Midweek Moneysaver: Before the Fall

This Wednesday edition of Kotaku’s The Moneysaver catches all the offers, promotions and bargains that can’t wait until the weekend. The Midweek Moneysaver is brought to you by Dealzon. Software • Yesterday’s release Borderlands 2 (360, PS3) for $59.99 comes with a $10 Gift Card at NewEgg. The game is also available in-store at Kmart…

The One New iOS 6 Feature That Improves Gaming on the iPhone

The next operating system for the iPhone—iOS 6—comes with a few new nifty features and updates. You’ll see a couple of those new features in Apple’s Game Center, the leaderboard hub where you can track your friends’ progress in various iOS games. But what’s new is that now you can challenge your friends, too. So…

The Most Evil Man Of Them All Is The Rollercoaster Tycoon

Amusement parks: they should be fun, right? Cute, quirky, maybe scary in all the right ways, but ultimately, amusing. Well, what if you build a whole amusement park and your patrons aren’t amused? You could improve the park… or you could remove the patrons. A little taste of power—horrible, terrible power—goes a long way. And…

Pikmin Meets Dragon Quest In This Downloadable RPG For 3DS

Take a dash of Pikmin, throw it into some Dragon Quest, and you get Denpa Ningen 2. Here’s some gameplay footage for the upcoming sequel, which Nintendo announced a few weeks ago for the 3DS eShop And believe it or not, we’re actually getting the first game in this bizarre Japanese series: The Denpa Men:…

F1 2012: The Kotaku Review

This past week, I haven’t felt as helpless or as vexed behind the wheel since I was 15 years old and trying to divine the magical balance between clutch and gas pedal that actually sent my mother’s BMW 325e forward along our farm’s gravel road. Each time the vehicle shuddered and stalled out, I was…

See The Awesome Deck-Building, Role-Playing Game Card Hunter In Action

I’ve become enamored of Card Hunter, which brilliantly combines a strategy tabletop RPG with a deck-building card game and comes up with something that feels both new and familiar. This trailer was showing at PAX, where I got to play a few rounds of the game. It does a good job of demonstrating the game…

The Most Diabolical Aspect of Square’s Demons’ Score is the Hellish Hidden Cost

Released today for the iPhone and iPad, Demons’ Score is a rhythm action game from iNiS, the creators of DS classic Elite Beat agents, so the decision to spend $6.99 for a chance to play it was a no-brainer. I’m just not sure I want to fork over the additional $37 I’d need to purchase…

Say Hello to the Cutest Master Chief

This shot of the world’s cutest Halo cos-player popped up on IGN Deutschland’s Facebook feed last night. It was making the rounds at least a few weeks before that. Origin unknown, but too adorable not to share. UPDATE: Origin discovered! This photo was taken by Will Christiansen of Halo 4 studio 343 Industries. Check out…

Navy SEAL Who Wrote Controversial Bin Laden Raid Book Worked on New Medal of Honor Game Without Permission

One of the Navy SEALS who consulted on EA’s upcoming Medal of Honor: Warfighter may have done so without getting proper military permission, according to the Los Angeles Times. This same person, identified by the newspaper as Matt Bissonnette, is also the author of No Easy Day, the controversial book that details the raid that…

Something’s Not Right Between Nintendo And Amazon, But Neither Side Is Talking

You can buy a Nintendo 3DS at GameStop. You can buy one at Best Buy. Target. Wal-Mart. You can buy it from pretty much anywhere—except for the world’s biggest online retailer. For at least the past year, retail titan Amazon.com has not sold Nintendo hardware. There are Amazon listings for the DS and Wii and…

Which New Pokemon Game Should I Play?

I have a dilemma. Here in the office I have Pokemon Black 2 and Pokemon White 2. One will go to Mike Fahey for review. One will go to my 3DS for playing (and JRPG columning). But I can’t decide which to keep. So I’m letting you guys decide. Vote right here: Should I play…

You Won’t Survive FTL‘s Space Mission, But You’ll Remember It

I could have quit. I could have made my defeat happen quicker, less painfully. But cliche or not, the captain goes down with the ship. The rules don’t change just because we’re in space. So I watched my crew dutifully tend to my systems, keeping the ship running as best they could. We knew we…

They Bleed Pixels is a Pleasurably Painful Way to Break In Steam’s Big Picture Mode

The day Valve announced the availability of the television-friendly Big Picture Mode for Steam I hooked up my laptop to the PC, dug out my Bluetooth game controller, and began downloading Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. I soon realized that download would take forever, and grabbed a 319 megabyte copy of Spooky Squid Games‘ beat-em up/platformer…

When I Was A Teenager, I Kept This Myst “Journal”

I’m coming back to PC gaming, so I’m thinking a lot these days about the PC games I used to play. Back in the day, I played Myst, of course. I think everyone in the early ’90s tried it. A month or so ago I was rummaging through my childhood bedroom and found the official…

Guild Wars 2, Log Four: Ten-and-a-Half Lessons I Learned From My Adventures

In my weekly summaries of Guild Wars 2, I’ve looked at exploration, combat, and crafting. I’ve been chasing vistas, leveling slowly, and getting sucked into events as they pop up around me. I’ve even been cautiously exploring the big, boisterous, overwhelming experience that is world vs world PvP. In total, I’ve learned a lot of…

Ryu and Ken Each Get a Trailer for This Great Street Fighter Fan Film

No hadoukens get thrown in these teasers for an upcoming short based on Capcom’s legendary fighting game. But they do a great job of showcasing the single-mindedness of Ryu and Ken. You can feel the building tension in each clip and eagerly anticipate its release when the two martial artists clash. I personally prefer the…

Torchlight II: The Kotaku Review

Click, kill, loot, level up. Click, kill, loot, level up. Loot, sell, re-equip. Rinse, repeat. Your weapons get more powerful as your enemies get more difficult, and the goalposts move, and move, and move. Click, kill, loot, level up. It’s enough to make you wonder why we play video games in the first place. Torchlight…

Two Gaming Companies Find True Love On Twitter

Big gaming distribution deals happen in the back rooms of E3. They happen in big metal skyscrapers and sterile board rooms in New York City and San Francisco. And sometimes they happen by exchanging pictures on Twitter. This morning, the folks behind digital distribution website GOG.com tweeted at game developers Obsidian (whose Kickstartered game Project…

You can go vote for Kingdom Rush, one of the best games on iOS, to be accepted for release on Steam.

A Mysterious Borderlands 2 Side-Project, The Future of Contra and Other Gaming Secrets

Editor’s Note: The mysterious person known as Superannuation has dug through the depths of the Internet and uncovered some interesting facts. Today’s batch gives you some insight to the status of a Contra reboot, the future of Riot Games, and what could be future Borderlands 2 DLC. A handful of CVs from current and former…