The Grim Reality Of Grand Theft Auto Online

GTA Online sounds pretty freakin’ great, right? There’s so much stuff to do, and a lot of it is nonviolent…OR IS IT? That’s the question asked today by Dorkly. Their answer stands in stark contrast to Chris’ more utopian take.

Tales of Xillia The Kotaku Review

Tales of Xillia is pretty awesome. You should totally play it. That’s exactly the sort of review I would have written back in 1995 had I played the very first game in Namco’s long-running role-playing series, Tales of Phantasia, on the Super Famicom. I would have tweaked the wording slightly for each subsequent game, maybe…

Terrific Indie Game Trailer Is Your Gateway To 80 Other Trailers

Skip the first 26 seconds of this trailer for the 2103 PAX Prime Indie Mega Booth. Get right to the good stuff… a cascade of picture-in-picture links to trailers for 80 or so cool-looking indie games. Some of these games are out already. Some are forthcoming. All will be at PAX, the massive open-to-the-public gaming…

This Guy Really Wants Shrek To Be In The New Smash Bros

Oh, Miiverse. You’ve got such amusing characters making all sorts of silly posts. Take “Sakurai” here, a poster which cronicstate found, for instance. Sakurai is almost assuredly a troll, but everyone takes the bait and argues with him over the possibility of having Dreamwork’s Shrek in the new Super Smash Bros. It’s hilarious. For reference,…

Read Polygon‘s Version Of the Harassment Story Folks Are Buzzing About

Did you hear the one about the ex-BioWare writer who supposedly quit her job because she was being harassed? Hopefully not, because that’s wrong, despite it being today’s supposed hot news. That “fact” is wrong, but it’s been ricocheting all around the Internet today thanks to a writer for a publication called Metro getting a…

Are Video Games Taking Over My Life?

What do you do if you don’t like a video game everyone else in the world seems to like? Are you too worried about getting in your gaming fix? What’s your favorite pudding? These questions and more on this week’s Ask Kotaku. Don’t forget to send me questions for next week! Get wild! Ask me…

The Legend Of Cortana: She’s been damsel and savior, commander and follower, and she was a part of the Halo series before the first game even began. Check out this great (spoiler-filled) feature over at Edge Online about the humanity—and inhumanity—of Cortana.

New Beta Test: The closed beta for Hearthstone—Blizzard’s Warcraft-themed card game—has just begun. You can sign up right here

Some of the Best Cosplay From Otakon 2013

Otakon might’ve been last week, but beatdownboogie brings us a taste of the con and its cosplayers today with two compilations of awesome costumes at the show. Also, there’s breakdancing. Gotta have breakdancing. Recognize everyone? Got a favorite? Perhaps it’s not surprising that I’m charmed by the Pokemon cartridges, although there were a bunch of…

Dreaming Up A New Mario RPG

At one point, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team was going to have a volcano. It’d have been quite the spectacle: hundreds of little Luigis would gather together and morph into volcanic form, then erupt into a trickle of Luigis that would strike enemies. But it didn’t work—not quite as well as the ball of Luigis,…

One Of The Prettier Games I’ve Ever Played Is Also About Bugs

It’s not often you get to experience the transformative journey of insects while enjoying some illustrative art. But that’s exactly what you get with Morphopolis, a casual adventure game that just looks beautiful. If you wish to see more of the visually lovely game and have the are-video-games-art question definitively answered, then please do watch…

Moneysaver: Elder Scrolls Anthology, Pre-Order Mania, Haswell, 3DS

… with a balsamic price reduction. Join us for the first ever Moneysaver Co-Op segment where we’re discussing and voting on the best gaming mice. Deal Leaderboard Check out all those Amazon pre-orders and the whole PC section. Get $30 off the new Nexus 7 right here Best Buy has regular 3DS’s starting at $135…

Let’s Crowdsource This Video Game’s ‘Magic Eye’ Posters

I’ve always been pretty good at Magic Eye posters. I even had one in my room as a kid. It was of dinosaurs, I believe, and I got very good at crossing my eyes just so and making the Tyrannosaurs and the Archaeopteryx come to life. True to its 90s setting, there are a couple…

12 Very Impressive Minutes Of Next-Gen Zombie Parkour

Here’s a 12 minute gameplay demo of Dying Light, Techland’s free-running zombie survival game. It looks impressive, every bit the Mirror’s Edge-meets-Dead Island thing that Stephen talked when he first saw the game earlier this year It’s nice to finally see the game in action. Dying Light will be released next year across both current-gen…

Vampires Brood Even In Skyrim (But It’s Still Better Than Twilight)

You know how post-Twilight vampire stories go. Brave Dragonborn contracts vampirism and its overwhelming hunger, becomes a terrifying monster of darkness, is enlisted by the Dark Brotherhood for a mission. Oh, wait. Nevermind, this isn’t your sparkly vampire love story, although it does have that signature vampire brooding. But, hey, what can you do? I’d…

Guess What YouTube’s Most Subscribed Channel Is

Apparently the fans outweigh the haters… …because PewDiePie is the number one (#1) most subscribed YouTube channel. In the world. Of all the channels. Even over Rihanna. And Justin Bieber. Good job, Internet. I knew I could count on you to love video games more than cheesy pop music. He’s got over 11.9 million subscribers…

This Racing Game Has A Different Map Every. Single. Day.

Race The Sun by Flippfly reminds me of a free-to-play endless racing game, but it isn’t! It’s just a fun game that you pay for and play as much as you want! There’s a new world created every day for you to try out and see if you can get your name up on the…

Square Enix Promises To Explain What’s Up With Final Fantasy Type-0

Where’s Final Fantasy Type-0? For whatever reason, Square Enix’s medieval PSP game has never made it to the United States, and it’s hard not to be bummed about that, because people who have played the Japanese version report that it’s pretty great. U.S. gamers really want to play it. There’s one group working on a…

The Internet Reacts Stupidly/Hilariously To Grand Theft Auto Online

Rockstar released anamazing new trailer for Grand Theft Auto V, revealing for the first time what online gameplay will be like. Which is, basically, an entirely separate, ambitious entity. And what else could follow such a reveal but yet another roundup of YouTube comments culled by Tumblr site gtatrailercomments. So here are some of the…

Finally, Spy Party‘s Normal-Looking People Can Move

We’ve been following asymmetrical multiplayer game Spy Party for years. We’ve been wondering for nearly as long when game designer Chris Hecker was ever going to swap out his programmer art for something a little more 21st-century. He’s getting close! Hecker has posted animation tests of two SpyParty characters on his blog for the upcoming…