Actually, It is Kinda B.S. That Bayonetta 2 is a Wii U Exclusive

It’s funny when anyone on the Internet flips out, but no one does it better than the video gamer. When the issue involves someone not getting what they want, when they want it, at the price they want it—and you yourself don’t want it—it’s entertaining as hell watching someone break into a Rumplestiltskenian fit on…

Backhanded Box Quotes: “Tolerable With Friends … but So Is Dying of Bowel Cancer.”

Welcome back to “Backhanded Box Quotes,” a collection of measured, thoughtful criticism from the user reviews of Metacritic, Amazon and elsewhere. Two games this week released to nearly universal acclaim, unless you’re The Wall Street Journal. Borderlands 2 and Torchlight II. But in the great shining ideas marketplace and opinion democracy known as consumer reviews,…

DJMAX Technika Tune‘s Limited Edition is Extremely Limited and Ridiculously Fantastic

Korea’s finest export comes to the PlayStation Vita on October 26, but waiting until then to buy would be ill-advised. The spectacular $100 limited edition goes up for preorder on Monday, September 24, and if you want DJMAX Technika Tune, you want this. With it’s lovely musical mix and often insane difficulty, DJMAX is an…

Persona 4 Golden Lets You Sneak Out At Night

The lovely folks at Atlus have put up a short list of some of the new tweaks and changes in Persona 4 Golden, the Persona 4 remake that comes out for PS Vita on November 20. From Atlus’s Aram Jabbari: You can now sneak out at night when your uncle Dojima is out at work…

We Almost Got A Left 4 Dead Expansion Based On Cabin In The Woods

Eagle-eyed gamers watching the tricksy horror flick Cabin In The Woods might have noticed a cool shout-out to Valve’s Left 4 Dead in a sequence in the third act of the movie. Talking today in a Reddit IAmA, the film’s director Drew Goddard said we almost got a lot more than that: If MGM hadn’t…

FIFA 13‘s Early Release is Here, So Let’s See Some Celebrating

You’ll get Roberto Soldado’s somersault, Mario Balotelli’s flex appeal, and tons more goal celebrations as part of the new package of animations in FIFA 13, which unlocked 30 minutes ago for holders of the EA Sports Season Ticket early weekend program (on Xbox 360 and PS3). FIFA 13 arrives in North America on Tuesday, Australia…

NBA 2K13‘s MyTeam Means All Team Sports Have an ‘Ultimate Team’ Mode Now

Spotted earlier in lists of features, achievements and trophies, folks weren’t too sure what to make of “MyTeam” a new mode coming to NBA 2K13. This video explains it and, for lack of a better term, it sounds a lot like the “Ultimate Team” mode EA Sports introduced with FIFA 10 three years ago. That…

“Demand for Wii U has been off the charts,” says GameStop. They’re starting a wait list just for Rewards members

Say Goodbye to Speak Up on Kotaku with the Best Final Fantasy Sequel Ever

That’s right, it’s the end of Speak Up on Kotaku as we know it, at least as a daily feature. For years I’ve (Fahey) been going though the Speak Up and then TAY user forums, scouring them for gems to share with the class, like commenter CannibalTuna stepping up to admit that Final Fantasy X-2…

Here’s Some Terrible Dating Advice For Gamers

The people who run the video game dating site Date a Gamer don’t just have a bad, misleading product, they also think that those of you who like video games are desperate, don’t know how to function in society and most certainly like girls. They are also sure that you’re male. So they’ve put together…

This Week in Gaming Apps Has a Slightly Bigger Screen Than the Previous One

The iPhone 5 started dropping into the eager fans of people that like to play games and make phone calls across the country, and those people need gaming apps. We’ve got your gaming apps right here, buddy. I didn’t order an iPhone 5 myself, because AT&T didn’t want me to. I used to have my…

A Note About Our Reviews of Sports Video Games

Our resident sports gaming expert, Owen Good, recently e-mailed me with some concerns about the way we review sports games at the site. Our reviews all include the question: “Should you play this game?” Owen realized that he was pretty much always saying “Yes”, and he realized that it was because of some qualities specific…

Here’s What Will Happen When Blizzard Throws The Switch For Mists of Pandaria

Boxes containing World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria are making their way out into the world. That’s all well and good, but the panda-themed expansion won’t be accessible until 12:01 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday September 25, no matter how soon players install it. What can players expect, though, if they’re live, sitting in Azeroth,…

Guild Wars 2‘s Subtle Mind Control Makes Me Actually Like Other People

Hell, it has famously been said, is other people. Play enough games online and you’ll come to understand where Sartre was coming from. Many online games can feel a lot like No Exit—a world populated only by the meddling, the griefing, and the incompetent, where even death isn’t an escape. That being the case, it’s…

Halo 4 Looks Like a Big Leap Forward for Master Chief

I always felt like Microsoft’s mega-hit Halo franchise let me travel, taking me to thrilling, never-before-seen vistas at crucial moments. Adventure-as-travel is a standard conceit within genre fiction but the imposing beauty of Combat Evolved‘s battlegrounds, the horror of various Flood-infested environments and shock of a ravaged, futuristic Earth stood out as high points on…

San Francisco Readers: Share Your Space Shuttle Pictures!

Do you live in San Francisco? Did you snap a pretty shot of the shuttle today? This morning (Pacific time, that is) the NASA space shuttle named Endeavour made a trip through sunny San Francisco, visiting popular attractions like the Bay Area Discovery Museum, Chabot Space and Science Center, and Exploratorium. It whizzed over the…

Football Is Basically An RPG

I watch a lot of football. I play a lot of RPGs. And I’ve always had this theory that they’re not all that different. So I went to an NFL player—probably the only NFL player who actually plays RPGs—to see if he’d agree. He did. “You can look at it as— everyone starts at level…

Lost in the Wilds of Pandora, Eight Game Critics Band Together to Review Borderlands 2

Pandora is a harsh and unforgiving planet to the unwary. What chance do eight video game critics have against the insane brutality of Handsome Jack and his minions? Perhaps these review scores will earn them a stay of execution. Only a stay, mind you; Handsome Jack isn’t exactly known for not killing people, at least…

Wrap Your Head Around That Mario Mobius Strip With A Video Of It In Action

Mobius strips work on a pretty simple concept, but it can be hard to wrap your brain around what’s going on. So while those pictures of the Super Mario Bros. level recreated on a Mobius strip were super pretty, they didn’t get to show off just how amazing the entire thing is. The video above…

These are The Best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Action Figures Ever Made

There have been several different lines of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys since the half-shell heroes first appeared in plastic back in 1989. None of those were half as good as the series hitting store shelves right now. Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo; the TMNT team is made up of these four brothers, each with…