You Shouldn’t Have To Be Middle Class or Rich To Make Video Games

Steam Greenlight, the voter-determined submission system created by Valve, isn’t free anymore. The point was to decrease the number of illegitimate submissions, which was neccesary after the insane influx of games that Greenlight saw just days after release. Some weren’t happy with Valve’s decision, given that other methods could have solved the submission problem without…

I Can’t Wait To Play More Of This Role-Playing, Deck-Building Mashup

Plenty of great games combine multiple game ideas into a single cohesive package. Persona mixed a dating sim and a party-based JRPG. Deus Ex combined sneaking, shooting and role-playing stats so successfully that it’s still mimicked to this day. You might think that a strategy RPG, a deck-building card game and a dice-rolling tabletop RPG…

Mobile Gamers Now Outnumber Core Gamers, According to NPD Survey

The NPD Group—the same folks who make news every month by reporting video game sales numbers—have been counting the amount of people who play games, too. They have news. Depending on how you identify and what you care about, you may want to have a seat. Approximately 12 million fewer people are playing video games…

It’s Time For JRPGs To Get Rid Of English Voice Acting

You ever get to that point in a Japanese role-playing game? You know. The point where you want to turn it off. There you are, killing monsters and leveling up and minding your own business, when in comes a pair of tiny twins or a cackling rogue to ruin your day with voice acting that…

Sure, The Old Republic Is Going Free-to-Play but EA Prez Says Subscriptions Aren’t Dead Yet

It’s inevitable. It’s the future. It’s what people want. Everywhere you turn, gaming execs and pundits have been trumpeting the shift to free-to-play by saying some variation of those statements. Games like DC Universe Online and Everquest have seen huge population bumps by going F2P, even if there’s anger that comes with that shift. With…

Assembling the Most Insane Gaming Keyboard I’ve Ever Typed On

I’ve gone through dozens of gaming keyboards during my decades of PC gaming, from generic off-white Wal-Mart specials to elaborate, fully-programmable, back-lit monstrosities. The Cyborg S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 from Mad Catz is the first gaming keyboard I’ve had to screw together before using. For the $300 asking price, one would think things like using a tiny…

Yes, You Can Explode A Watermelon With The Power Of Your Mind

Okay, it’s not a full range of mage powers. It’s not the Force. It’s not telekinesis. In fact, it’s a fairly limited setup with only one purpose, at the moment. But it is a chance to make something explode. With your brain. A group in Kentucky hacked the setup together. It’s a Star Wars Force…

PAX Cosplayers Need To Know: How Many Commanders Shepard Does It Take To Bring Down Kai Leng?

The answer, apparently, is seven, with the help of Legion, Joker, EDI, Kasumi, and three Tali’Zorahs. I’m suddenly jealous that I could never bring more than two companions with my Shepard in a party. BioWare had a photobooth set up at PAX, capturing many of the best Mass Effect and Dragon Age cosplayers the convention…

This Playable Star Trek Google Doodle Celebrates 46 Years of the Enterprise

Star Trek turns 46 tomorrow and the nerds at Google aren’t letting this anniversary go unnoticed. If you head over to Google’s homepage and click on the letters done up as crew members, you’ll embark on an adventure filled with references to classic original series episodes. (Side note: I had to tell Kotaku bossman Stephen…

A Trailer For a Helicopter Game or a Cynical Summary of Mainstream Gaming. Take Your Pick.

Here is a new video game trailer. It starts with an attempt to be serious, with an expression of a desire—presumably by some unseen game creators—for a video game to mean something. Yes, it starts with gravitas … joke gravitas, we’ll soon find out. That lasts about 30 seconds, because in the context of this…

Mark of the Ninja: The Kotaku Review

Most people might take their stealth tips from Solid Snake or Sam Fisher. Me, I’m more in tune with, uh, the Kool-Aid man. Seriously. Just burst into the room in the most reckless way possible and “problem solve” by shooting people up close in the face—that’s how I do things. Patience, finesse and furtiveness aren’t…

How Badly Is James Vega Going to Screw Up in Mass Effect 3‘s Anime Prequel?

Freddie Prinze, Jr. reprises his role as Mass Effect 3 super-soldier James Vega in this December’s animated movie Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. The first trailer hit in July. The new one here intensifies the action. Paragon Lost tells a story about Vega and his squad of special forces as they fight against the Collectors. The…

The Fart Comes on Little Cat Feet in Fart Cat!

By far my favorite aspect of Fart Cat!, a fun and utterly deranged iOS game that released Wednesday, comes when you finish a level. A foghorn blares, the gassy kitty smiles and purrs, the screen fills with a stinky cloud and the game tells you, very proudly, “ROOM CLEARED.” You probably will want to play…

Grand Theft Auto 2 Lives, Sort of, Inside of GTA IV

The last numerical installment of Rockstar’s open-world crime franchise has proven to be a goldmine of really awesome mods on PC. We’ve seen everything from giant megaladon sharks to Transformers to the Back to the Future DeLorean in Liberty City. And there have been self-referential mods, too, with a GTA IV to GTA III conversion…

Hear the head of this site yammer on about 10 weird gaming topics in the new Insert Credit podcast: My Neighbor Totilo

Even Square Enix Admits The PlayStation Era Was The ‘Golden Age’

Seen at Square Enix’s Final Fantasy party at PAX last week: these posters, complete with game names, dates, and monikers describing each era of the iconic RPG series. As you can see, even Square Enix has some strong notions about when they got things right. (Although Final Fantasy VI should clearly be part of the…

PC Players Can Now Get A Look At, And Pre-Order, Their Version Of XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I enjoyed getting my hands on XCOM: Enemy Unknown last month. I even liked the multiplayer. One omission, though, kept leaping out to me: there I sat, playing a remake of one of the most widely beloved PC games I could think of, and I had only seen the Xbox 360 version. Well, no more.…

Hey Kids! Now You Can Buy Skylanders Toys Directly from the Mobile Game

The Skylanders Cloud Patrol game is coming soon to the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD with exciting new functionality that will forever change the nonchalant manner we hand our tablet devices off to our bored children. Exclusive to the Kindle Fire version: in-app physical toy purchases. In the IOS version of Cloud Patrol, players…

Here Are 19 Ways to Destroy the Undead in Resident Evil 6

They say ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat’. Man, that’s such a weird saying. Who skins cats? They should replace ‘cat’ with ‘zombie’ and ‘skin’ with ‘utterly destroy’. That’d make way more sense! In that vein, here are 19 ways you can utterly destroy the living dead in Resident Evil 6. Served…

Violent Video Games Increase Pain Tolerance? Okay, Hit Me.

Researchers at Keele University in England decided it would be neat if they had 40 volunteers play either a violent or non-violent video game for ten minutes and then submerge one of their hands in ice-cold water. This study into the sort of silly things researchers can make subjects do yielded fresh information on the…