PlanetSide 2 Plays Like a First-Person Shooter, Not a Massively Multiplayer Compromise

The original massively multiplayer online FPS, PlanetSide, promised competitive first-person shooting on a massive scale. It got the scale right, but tech limitations made for gameplay that was a pale shadow of its more traditional shooter counterparts. With PlanetSide 2 technology has finally caught up to Sony Online Entertainment’s ambition. We’ve seen large-scale online shooters…

Four Cool Things about Four ‘Free’ MMOs

The world of massively multiplayer online games keeps getting, well, more massive. We’ve come a long way since I first picked up the genre eight years ago. World of Warcraft may still dominate the traditional monthly susbcription market, but free-to-play multiplayer worlds of all kinds boast tens of millions of subscribers worldwide. At E3 last…

A Case Mod That Takes “Mod” Seriously

PC designer Jeffrey Stephenson, whose work we have featured before, is back with his latest creation. There are case mods, and then there are ultra-mod case mods. This mod, is, well, mod. Have words lost all meaning for you yet? That’s all right. You won’t really need them to admire this sleek, svelte, sixties-inspired PC.…

Permadeath and Other Players Make Wizardry Online One Hardcore MMO

Last week I openly wondered how Wizardry Online, a massively multiplayer online game, could possibly capture the spirit of the original grid-based first-person dungeon crawler that stole my heart so many years ago. The answer, I found during a quick hands-on session with the game last week, is tension. The tension that comes of knowing…

Sir, You Are Being Hunted Through This Haunting English Countryside

The idea behind Sir, You Are Being Hunted is, well, exactly what it sounds like. Man’s greatest enemy is man. That’s something we see in quite a few games, really. Mostly they have guns in them. But what gives this particular in-development indie title a quirky, unique edge is its Britishness. Also its robots. Its…

Miner Wars 2081 Takes Space Combat to a Creative New Level

The early Miner Wars 2081 alpha I played last year was little more than a spaceship equipped with a mining laser capable of blasting tunnels through massive asteroids. I played with it for hours. Since then the Descent-inspired space sim has grown into something much bigger. On the most basic level Miner Wars 2081 is…

It’s Time for PC Gaming Lives!

After a brief hiatus PC Gaming Lives returns, fresh from E3 2012 with plenty of PC and PC gaming-centric goodness for the next two hours. Don’t call it a reboot.

Tera: The Kotaku Review

The latest big-name Korean import to hit the North American massively-multiplayer online role-playing scene, Tera does little to differentiate itself from countless other fantasy MMO titles we’ve been slowly growing bored with over the past decade. Sometimes a little is all you need. In a world formed via the dreams of two slumbering titans, the…

Learn Some New Things About Assassin’s Creed III, Thanks to Developer Commentary

You may have already seen the captivating gameplay demo for Assassin’s Creed III last week. Awesome, wasn’t it? But now, you can get a better sense of all the newness that the sorta-reboot is bringing to the franchise. The game’s new stalking zones, dual counters and new enemies all get explained in the clip. Watch…

Mondrian Case Gallery

Allow Me To Apologize For E3 2012

Allow me to apologize, on the behalf of all game developers, for the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo. I don’t have time to read every piece of periodical published on the subject. The few articles I have scanned, however, point to a general consensus that this year’s E3 was a sort of bloodbath Roman Carnival of…

Tim and Lisa Review E3 2012.

Tim Rogers and Lisa Foiles, Kotaku columnists extraordinaire, bravely attended this year’s E3 and would like to tell you all about it. You may have read lots of E3 coverage before, but Tim and Lisa’s takes are, well, a bit different. Settle in. Be prepared to laugh. And be prepared for them to dole out…

Oh, The Pageantry! My Unofficial E3 Awards

I’ll admit, after watching the E3 2012 press conferences at home on my couch while drinking Heineken and using a spray bottle on my 8-week-old kittens every time they used my scalp as a scratching post, I didn’t have high hopes for the show floor. No Fable 4? No God of War 4? No Dreamcast…

Go Try PointerPointer Right Now

Even if you never lose track of your mouse on screen, you should let PointerPointer help you find it. It’s a brilliantly tuned cache of random pictures tweaked to load up a snapshot where a finger locates that pesky mouse pointer. Go there. Go there now.

The Creator of Mario and Zelda Wants to Make a First-Person Shooter

Can someone at Nintendo please step up and take over some of Shigeru Miyamoto’s work assignments. Can someone make his coffee for him? Answer his phonecalls? Zero out his inbox? The most successful game designer of all time, the chief creative mind behind Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and a slew…

This Game Understands The Importance of Appearing Successful At Your High School Reunion

With a name like LifeQuest, you might expect some sort of sweeping life-simulation. Perhaps a miniature saga like the board game of Life, wherein you pick a career, overcome hardships, build a family and ease into retirement. But while you do most of those things in the iPad game LifeQuest, you’re really only doing them…

Super Modern Mario Bros. Is Both Delightful and Terrifying

Watching this video, I can’t help but teeter back and forth between desperately wanting to play it and desperately wanting to shun it. On the one hand, the concept is ridiculously cool. The eerie lack of music lets you hone in on the ultra-realistic sound effects. Gone are the cute and familiar Mario jump sounds,…

Wednesday Watch This, Play This

Watch This: Super Modern Mario Bros. Is Both Delightful and Terrifying Play This: This Game Understands The Importance of Appearing Successful At Your High School Reunion

Sir, You Are Being Hunted Countryside Screenshots

The People Behind Final Fantasy Are Making A Card Battle Game

Here’s a look at Guardian Cross, an upcoming Square Enix-published mobile game by some of the development team behind multiple Final Fantasy games. If you like cards and battling and battling with cards, you might just want to look into this one! It’ll be out this summer.