Learning To Love Animal Crossing Again

Confession: despite my job, sitting down and playing a game is often incredibly difficult for me thanks to depression. How depression disables me from enjoying things doesn’t always present itself in the same way. Sometimes, the way I think about a game’s objective ruins it, even though there’s nothing wrong with the game per se—I…

Watergate: The Game: What a Long, Strange National Nightmare It’s Been

I’m about as old as Watergate and it has had a constant and vaguely Oedipal influence on me. Dad was a newsman; I’m a newsman. Dad hates Nixon; I hate Nixon. Newsmen took down a president; my Dad’s badder than the president. So I came to Watergate: The Game confident I could win with solid…

The Most Awesome Dinosaurs in Video Games

A month ago we got the 3D re-release of Jurassic Park, and a few weeks later we got Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon featuring dinosaurs of all kinds shining under neon lights. This happy coincidence provides us with an opportunity to gather some of the most amazing video games that have dinosaurs stomping around inside…

You can now watch the “Hotheaded Developers Rant Back” panel from the Game Developers Conference. Panelists like Eric Zimmerman, Anna Anthropy, Kellee Santiago, Anna Marsh, Naomi Clark and Mitu Khandaker all talked frankly and often rousingly about issues ranging from poor planning to crunch time to racial and gender inclusivity in games. Rant-panel veteran Chris…

EA Snags Exclusive Deal To Make Star Wars Games

The gaming giant behind everything from Madden to Battlefield to Need for Speed is now the gaming giant behind Star Wars too. EA has secured an exclusive license to publish and develop Star Wars games, the company announced today. EA studios DICE (Battlefield) and Visceral (Dead Space) will both make new games in the popular…

EA Meets Star Wars… With the Help of Some Photoshop

If any intrepid readers want to cook up a quick Need for Speed: Most Podracer, Battlefront: Bad Company or even a Death Star Space (ok, that last one doesn’t really work), send it over. We’ll publish and give you credit. Thanks! UPDATE: OK, here we go. Death Star Space up top is from Kotaku reader…

Graze.com Healthy Snack Delivery: The Snacktaku Review

Each week I set aside some of my health for the sake of bringing Kotaku readers my honest, unbiased opinion about on some of the most horrible snack foods the world has to offer, and each week I get the same questions. “Don’t you ever review anything healthy?” “How are you not dead yet?” Folks…

The very good solo/co-op heist game Monaco will be available for download to the Xbox 360 on Friday, May 10. It’s already out on PC. $15. Highly, highly recommended.

Guy Who Lost $2,600 Trying To Win Kinect Gets His Money Back And More

Remember that guy who lost all of his money trying to win a Kinect in a carnival game? He got it back. He got the Kinect, too. Last week, Henry Gribbohm threw away $2,600—his entire life savings—trying to win an Xbox accessory. He didn’t win it. He did win a banana (pictured above). That part…

An Artist Fights His Creations–Literally

YouTuber and artist Jonny Lawrence put together this neat stop motion video featuring his hand battling what looks like Akuma from Street Fighter. It’s like Master Hand, but in Street Fighter. And less virtual, more epidermis. (via Laughing Squid) To contact the author of this post, write to [email protected] or find her on Twitter at…

Heavy Rain Creator: ‘The Only Thing I Didn’t Want to Do Was a Sequel’

Heavy Rain got some criticism. There are whole train of thoughts that either praise or slam Quantic Dream’s experimental PS3 game. Some people love what it tried to do in terms of how play mechanics and plot continuation when certain characters died. Other players hated the way it tried to tell its story. When Beyond:…

The Moneysaver: A 70″ TV, A Gaming Chair, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen

You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. So you’ve saved quite a bit of money on all those blu-rays and games by reading the Moneysaver, and now you’re ready for a really big screen to watch and play them on. Here’s a 70″ LED Smart HDTV from Vizio for under $1700, a…

Proof That There’s No Such Thing As Too Many Video Game Composers

Sure, it’s cool when a talented musician makes an album paying tribute to video game music. But what about when a whole bunch of composers assemble, locking their various musical tics and tricks in place for a single grand collection? That’s more or less what’s happened with World 1-2, a video game tribute album featuring…

Plants vs. Zombies 2, the much-anticipated (and much-discussed) sequel to 2009’s smash hit Plants vs. Zombies, will be out this July. Here’s a teaser trailer featuring our good buddy Francis.

Jack The Reaper is a zany-looking SNES-style game where you play as (a weirdly cute version of) death himself. You can absorb and combine the powers of your enemies, kind of like Kirby. Your mission is to collect the souls…souls which came from the moon? In any case, there’s a demo now if you’d like…

EA has revealed that The Sims 4 is coming to Mac and PC is 2014, likely followed by updated versions of the same expansions they’ve already released for The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. Expect more information later today via EA’s The Beat.

Minnesota Vikings Cut JRPG Fan

Chris Kluwe, the outspoken NFL punter, World of Warcraft and JRPG fan we’ve featured here frequently over the past season, was let go from his team, the Minnesota Vikings, today. Kluwe would frequently refer to his team’s upcoming game in the language of an MMO. His next objective, so to speak, is to find a…

Remember Me Isn’t a Sequel Or an Old Idea. Let’s See if It’s Any Good.

Remember Me is -gasp- an original game coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on June 4, a month that’s usually bereft of any interesting new games to play. Why care about this one? Take a look at the video above. You’ll see a third-person action game that has some standard platforming and some…

Report: The Next Xbox Will Let You Play Games Offline

Here’s a promising development in the ever-confusing drama surrounding Microsoft’s next gaming console: a new report suggests that you will indeed be able to play Durango games offline. Today, news site Ars Technica quotes the turnabout in what they say is an e-mail sent by Microsoft officials to all internal Xbox employees. The e-mail states…

Children Slaughtering Zombies Is More Fun When They’re Animales

Do not ask why Little Mexico has a zoo containing hundreds of elephants. Do not ask why the only people fighting the animal victims of a zombie plague are a pair of small Mexican children. Do not ask how a Roman candle can take down a full-grown pachyderm brought back from the dead via evil…