A Loving Video Tribute To Nintendo Power

Today came the sad news that Nintendo Power, the magazine that guided many of us through our early video games days, has reportedly been shuttered This video from Patrick Scott Patterson shares a ton of the ads, news segments, and other things we most remember about the beloved, long-running publication. “It’s a bird. It’s a…

Some Free-to-Play Games Work Out Just Like Shareware Used to: Badly

Gamers who are old enough to remember the PC experience before AOL brought dial-up internet access into everyone’s homes will probably also remember shareware. My family had dozens of these discs and, later, CD-ROMS over the years. Each one promised HUNDREDS! OF! GAMES! and while most were simply trashy clones of some other game, or…

We have added Sound Shapes to our list of the best games on the PlayStation Vita. Our full review is here

Which TV Shows Would Make The Best Video Games?

If you like video games, there’s a good chance that you like TV shows. But which TV shows would make for the best video games? Is there anything that video games could learn from TV shows? Would some shows be better if you could watch them from within a game? And when the heck are…

Fall of Cybertron‘s End Credits Dap Our Darkest Hour

When the end credits rolled for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron I was pretty sure High Moon Studios was actively engaging in fan trolling. Specifically fans of Stan Bush’s Transformers the Movie anthem, “The Touch”. Earlier this month during a Q&A here at Kotaku, a fan asked the game’s lead designer, Matt Tieger, if he could…

30 Players Embrace Their Darker Instincts In A Grueling Two-Month Minecraft Experiment

Minecraft is a blank canvas—the world exists, and you can build whatever you want out of it. That tabula rasa quality is only multiplied when multiplayer gets involved—get a bunch of people together, put them in a map, and almost anything can happen. If you’re really devious, you can put people together into an unwitting…

The People Who Make Rock Band Want Us To Make More Rock Band Puns

Yesterday I wrote about how Rock Band creator Harmonix is working on a totally new game with combat and stuff. I also threw in some hypothetical game names that probably won’t happen, since it’s a new IP and all. This wasn’t enough for Harmonix’s John Drake, who insisted that I write more. So without further…

The Past is Full of Great Time Travel Games, But I Want Them In My Future

This morning, I received a link to a twenty-year-old video. It’s the first-ever preview of The Journeyman Project, as shown at Macworld in 1992. Perhaps appropriately for a game about time travel, I felt a distinct sense of journeying into the past while I watched it. What once looked so painstakingly rendered now, in the…

You Try to Give Them An Education, and They Steal Your Damn Pokeball

Commenter GiantBoyDetective is going to cry, because little kids can be dicks. In today’s Speak Up on Kotaku he tells the sad story of misplaced trust and children that need a good spanking. Something happend today. Something that made me so angry I almost cried out of frustration in front of my 6th grade class.…

How To Lay People Off in the Video Game Industry

A layoff is a layoff is a layoff, to misquote Gertrude Stein. Surely, they all suck. But they also happen. Some would say they have to happen, capitalism being what it is and such and such. So, all of you big, powerful gaming industry executives who employ people to read Kotaku for them, when you…

What Went Wrong With OnLive?

I remember the first time I saw OnLive demoed for me. Three years ago, I was ushered into a conference room on Manhattan’s Midtown East neighborhood and saw Crysis running of the cloud gaming service’s network. It looked impressive, sure, but there could have been all sorts of tomfoolery going on to make the streaming…

What’s More Fun Than Playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive? Watching Us Play It.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is officially available as of today. But if you haven’t touched the beta or purchased the game retail, feel free to get familiar with some of the old school maps and new(ish) school modes right here. This video gives you a glimpse at what the first-person shooting action in CS: GO is…

Four New Comics You Could Buy This Week, But Just One That You Must

Regular Kotaku comics man Evan Narcisse had to dash off to a meeting and asked me, the guy who has pretty much only been reading all—yes, all—of Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers run for the past month, to recommend some new comics worth buying this week. Hmm. Let’s see. How about… Dragon Age: Those Who Speak…

Marvel Needs to Get Around to Fixing My Favorite Superhero

The Black Panther is my favorite superhero. So, it really sucks that I hate almost everything about him right now. It’s not just that the Black Panther is a favorite of mine. He’s also one of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s best creations, first showing up in a run that’s considered one of the best…

There may be very good games on PlayStation Vita, but sales are wretched—only 2.2 million worldwide, Joystiq confirms

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron: The Kotaku Review

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron tells the story of the last days of a dying planet. It’s the tale of two warring factions reaching out across the cosmos for the sake of survival. To fans of the franchise, this is a historical account of a fixed point in time, the outcome of which is predetermined. We…

50+ layoffs at EA-owned Bejeweled studio PopCap, according to industry Tweets like this one. Update: PopCap comments

How Dota 2 Exposes The Shortcomings Of The Video Game Industry

There’s no question that Defense Of The Ancients (Dota) is big. It’s a big deal. It’s also an immensely complicated game that has evolved over years of intense play, modding, and sprawling evolution. It’s not very much like any other game out there. And for that reason, it could be argued that Dota 2 lays…

Looks Like We’ll Know the Wii U’s American Launch Date and Price by September 13

Nintendo is holding a major Wii U press event in New York City on September 13, hosted by Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. An invitation sent to select media outlets today promised a day that will let us learn “more about how the Wii U will change the future of gaming and entertainment.” Sure,…

Report: Nintendo Power Shutting Down

Ars Technica has an article up saying that the long-running Nintendo Power magazine is ceasing publication. Multiple sources at Nintendo Power publisher Future have told Kotaku that Nintendo Power is ending and that the broad factual strokes of the Ars Technica report ring true with what’s been circulating within the company. Nintendo Power was one…