Who knew that one of the most interesting stories we’d find last week would involve proper implementation of a power grid in a zombie game? Or that there were so many terrific lower-profile games coming out to compensate for the awfulness of the new Tony Hawk?
- Dying Light Creators Respond Amazingly To Fan’s Drunken Rant | “My journalistic instincts kicked in, and I emailed Techland. Knowing they’d been caught, Techland came clean and issue a wide-ranging statement about its lax approach to authenticity.”
- The League Of Legends Champion That Riot Almost Forgot | “The core problem with Poppy, according to Riot and many League of Legendsplayers that I’ve spoken to for this story, is that she’s somehow both incredibly weak and comically overpowered.”
- Destiny: The Taken King: The Kotaku Review | “Those year-one players were not rubes who went along with a clever marketing scheme; we were passionate fans who played the shit out of a game that we loved. Yes, we often loved it in spite of itself. But we did love it. Year-one Destinywas no beta—it was a fascinating, frustrating, often jubilant and regularly beautiful shared excursion into one of online gaming’s unexplored corners. Judging by the results of its first major overhaul, it was a more successful maiden voyage than we’d realized.”
- Mobile Gaming Didn’t Kill The Vita—Sony Did | “Remember when the 3DS launched back in 2011? Remember how hard it flopped? Instead of pulling back and blaming the “climate” for all of their woes, Nintendo doubled down, releasing new models and filling it up with stellar games to the point where it’s now one of the best machines you can buy.”
- Video Games Should Have Fewer Achievements | “Because there are no gold stars or letter grades for scouring rooms for pictures and documents, or for listening to audio messages on computer terminals, the player—or, at least, this player—feels freer to explore and discover for, well, the sake of exploration and discovery. The flushable toilet in the game’s opening sequence is a quiet (and, when flushed, noisy) example of this approach to game design. The game does not reward you for flushing it, although it is pleasing to do so. The reward for flushing the toilet in SOMA is hearing and watching the toilet flush. The game is its own pleasure.”
Six new, lower-profile games that sound fascinating:
- Else Heartbreak: “I hacked a cup of coffee to make super coffee.”
- Jotun: “I played one of Jotun’s boss battles over and over for 6, 7, 8 hours... I loved every agonizing second of it.”
- Undertale: “It also knows when you start the whole game over. Many characters even remember your prior escapades—some faintly, others with perfect clarity and the benefit of hindsight.”
- The Beginner’s Guide: “The Beginner’s Guide takes place between 2008 and 2011, with Wreden jumping players between one game to the next, in the order Coda created them.”
- Epistory: “Typing is everything in Epistory. The default directional keys (E-F-I-J) are laid out to ensure proper typing technique. Obstacles are overcome by typing randomly-chosen words. Chests, filled with precious inspiration, require three words to unlock. And when enemies appear there is a race to type them out of existence before they get too close.”
- Calendula (not yet released): The developer says: “Calendula’s mechanics are entirely focused on the struggle of trying to start a game, exploring the limits of the 4th wall and breaking with conventions.”
Watch these videos:
Best Headline: Reminder: The Inside Of Your PS3 Is (Probably) Disgusting
Best GIF (via this post):
Best Home Decorating Theme: Pokémon
Best Destiny cosplay: Littleblondegoth
Best New Term: Mouthfart Talkery
Got thoughts about what we published last week or about stories you’d like to see on the site? Let me know.
To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.
Top image from Patrick’s list of 31 scary movies for hardcore horror fans. Illustration by Jim Cooke.