Telltale Games’ Poker Night 2 came out yesterday for the Xbox 360, and it has some pretty obscure references in it. Hell, it even references games that aren’t really out yet. Can you catch the indie game reference in this clip? The video is from the intro of Poker Night 2, where you’ll hear the…

An Incredibly In-Depth Look At The Making Of Skyrim

Skyrim was a ridiculously large game, and so it makes sense that a comprehensive look at how developer Bethesda built it would be equally large. And lo, it is—this massive breakdown posted by Bethesda senior designer Joel Burgess goes deeper than the deepest crypt and farther afield than the farthest… field. The article, which is…

The Latest Games Would Look Really Cool As Commodore 64 Titles

With all the top-notch game engines out there, and next-gen on the horizon, video games are impressive in both their technology and their art. But let’s play around with c64yourself to squeeze recently released games into an old timey skin anyway. The tool converts images (under 2MB) to 16 color, making the shot look like…

Here’s The Memo EA Sent Employees During Today’s Layoffs

EA laid off a whole bunch of staff today, and temporary CEO Larry Probst sent out a letter to employees that Kotaku has just obtained. The notable news: EA is streamlining a few different divisions, and EA Sports head Andrew Wilson is moving to head up the publisher’s Origin network. Here’s the whole memo: FROM…

Ten Reasons Why Divinity: Original Sin Deserves My Money

Within the first five minutes of my play session with the alpha version of Divinity: Original Sin, I killed Larian Studios’ Swen Vincke. “So I see you are readying a fireball spell,” he said, and I shot him. I’m counting that as the first of ten reasons why the Kickstarter prequel to the Divine Divinity…

Oh Hey, It’s A New Teaser Trailer For Shin Megami Tensei IV

This dramatic new teaser for Shin Megami Tensei IV has finally gotten me to shake off the remnants of my JRPG overload-ennui and realize, “Hey, cool, a new JRPG is coming, and I want to play it.” Atlus recently announced that the game is coming to America; it’ll arrive on July 16. For a more…

Farewell To The DS, My Favorite System Of All

There’s a little dead pixel on the top of my DS Lite. It hangs out on the bottom of the screen, green and dull, stamping every game like an eye floater that just won’t go away. In the seven years I’ve owned a DS Lite—my first and only DS—I’ve grown quite fond of that dead…

A Super-Student Comes Out in My Favorite Scene from This Week’s Comics

You remember the Mole Man, the goofy-creepy Fantastic Four villain who lives underground? He runs with Moloids, the subterranean race that serves as his henchmen. Remember? Okay, so, some of those little yellow guys have been going to the Future Foundation, a fancy super-school that the Fantastic Four opened up in their skyscraper headquarters. And…

Mass Effect’s Turians Build a Damn Fine Ship, Don’t They?

Yes, yes, Mass Effect fans: we know that you’ve got your Normandy t-shirts, your small replicas and big models of Commander Shepard’s spacecraft. But what about a collectible ship from the aliens who helped build the Normandy? Got your attention, huh? Dark Horse Comics is putting out a Turian Cruiser replica this November, based on…

Robin’s Got a Point in These Hilarious Superhero Texts

Superheroes and their antagonists do a lot of talking. Lots of speeches about inner turmoil, taking over the world and the fate of the universe. But what about the smaller, more mundane conversations they might have off-screen? Well, they use SMS for that. Duh. The funny fake convos over at Text From Superheroes—the brainchild of…

Winning Super Smash Bros. Melee by Doing Absolutely Nothing

You know what they say—the only winning move is not to play. Luigi takes that advice to heart: last year, we showed you a video of Luigi doing nothing in Mario Party against computer opponents and winning. This time, OmegaTyrant4792 brings us footage of what happens when Luigi does nothing against level 9 AI in…

Layoffs at EA Today

We’ve heard from a couple of sources that EA is cutting jobs today with estimates of as much as 10% of the workforce. EA won’t comment on teams affected or the headcount, but this means that fewer people are working at the company that brings you everything from Madden to Battlefield to The Sims. Here’s…

The Moneysaver: Save On Grid 2, RE: Revelations, Game and Wario, More

We’ve already had some huge sales today in our morning Moneysaver PSA, and now we’re bringing you some great pre-order discounts on highly-anticipated releases. Dig in. The best gaming deals not on Origin today are pre-order offers from Newegg and a few other retailers. Reserve Grid 2 on the 360 or PS3 to save $10,…

Ubisoft has shared another chunk of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon gameplay, this time narrated by the game’s creative director Dean Evans. This gives a sense of Blood Dragon‘s willful stupidity, and shows off a trick that wasn’t present in Far Cry 3: The ability to call in a massive land-dragon to fight your enemies.…

Check out Sacrilege It’s about going clubbing and formulating a “fuckplan”—the idea is to get laid. You’ll find possibly familiar figures: the one that wants you but you feel nothing for, the one everyone knows is in love with you, and so on. It’s a Twine game that captures desire well—enough that it’s one of…

Game Developers Hype Up The PS4 Controller

The PS4’s controller is a shiny device with some really interesting features: a touchpad, an LED sensor, and a Share button that will let you stream gameplay footage to your friends and Internet enemies. Today, Sony has releaseda new video to showcase the DualShock 4. Check it out above.

The Amazing Life of Sean Smith, the Masterful Eve Gamer Slain in Libya

The headlines around the world about Sean Smith last year were mostly about how he left this Earth. But this is a story about what he did while he was here. This is a story about Sean Smith’s life—about what he did in the so-called “real” world and what he did in a virtual galaxy…

Released last week for the Xbox 360, Call of Duty: Black Ops II‘s Uprising pack brings four new maps and the “Mob of the Dead” Zombies experience to PlayStation 3 and PC players on May 16.

Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen Is A Definite Improvement, Six Critics Say

Eleven months after its release, Capcom’s action-RPG Dragon’s Dogma received an updated re-release in the form of Dark Arisen. In addition to giving a technical facelift to the original game, Dark Arisen boasts a brand new landmass to explore: Bitterblack Island. Reviewers seem to be mostly happy with these changes. Complaints have been raised about…

Valve has announced that it is rolling out a new system for subscription-based games on Steam. The service offers a simple way to manage payments on games with paid subscriptions. The first title to take advantage of this is Darkfall Unholy Wars, Aventurine’s PVP sandbox MMORPG from way, way back