Superhero Crossovers Aren’t Going Away. Can They Please Get Better?

Baseball starts in the spring. Just when that sport’s season is wrapping up, football kicks off and goes into the winter. When it comes to comics crossovers, though, it seems like big universe changing-events are always in season. Right now, DC and Marvel have major happenings threading across big chunks of their superhero universes, promising…

The Way Americans Ski Jump Is Bonkers…According to a Japanese Game

So, um. Apparently I’ve been watching the wrong type of ski jumping! The GIF above is a clip from Ski Jump Pairs, a Japanese ski jumping game from 2008 with an amazing take on the sport. Observe this recent footage provided by Funny Video Daily: You can’t even get mad at the football stereotype. Oh,…

Attack on Titan‘s Opening—Starring the Cast of Super Mario Bros. 3

Uploaded in July, about a thousand or so people have viewed this fan’s virtuoso recreation of Attack on Titan‘s opening using Super Mario Bros. 3 sprites. The Bill Blaster at the one-minute mark, followed by the billowing Mushroom Kingdom standard and the squadron of Tanooki Toads—this is strict attention to detail. Dedicated Attack on Titan…

Before Jurassic World Was A Movie, It Was A Video Game Project

Yesterday the upcoming film Jurassic Park IV officially became Jurassic World, coming to theaters on June 15, 2015. Despite sharing the same name and featuring dinosaurs, this trailer has nothing to do with that film. Though the YouTube user who uploaded the footage, captured a couple months back during a panel held at the Star…

Your 5 Nominations For Best Gaming Monitor

Welcome to Part 2 of our Moneysaver Co-Op segment on the best Gaming Monitors. In Part 1, you nominated your favorites, and today you’ll be voting on the top 5 nominations. Like our mouse nominations, parsing the votes was not a simple process, in fact it was even more complicated, but we think we made…

Will The 21st Century Be Defined By Games?

On Monday, Kotaku ran Eric Zimmerman’s Manifesto for a Ludic Century, a treatise on the importance of games as a paradigm for understanding the 21st century. Eric outlined systems thinking, play and design as crucial future literacies and argued that games as an art form should not have to be justified. Before running the manifesto,…

Oh Wow, Kingdom Hearts III Is Gonna Take Forever

Were you expecting Kingdom Hearts III, announced at this year’s E3, to come at some point in the near future? Maybe even around the same time as Final Fantasy XV, also announced (or, re-announced) at this year’s E3? EXPECT NO MORE. As series producer and Square Enix exec Shinji Hashimoto explained to IGN, director Tetsuya…

Moneysaver: Humble Bundle 9, Puppeteer, Arkham Origins, GTAV

Before you dive into today’s deals, head over to part II of our latest Moneysaver Co-Op and vote on your favorite Gaming Monitor from the top 5 nominations. After that, pre-order GTAV and Arkham Origins, then grab the beautiful Puppeteer for a nice discount. The latest Humble Bundle is live, featuring Trine 2, FEZ, FTL,…

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: DocSeuss elaborates on why he can’t love Payday 2, with a Part 2 that includes Twitter responses from the game’s director. Joshua Rivera continues looking at how his life intersects with the lowdown slo-mo sad-sack saga of Max Payne 3. And General McFist wonders—rightly so—how…

Report: Mewtwo Has More Than One Mega Evolution In Pokemon X & Y

And so the Mega plot thickens. According to magazine scans of Japanese magazine Corocoro published by Serebii, the Mega Mewtwo that we’ve seen thus far (pictured above) is actually is exclusive to Pokemon Y. There’s also a Mega Mewtwo X, exclusive to Pokemon X—it’s supposed to be psychic/fighting type, with the “Steadfast” ability. You can…

Soon You’ll Be Able To Share And Borrow Steam Games

You’ll soon be able to borrow digital PC games like you would disks—Valve has just announced a program called Steam Family Sharing that will let up to ten Steam accounts share a single library of games. But there’s a catch. If I authorize your computer to be one of my sharing buddies, you can download…

Your Vast Knowledge of Trivia Is Your Greatest Weapon In Quiz RPG

What RPG-based genere mash-up could be more satusfying than GungHo Entertainment’s wildly popular Puzzle & Dragons‘ combination of collectible creatures and match-puzzle dungeoneering? The answer is Quiz RPG: The World of Mystic Wiz. Quiz RPG is almost exactly the same game as Puzzle & Dragons. Players collect, combine and evolve elemental-based spirits, forming a team…

Microsoft Doesn’t Feel Bad About Flip-Flopping On Xbox One Policies

Mandatory Kinect. Unpopular game-sharing rules. An online connection requirement for starting games. The summer has seen Microsoft back away from all of those things as it prepares to deliver the Xbox One to a next-gen-hungry world. The company’s gotten a lot of flack for their reversals on the strategies once attached to their upcoming console…

What It’s Like To Be A Woman Making Video Games

There’s been a lot of anger creeping into my corner of the internet: Anger about the unequal or insensitive treatment of women and minorities, specifically within the game industry. As a woman working in games since 2007, I’ve felt hurt, discouraged, and isolated by various forms of discrimination. Most of it came from people who…

Conan O’Brien Is Unimpressed With The Voices In Diablo III

If you’ve ever imagined what’s going on in the heads of your Diablo III characters, it probably has something to do with killing and looting and questing. But not according to Conan’s imagination. Not his funniest work, but I continue to enjoy Conan’s increasing interest in video games.

Developer Jailed on Immigration Charges After Swimming to the U.S. [UPDATE]

An independent games developer is in custody and charged with violating U.S. immigration law after allegedly swimming the Detroit River, which forms the U.S.-Canadian border, to gain entry to the country. Sam Smolders (pictured), creator of the role-playing game Victim of Xen, was found by border agents around 2 a.m. on Thursday, soaking wet on…

The Spectacular Story Of Metroid, One Of Gaming’s Richest Universes

Nothing beats the passion of a true fan writing about something they love. That’s what you’re about to see here: one of the richest, most amazing tributes to a great gaming series that we’ve ever run on Kotaku. Warning #1: this one might make your browser chug, so close your other tabs. Warning #2: This…

The Spectacular Story Of Metroid, Part 2

This article is a continuation of Mama Robotnik’s epic telling of the story of Nintendo’s Metroid series. Please make sure that you’ve read part one—and its official explanation of where this lore comes from—first. And make sure your browser is ready for a long piece stuffed with awesome images. Top image here is from art…

Prettier than Super Mario Galaxy, But More Ornery, Too

Gravity Ghost looks like a children’s book come to life. There’s no shooting or killing. But jumping from planet to planet is a lot trickier than it looks in this pastel-colored journey through the cosmos. It’s been fascinating to watch Erin Robinson’s indie space fantasy evolve over the last year or so. Gravity Ghost’s looks…

The Internet Reacts To Grand Theft Auto V‘s Map And Its Size

After months of speculation, the map of Grand Theft Auto V finally made its way to the web, and the details on it opened up the opportunity for a little bit of speculation. SPOILERS FOR THE MAP FOLLOW! Less than a day was more than enough time for the community to come up with some…