The Quiet Moments In Metro: Last Light’s Apocalypse

Mood is such an important thing in a nuclear apocalypse; a detail that is so easy to forget. That’s something that’s painfully palpable in the first hour of Metro: Last Light Yes there are telepathic, radioactive creatures. Yes, there is shooting and stabbing. But what really sticks to my ribs more than anything are those…

The Moneysaver: Battlefield, Ghosts, Last Light, PC Parts, Snow Cones

Now you’ve saved, and saving is half the battle. Hey everyone it’s Tuesday, and you’re listening to the Giant- I mean, Moneysaver. We’ve really blown out the Tech and PC parts sections today, so be sure to dig in. Console owners get some sweet pre-order discounts, while the PC master race can take advantage of…

Lonely Hearts, Empty Wallets and Next-Gen Console Questions Answered

Welcome to the first official Ask Kotaku column, where I will provide weekly answers to the questions you send me. There were lots of questions for this first event. They ranged from love and life troubles to job woes, Kotaku, help with specific games and help with organizing them. I tried to answer as many…

Pac-Man Returns This Fall In Another Pac-Man Game That’s Not Pac-Man

If you, like me, are the sort of person that instantly begins to worry when the first image you see of a new Pac-Man game is not a dot-filled maze, then… yeah. Coming this fall from Namco Bandai, it’s Pac-Man and Ghostly Adventures. Based theanimated series of the same name, in which Pac-Man is a…

New Wolfenstein Screens Show That Life is Hell When Nazis Run Things

This batch of screens and artwork is the first real sight we’re getting of the newly reimagined world of the Wolfenstein franchise. So what’s going in them? Oh, just a sassy septuagenarian officer, Nazi robot dogs and hints that the Third Reich wants to conquer space. You also get a good look at B.J. Blazkowicz’s…

Call of Duty‘s Nuketown Map Recreated in Real Life for Paintball

If you camped in the top floors of the Nuketown houses long enough that you wanted to change its hideous government-issue curtains and carpet, then this video is for you. An Illinois paintball field and (paintball) arms supplier Tippmann Sport recreated the map in real life this past weekend. The nuclear clock tower, the school…

A Major Challenge To the Clumsy Way Video Games Handle Right and Wrong

The creators of the huge new video game Watch Dogs reject the black and white choices video games often give you when they want to give you a moral dilemma and make you feel something. They’re striving to go beyond that, to color their new game about hacking, driving, shooting and being an urban vigilante…

Did You Know There Are Multiple Video Games Based On The Great Gatsby?

Everyone’s talking about Gatsby: the newest cinematic take on Fitzgerald’s classic drama made big bucks last weekend at the box office despite disappointing reviews So this seems like a good week to remind you that there have been a couple of different Great Gatsby video games over the past few years. In 2010, there was…

Trion Worlds’ fantasy MMO Rift goes free-to-play on June 12, giving new players access to the entire game for free, limited only by character slots and inventory size, while subscribers will get extra goodies. Check it out here.

We’re Getting Another Adventure Time Game, And Not Just On The 3DS

Oh, joy joy joy! WayForward and D3Publishers are teaming up with Adventure Time writer Pen Ward again for a second Adventure Time game, the companies announced today in a press release. That image here of Finn? That pretty much explains how I feel about this. (Minus the punchiness.) I quite enjoyed the first 3DS/DS Adventure…

Some wild quantum powers, including the ability to “blink” or teleport out of harm’s way, arrive today with Origin Crisis, the seventh DLC extension for DC Universe Online. Operations, raids and time travels explore such possibilities as evil Batman and good Luthor. This post explains how it all fits together.

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: Pokemon toys battle in a attractive photo essay by Zarynx And GiantBoyDetective offers his thoughts on S’mores-flavored soda. And you can always go join the voices talking about video games and life in TAY Classic and in the TAY: Open Forum

If you’d rather watch video games than play them on your console, Twitch.tv has the app for you, available for Xbox Live gold subscribers today. The app makes the top 300 live channels available for spectating. No streaming from the 360, only viewing. There’ll be more at the next Xbox reveal in a week.

This Film Wants to Help Everyone Understand The Love for Video Games

You might have somebody in your life who doesn’t get video games. And you may have tried putting them in front of a classic title like Shadow of the Colossus, Braid or World of Goo. But, games might still feel like a foreign experience to them, despite your best efforts. A new documentary wants to…

The Five Anime of Spring 2013 You Should Be Watching

We are now about halfway through the Spring anime season of 2013, and for weeks now I have been bombarded with the question, “What anime should I be watching this season?” Well, with a good chunk of episodes under my belt from many of the different series, I feel it’s now safe to answer that…

This Realistic Remake Of A Minecraft Character Is Super Creepy

The blocky 3D character models in Minecraft are funny, imaginative, and filled with character, but also anything but realistic. We love the little guy, but he’s not very expressive when it comes to creating Minecraft machinima. Andrew Price is trying to fix that. Perhaps he shouldn’t. Price‘s renewed model has all the necessary improvements to…

Nvidia’s New Gaming Handheld Is Out In June For $350

Announced in January as Project Shield, Nvidia’s intriguing new handheld now has a price, a June release window, and the promise of Double Fine’s Broken Age. Who’s ready to spend $350 on a dedicated Android gaming device? Now simply dubbed Shield, Nvidia’s Tegra 4-powered Android portable / streaming PC game device will start accepting preorders…

See Four New Pokémon in Action in the Newest Gameplay Trailer

Pokémon X and Pokémon Y got a new game trailer this morning, and shed more light on the game, including four new Pokémon, when it arrives in October for the 3DS. Say hello to Fletchling, Pancham, Helioptile and Gogoat. The game will take place in an entirely new region, named Kalos, whose central hub is…

Krieg the Psycho Hacks, Slashes, and Burns His Way Into Borderlands 2

Hold on to to your hacksaws, folks; the most psychotic vault hunter yet has landed on Pandora. Krieg, the rampage-tastic psycho berserker is now available in the form of a separate character DLC for Gearbox’s shooter-RPG. He’s not included in the Season Pass, but by the looks of it, there’s enough exciting new content in…

A Rare Look Inside China’s Porn Censors

Last month, Kotaku posted a job listing for a porn censor in China. Maybe you applied! Maybe you didn’t. But if you were curious what kind of people censor porn in China, here’s your chance to have a peek. In an interview with China’s Hunan Television (via SCMP), 70 year-old Liu Xiaozhen talked about his…