Three New JRPGs Are Out Today

The deadest genre just continues to get deader as three—yes, three!—new Japanese role-playing games hit U.S. shores today. There’s Pandora’s Tower, an action-RPG that might just be the last big Wii release ever. End of an era. I’ve spent a couple hours with Pandora’s Tower, and I think it’s fun so far, although I wish…

Your New 2560×1440 Monitor

The Moneysaver is delving further into PC hardware, and the top seems like a good place to start. We can definitively say this is the best deal available on a monitor for your gaming, your video editing, and for reading Kotaku. Jump in and save. The Monoprice 27″ IPS LED WQHD 2560×1440 Monitor will make…

Farewell, Skyrim

Yesterday, with minimal pomp and circumstance, Bethesda announced that there will be no more official expansions for Skyrim. Just like that, the era of the Dovahkiin drew to a close. This is a good time to end it. It may have been somewhat unexpected that, a few months after releasing the Dragonborn DLC, Bethesda would…

Dungeon Hunter 4 is now available for in-app purchase-tolerant Android gamers everywhere free in Google Play.

Bethesda says this Vine teaser released today isn’t about Fallout. Any guesses as to what they’re hinting at?

Show Us What You Love and Hate About Solid Snake’s Character Design

There are times when an expressive character design works the best. That’s how I’ve always felt about the art of the Metal Gear series — it’s emotional, dramatic and implies so much about its characters simply by how it’s drawn. Of course, you might disagree with me. Using our image annotation system, show us what…

Dishonored Writer’s New Novel Shows a Video Game Generation Being Born

If you’ve ever thought that it’s long past time that someone wrote a novel about people who make video games, then rejoice. YOU—a book of fiction about the how, why and who of video game development by Austin Grossman—comes out today. You can read an excerpt from the book’s first chapter right here. Grossman isn’t…

Stay Alight Takes Me to a Dark Place

Try as they might, the silly, bug-eyed pollution monsters populating Stay Alight do absolutely nothing to lessen the macabre, melancholy mood of a world littered with forgotten toys and the broken bodies of those that came before. Perhaps I’m just far too used to my trajectory puzzles being cute and cuddly, thanks to Angry Birds…

Amazing Frankenconsole Contains the Guts of 18 Different Platforms

There’s an easy way to play 18 different console formats (or more) on a single device. Most of us would use an emulator. But modder John Grayson chooses to do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. This is his Project Unity case, and it contains the innards of 18 different…

This Creepy-Cool Metroid Poster Gives a Shout-out to Alien

Lovers of Nintendo’s sci-fi action franchise know that Metroid’s female protagonist and a cosmic ecosystem of creatures that nest all over the galaxy were inspired by Ridley Scott’s classic space horror film Alien . A new poster by artist Marinko Milosevski (who we’ve featured before) honors that thematic connection with a darkly cool image done…

Here’s what’s going on Talk Amongst Yourselves, our reader-written blog: contributor Odin kicks off a new TAYCribz feature, where he shows off his shrine to your favorite hobby. Jump into the comments and let everyone see your collectibles, too. And GiantBoyDetective writes about gaming nostalgia and fond memories of his grandparents. D’awww. And you can…

The Madden Class-Action Settlement Triples Its Payout to Gamers

If you bought EA Sports’ American football products between 2005 and mid-2012, good news: An adjustment to its settlement of a class action lawsuit has elevated the pittance of a payout gamers would have gotten into something a little more substantial. You have a month to claim it. To recap, in July, Electronic Arts settled…

Here’s the First Episode of Defiance. Don’t Miss the Musical Number.

The televised aspect of SyFy and Trion World’s crossmedia experiment launched last night, giving players of the Defiance MMO a chance to get a little background info without having to rescue any factory workers or deactivate generators. There’s nothing quite like classic country and crazy alien contact lenses. I watched this first episode about a…

Some Don’t Like BioShock’s Forced Baptism. Enough To Ask For A Refund.

Before you can step into Columbia—before you can find out about Elizabeth and Comstock, before you know about “tears” and the Vox Populi, BioShock Infinite requires the player to do one thing: accept a baptism. There is no way around the religious sacrament which uses water as a means of ritual purification. The only way…

The Real Legend of Zelda Gale Boomerang Flies Much Further

You could probably deal more damage with this replica of the Gale Boomerang from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess than the one in the game, which is more a tool to cut ropes and put out fires than weapon. YouTube user Victor Poulin is really into making boomerang replicas, and he’s got a really…

These Real Totoro Catbuses Will Delight You

In the anime My Neighbor Totoro, the Catbus is a large, furry cat that is, well, a bus. But the Catbus isn’t only the stuff of fantasy. There are a handful of real catbuses. While there was an impressive one at Burning Man (apparently, a Subaru!), let’s take a look at the catbuses spotted around…

Magi’s Second Half Starts Weak But Ends Strong

Back when I looked at the first half of Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic earlier this year, I was impressed by the amount of creativity present in the anime—in everything from its art design to how it re-imagined a literary classic. While much of the adventure and creativity finds its way into the second half,…

In Fantasy Life, There Are More Ways To Be a Hero

Level 5’s newest game Fantasy Life is a whole new take on the JRPG genre. In the vast majority of RPGs, you play as either a magic user or a melee/ranged fighter killing every living creature you come across. But while you can still play as combat classes like a knight or a mage in…

And now, courtesy of a recently released trailer, have a small glimpse of Grid 2’s “Redefined” multiplayer gameplay. Codemasters’ arcade racer is coming out on May 28, with Europe getting it three days later, on May 31.

Know Lots about Internet Pornography? Here’s a Job for You!

A recent job listing in China is causing quite a stir. The gig promises a good salary and loads of benefits to those able to surf the web and quickly locate porn. Heck, millions already do this for free! The job listing appeared on the website for Anquan Lianmeng, which as ChinaSmack explains, literally means…