Karaoke for Really, Really Shy People

Usually, when you sing karaoke in Japan, you either sing it in a bar, or at a room at a karaoke parlor, or maybe somebody’s house. But those ways involve other people. And what if you don’t like other people? There’s this. Dubbed “Choi Kara,” these telephone box-like, sound-muffling booths allow folks to belt out…

Suffering, Card Battles, Little Girls, and More Suffering

Yes, there is so much suffering in the anime Selector Spread WIXOSS that I had to list it twice. Selector Spread WIXOSS is the continuation of last spring’s Selector Infected WIXOSS—an anime where young girls battle alongside magical girl avatars in a collectible card game, hoping to have their greatest wishes granted. [The following review…

Surely The Best Way To Play Mario Party

Step 1: get a sweet setup like this. Step 2: drink. Step 3: love/hate your friends to death. The custom N64 here (made by Zoki64) is nice, but it’s the controllers that really make it. One for each character, with the added bonus that you can also use them for Mario Kart! (via it 8-bit)

Yes, Valve Knows They’re Terrible At Talking To Fans

Valve does a lot of things right, but they also have a reputation for leaving fans in the dark. What’s going on with Counter-Strike updates or Steam Greenlight’s brokenness or Half-Life 3? We rarely find out until release day. This leads to fans who are confused at best, pissed at worst. Valve knows, and they…

17 Weeks In, Halo: The Master Chief Collection Is Basically Working

I’d been reading the latest patch for Halo: The Master Chief Collection improved the game’s notoriously bad matchmaking, so I decided to load up the game to see if this was actually true. Halo: The Master Chief Collection has been a broken game for many months. It’s a cardinal sin a series known for multiplayer…

To Beat This Game, You Need To Use… The Actual Moon

Some games have secret endings that people don’t uncover until days, weeks, or even months after they’ve come out. Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon is trying to one-up them all. You won’t be able to beat it unless the real moon—yes, the one in the sky—is glowing just right. The net effect of that…

Report: There’s Another New Ghostbusters Movie, Starring Dudes

Deadline is reportingthat, in addition to releasing a Ghostbusters movie starring a team of women, Sony will also be making one starring a bunch of men. Just in case you ever wanted to see what it would be like if some guys wanted to bust some ghosts for a change. This movie will reportedly be…

How The Apple Watch Could Make Mobile Games Better-ish

Apple’s next big thing ships next month, and soon wrists all around the globe will be thrumming with iTechnology. What can a wrist-based device with a tiny screen bring to gaming? Quite a lot, probably. I’ve been considering whether or not to invest the $350 necessary to add Apple to my arm since the Apple…

Philadelphia police have set up a trust fund for the family of officer Robert Wilson III, who was shot during a robbery at a GameStop while buying a game for his son last week. All the donation information is right here

Still think the Joker might be coming back in Batman: Arkham Knight? Well, in the latest chapter of the tie-in digital comic, the Clown Prince of Crime gets cremated. The folks at DC Comics and sister company Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment are sure trying their best to convince fans that it won’t happen. The first…

A Game That Combines Dark Souls With A Stylish Horror Flick

Once bitten by the Souls bug, there’s no going back. Everything is different, and all you want is more of it. While I patiently wait for Bloodborne, I’ve searched for more Souls to consume, and found myself drawn to Malebolgia, best described as Souls mixed with a stylish horror flick. First, let’s talk about what…

Helldivers Bug Erases Progress If Your PS4 Controller Dies. Seriously.

Here’s a shitty bug for ya: A fair number of players are reporting that they’ve lost all their progress in the new PlayStation game Helldivers after their controller died while they were playing. Apparently, if you’re playing the game and your controller runs out of juice, the game spawns in a level 1 character when…

My Five Favorite Kotaku Stories From Last Week

I was on the road all last week, traveling to San Francisco for Game Developers Conference and then to Boston to gaze at PAX East and piles of snow. While I was gallivanting around, Kotaku ran some good stories. My favorites: I Tried VR Porn, And It Was Weird | Virtual reality was a big…

Tales From The Borderlands‘ second episode, Atlas Mugged, will arrive on March 17. That’s next week! To celebrate the release date, Telltale Games has released a trailer. You can reach the author of this post at [email protected] or on Twitter at @patrickklepek

Sexually Suggestive Dialogue Cut from DmC Definitive Edition

The demonic cabal who ruled the world in DmC are bad guys who said bad things in 2013’s reboot of Devil May Cry. Now it seems one of the more egregious pieces of dialogue—which invoked an image of rough sex—has been cut from the new remastered edition of DmC The line in question happens in…