Pokémon Wasn’t The Biggest Seller in Japan Last Year

In 2014, Japan saw the release of big Pocket Monster games Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. The games sold a ton in Japan, but not enough to reign supreme. A new challenger has taken the crown: Yokai Watch That’s right, Famitsu is reporting Yokai Watch 2 outsold Pokémon ORAS in 2014. What’s interesting about…

Schlocky and Stiff, Resident Evil 4 Nevertheless Remains a Classic

Well over 10 hours into Resident Evil 4, there’s a pertinent moment that says a lot about the game’s essence. This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK Leon S. Kennedy, our hero and veteran of Resident Evil 2, has bettered all manner of mutated meanies – villagers with significant social shortcomings, a giant fish with…

Hosts’ Reactions Are The Highlight Of Japanese ‘Face Hacking’ Video

My weekend shift is over, Kotaku, so I’ll leave you with this video of Tokyo artist and producer Nobumichi Asai’s impressive and slightly disturbing “face hacking” that I saw on Geekologie The effect — which we’ve seen previously — is achieved using face-tracking, projectors and 3D animations, according to Blastr, and is shown here being…

Smash Bros. Lore Theory May Make You Regret Beating Up On Master Hand

Is it possible that the big bosses featured in every Super Smash Bros. game—Master Hand, Crazy Hand, Tabuu, and Master Core—really represent different aspects of series creator Masahiro Sakurai? It sounds crazy (hand), but this video from The Game Theorists might actually convince you that it’s at least possible. Even if the video has some…

More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About The Sega Dreamcast

The latest from the video game trivia masters at Did You Know Gaming? tackles Sega’s ill-fated but fondly remembered Dreamcast—from inception to downfall. (Is it just me or is the rapid-fire pacing of this channel’s video releases starting to get a little crazy?) Anyway, the Dreamcast was not a bad system, but a perfect storm…

Half-Life 2 Characters Fit Perfectly In Artist Pogo’s Neighborhood

Artist Nick Bertke, AKA Pogo, made this video compositing elements from Half-Life 2 into footage of his real-life neighborhood and what looks like his home. And it looks astounding. Before I read the video’s description on YouTube I was slightly confused about what was real and what was CG, which is a testament both to…

Microsoft has updated its rules regarding videos that include footage from its games to allow creators to make money from ads—as long as they don’t use the game’s title in their video titles or include anything the company considers “objectionable” (does that mean no Spartan poop stance clips?). [via Windows Central]

The Next Penelope Looks Like F-Zero With Boss Battles

I hadn’t heard of The Next Penelope before the game’s marketer, Indie Fund scout John Polson, reached out to tell me about it, but I’m sold on the premise and look of this game. It has elements of F-Zero, as well as the under-appreciated classic Micro Machines (which was more or less remade as Toybox…

Publishers Wanted To Change Life Is Strange‘s Protagonists Into Men

Dontnod Entertainment and Square Enix’s Life Is Strange looks really interesting, but it was almost a very different game, according to a developer diary video posted this week. Apparently Dontnod shopped the game around to a number of different publishers before going with Square Enix, and it turns out most of them wanted to change…