BINGO! Here’s a a kind of tongue-in-cheek, kind of serious bingo chart made by AVB that lists silly and real reasons alike that some developers list when asked why their game doesn’t include female protagonists or characters. You may recognize a rather recent excuse in here.

Time to update your backlog: After smoothing out some unexpected technical wrinkles, we’re back and updating our überlist of The Classic PC Games You Must Play. I’ve added nearly 300 of your suggested games to the master directory, and will do at least one more major update this week. If you don’t see your favorite…

Oh My God It’s A Dog Taking Down A Helicopter

“We’re adding a dog to Call of Duty,” they said. “It’ll be really cool.” And we assumed they meant it; we assumed the dog would be cool. Little did we know the dog would be this cool. The latest trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts features some neat stuff, and some dumb stuff. It’s got…

Wild Theory: Maybe Horror Games Are Scarier If You Can Fight Back

Among the defining characteristics of the often-terrifying Amnesia games—as well as similar games like Slender and Outlast—is the fact that players are given no weapons. There’s no way to defend yourself, no way to fight off the beasts that hunt you. That makes the game scarier, right? That’s obvious… right? Hmm. Over at Talk Amongst…

Deus Ex Meets Rogue Meets Minecraft

Weird combo, right? This is Eldritch, a fascinating new game from David and J. Kyle Pittman, two brothers who used to work on AAA games like Borderlands and BioShock 2 The Pittmans describe Eldritch as “a Lovecraftian action roguelike” inspired by “immersive sims” like Deus Ex. Levels are generated procedurally, but instead of just shooting…

Going Viral Sucks

Gain more followers. Add more friends. Increase your Klout score. Get more page views. Get more likes, more subscribers. Go viral. You want that, right? Everyone wants something like that. Or at least, establishing a strong internet presence is something we’re supposed to want on the internet, and there are plenty of services that will…

Leaked Grand Theft Auto V Map Is Massive

The internet was hard at work at trying to piece together Grand Theft Auto V’s map based on snippets of information, like trailers. But now the mystery is over. The Los Santos map was leaked today thanks to a copy of a GTA V guide on Reddit, found by neoGAF user Pandemic. SPOILERS FOLLOW! Here…

How Sony Plans To Win The Entertainment War

It’s no secret that companies affiliated with video games want to extend the reach of their consoles. It’s not a bad idea either. Be a gamer’s one stop shop for all of their media needs and they’ll never leave their console’s side. They’ll use your handhelds and mobile applications and whatever the hell else you…

A Closer Look At Child of Light, Ubisoft’s Lovely New JRPG

If you’re anything like me—If you have a beating heart and like video games—you probably watched the debut trailer for Child of Lightand thought, “I want to play this.” But what’s the game itself all about; how does it work? I had a chance to play through an opening chapter last week at Ubisoft’s press…

How One Truly Weird Shooter in Video Games’ Future Is Getting Bigger

Last year at E3, I took a look at the trippiest first-person shooter I’d ever seen. This year, the game that lets you change the size of anything in the gameworld looks even better. Shinier. Stranger. And more inviting than ever before. I caught up with designer Steve Swink at PAX Prime this year to…

Go to Hell and Back in Under Seven Minutes with This Spelunky Speedrun

Speedruns on most games don’t particularly enthrall me though I do acknowledge the skill and knowledge it takes to pull off one in record time. This sub-7 minute dash through Spelunky is a different story—probably because of the element of luck involved in procedurally generated levels. And the fact Spelunky‘s damn hard. Spelunky is a…

New Marvel Game Gives Stan Lee Eleven Super-Powers. And Immortality.

No one likes to think about it but there will be a day when Stan Lee’s cameos will end. He may be an indefatigable 90-year-old but the co-creator of The Fantastic Four, Hulk and Spider-Man is still only human. But, in the upcoming Lego Marvel Super-Heroes video game, Stan Lee is pretty much omnipotent. Over…

In this, the year of… Apple announced a bunch of new iPhones today, but this is the Year of Luigi. We deserve better. We deserve this.

Moneysaver: NHL ’14, Street Fighter 25th, Harry Potter, 1 Year of LIVE

Hockey fans rejoice, today’s release of NHL ’14 is $10 off on your respective platform. Everyone else can pick up Borderlands 2 on the cheap if you’ve been putting it off, or get $10 credit on your purchase of next-gen controllers. We’ve also got a killer Rigged section for you, and that Harry Potter collection…

The Original Pokemon Games, Recreated In Minecraft. Wow.

For many, Pokemon Red and Blue are the most memorable and important Pokemon games—so it’s hard not to be impressed when you watch MediocreJake recreate all of it in Minecraft. Yes, from Pallet Town to all the different roads and locations we see in Kanto. You may be wondering, hey, where are places SS Anne…

Infinity Blade III Launching With The New iPhone 5S [Update]

With a 64-bit A7 processor delivering double the graphics processing power of the previous model, the iPhone 5s is the perfect place to debut the latest installment of the platform’s most impressive looking title. Infinity Blade III will hit the app store on September 18. [Update — Now with video!] Chair co-founder and CEO Donald…

iOS 7 Arrives September 18, Followed By A Flood Of Game Controllers

Announced today at Apple’s special event in California, the eagerly-anticipated iO7 update rolls out free to most iOS devices on September 18, bringing with it built-in support for game controllers. Then thefun begins. Expect every major controller manufacturer to have some sort of game pad available for the new iPhones and the old iPads and…

No One Knows What The Heck This League of Legends Champ Is Saying

Last week a bizarre but delightful viral video asked one simple question: what sound does the fox make? (Lots of things, it turns out.) This week, Instalok asks the tougher question: what sound does Teemo from League of Legends make? It helps if you’ve watched the original video by Ylvis, which this parodies—which, really. You…

Game Dev Claims PS4 Is More Powerful, But Microsoft Pushes Back

The next-gen console war is getting more and more entertaining every day. As developers and executives publicly argue about the differences between the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it’s time to take out the popcorn and enjoy it. Over the weekend, a curious thing happened: one game developer claimed a huge performance disparity between…

Next-Gen Can Wait. Feast Your Eyes On Today’s Gorgeous PS3 Exclusive

Kotaku video-capture artist Steve Marinconz and I are worried. We’re worried that people don’t know about Puppeteer. Have you heard of it? It’s beautiful, fun, made by Sony’s Japan Studio, full of fresh ideas and it’s out today(!). How about if we showed you some of it? Check out 17 minutes of us playing the…