Live 14 rolled out a patch, but cautioned it was more of a building-block update, designed mostly to help future patches improve the game more conspicuously. The team also dropped this tutorial video, which is notable because it appears to show a new practice mode. The lack of a practice mode may…

Pokémon, Looking All Evil

You can lose yourself easily in Pixiv artist 猫鴉‘s gallery, where every single Pokémon got touched by evil, and became really unique and serious. Truly impressive stuff. Reminds me of cool concept art of visually stunning Japanese video games. Here’s some of the best of his work, but you can find more at his Pixiv…

He’s Got The Largest Video Game Collection In The World

With more than 11,000 titles spanning the width and breadth of gaming history, Michael Thomasson is the holder of Guinness World Record for the largest video game collection. That’s love. Or obsession. Maybe both. We tend to shy away from the “awards” published in the Gamers’ Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records every…

​I Don’t Care What This Video Says, There’s Nothing Wrong With Die Hard

Look, I like Cinema Sins. I enjoy their brand of jovial pedantry, how they pick holes in the movies that we love. But nope. While I appreciate the effort, there is nothing wrong with Die Hard

​Gone Home Being Remade As A Retro JRPG

Gone Home, the Fullbright company’s evocative house-exploration game, is being remade with an old-school JRPG look. Because why not? The demake will be the work of tech-savvy internet individual Seth Macy, whotweeted yesterday that he’s got the approval of the Fullbright Company to continue work on the project. He also shared some screenshots: It all…

Tomb Raider For $5, Steam Credit, And More Awesome Christmas Eve Deals

Happy Holidays, whatever your holiday may be. 5% off Steam Credit Tomb Raider [Steam] | $5 Bioshock Triple Pack [Steam] | $15 $50 eShop Gift Card for $40 $20 eShop Gift Card for $16 Grand Theft Auto V | $40 Call of Duty: Ghosts | $40 Valve Complete Pack [Steam obviously] | $20 | GMG20-ZB5D1-93X49…

The Best Videos We Made In 2013

Twenty thirteen has been an interesting year for Kotaku. In between our usual efforts of reporting on news, reviewing games and generally trying to provide you with entertaining features, essays, images and everything else we could put onto a screen, we’ve also set out to have more of a video presence on the site. We…