StarCraft II: Heart Of The Swarm To Add Leveling For All Players

A new patch for StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm will introduce a progression system to the popular real-time strategy game Starting “soon” (which in Blizzard language usually means “not soon”), Heart of the Swarm beta players will be able to gain experience points by playing both competitive and custom matches. These experience points—which will…

Play This Funky, Spooky Mystery Game For Free

There’ll always be a place for the opaque in gaming—mysterious games that don’t immediately express their intent with garish tutorial pop-ups and button-prompts. Jake Clover’s Nuign Specter, a free experimental PC game, definitely falls into that category. It’d be no fun for me to tell you what happens in the game; you really should just…

Medal of Honor Warfighter: The Kotaku Review

The flashlights look pretty good. As I went through my notes searching for something positive I’d written about Medal of Honor Warfighter, that line stuck out to me. “The flashlights look pretty good.” They do look pretty good. Whatever lighting magic Electronic Arts has handed around to its subsidiary studios is nifty and authentic-looking. Often,…

Fighting Game Community Gives Out $20,500 In Student Scholarships

The folks at EVO—the biggest community of competitive fighting game players on the planet—are handing out $20,500 in scholarships to selected university students. They picked the winning students from a pool of over 500, EVO’s reps write on Shoryuken. UNLV student Dillon Jay Hageman will receive $10,000; Stanford graduate student Andrew Dotey Jr. will receive…

It’s Halloween Everywhere. Even in Minecraft.

Sure, creepers are, well, creepy on their own. But maybe they’re just not creepy enough The Xbox 360’s version of Minecraft is getting a new, Halloween-themed skin pack tomorrow, the Official Xbox Magazine reports. There are 55 new skins in the pack, contributed by a baker’s dozen of developers like Rare, Tequila Works, and Twisted…

Square Enix’s New Free-to-Play iOS Game is an Evil Revelation

Available today on the iTunes App Store, Square Enix’s free-to-play Wizardlings is a casual tap adventure in which a pair of tiny wizards reveal a magical fantasy world, one block at a time. It’s cute, colorful and incredibly evil. Taking control of one of two wizards—boy or girl—the player moves cross grid-based levels, tapping on…

This Week’s Nintendo Download is Full of Coins to Collect and Puzzles to Solve

It’s getting cold out. There’s a major storm coming this weekend (on the East coast, anyway). You really don’t want to go out to a store to get your games fix. Lucky for you, here’s this week’s Nintendo Download! The brand new Professor Layton game will be downloadable starting this weekend. It’s also a good…

Skyrim, Classic Arcade Games and Game of Thrones All Inspired Dance Central 3. Seriously.

Dance Central 3 isn’t just the superior choreography experience gamers can get this year. It’s also a video game that embeds homages to arcade classics and pop cultural ephemera deep inside super-clever, split-second easter eggs. Harmonix uses its time travel plot device to nod its own predecessors like Computer Space and make roundabout nods to…

Here’s A Two-Second Clip Of Reggie Fils-Aime Saying ‘Hey Ice King, Why’d You Steal Our Garbage?’

Because sometimes you just need a two-second clip of Reggie Fils-Aime saying “Hey Ice King, why’d you steal our garbage?”

Nobody Takes He-Man Seriously, And That’s Why I Love His Mobile Game

In late 1982 Mattel fashioned a generic fantasy barbarian with an even more generic name into a children’s media goldmine. First came the toys. Then came the cartoon, with its horribly-limited animation. It got so big that in 1987 Dolph Lundgren starred in a live action Masters of the Universe movie. Glitchsoft’s He-Man: The Most…

Nintendo Shows Off All The 3DS Games They’re Releasing In The Near Future

From Paper Mario to Monster Hunter, here’s the full sizzle reel shown off during Nintendo’s live-streamed Nintendo Direct event this morning. Lots of cool-looking games coming to 3DS soon! I’m particularly psyched for Fire Emblem and Paper Mario. Animal Crossing and Professor Layton are also pretty damn slick. And here’s the eShop sizzle reel, which…

This Week’s Windows Phone Charts: Cracking Sands and Circling Words

Welcome to the second-ever Kotaku Windows Phone game charts. In this second installment of this thrilling series we explore how the game rankings ebb and flow from week to week. I think it turned out rather well. In fact, I think it turned out so well that we’ll maintain the same theme every week, until…

The Puzzles In The Newest Professor Layton Sure Look Different

While previous Professor Layton games have featured mostly static, two-dimensional puzzles, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask has more interactive, 3D fare. Which is appropriate, since it’s on the 3DS. THREE DEE. Miracle Mask is out this Sunday.

You Get To Be Mayor And Go Swimming In The New Animal Crossing

Not going to lie. I put way, way more hours into Animal Crossing: Wild World, the first DS entry in the franchise, than I ever should have. After managing to catch a coelacanth on my first day I was, well, hooked. Catch fish, collect bugs, cultivate flowers, buy clothes, decorate your home… these are the…

New Paper Mario Trailer Stars One Hell Of A Goat

Or at least one goat. And a boat. And a world map! And lots of other delightful, charming content that the Paper Mario series is known for. Paper Mario: Sticker Star is out for 3DS on November 11.

Fire Emblem: Awakening Looks Absolutely Tremendous

At E3, Reggie casually mentioned (to Kotaku) that the newest Fire Emblem game will be coming to North America Thank god for that: footage from the game is looking wonderful. Fire Emblem: Awakening is out for 3DS in early 2013.

Dishonored Receives Dunwall City Trials DLC This December, Story Add-Ons Coming Next Year

Maybe you’ve already finished Arkane Studios’ critically acclaimed stealth/action hybrid. Maybe you yearn for more blinking, possession and sneaky killing through Dunwall’s cobblestone streets. This December, you’ll get your wish as challenge-based and story-centric DLC starts rolling out for Dishonored Dunwall City Trials—which will cost $4.99 or 400 Microsoft points—will offer up ten skill-centered tests…

Land ho! PC Gamer reports that the sequel to 2006’s The Ship will hit Kickstarter’s new UK site on October 31st.

Two new DLC packs are in the New Super Mario Brothers 2 e-shop today, Nintendo announced in today’s Nintendo Direct

CastleVille ‘To Bee or Not to Bee’ Quests: Everything You Need to Know

While bees and gardens normally go hand in hand, in the case of CastleVille‘s newest content update, the game’s Gloom Bees are anything but productive. In fact, they threaten the very future of the Gloom Garden, so it will be up to you to complete a series of eight ‘To Bee or Not to Bee’…