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ReviewsSonic Boom: Fire & Ice: The Kotaku Review
There’s a pretty good Sonic the Hedgehog game lurking under the padding and sports tape wrapped around Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice for the Nintendo 3DS. If people are wary of new Sonic the Hedgehog games given the franchise’s hit-or-miss quality over the past couple of decades, they are doubly wary of Sonic Boom games.…
By Mike Fahey Published September 27, 2016 -
ReviewsFIFA 17 vs PES 2017: Which Is Better?
Welcome to the next generation, FIFA. What took you so long? Most video games, even blockbuster sequels, exist in a kind of isolation. You treat each one like a self-contained entertainment experience. Football/soccer games, though, live in a very different reality than most video games. For one, they’re sports games, which means a new one…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 26, 2016 -
Reviews
World Of Warcraft: Legion: The Kotaku Review
Over the course of the first five expansion packs, Blizzard has slowly evolved World of Warcraft into something very different than the MMO that launched back in 2004. The Legion expansion feels like an entirely new game. After 12 years of performing outrageous acts of heroism in the name of the Alliance or Horde, it’s…
By Mike Fahey Published September 26, 2016 -
ReviewsReCore: The Kotaku Review
Irredeemably bad video games are a simple, tidy affair. Their badness is straightforward. The game stinks. It was a waste of time to play. Probably shouldn’t have even finished it. It is different and perhaps more frustrating to play a promising game that starts well, carries many great ideas and then stumbles. The new Xbox…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 16, 2016 -
Reviews
CybertronPC CLX Scarab Gaming System Review: Big Power In A Small Package
CybertronPC has around since 1997, but its CLX line of custom luxury gaming beast machines are a recent development. Today we look at the line’s small-but-powerful desktop, the Scarab. Before we begin, let me establish that the Kansas-based computer company has no connection whatsoever to Hasbro’s popular line of transforming robots, who happen to hail…
By Mike Fahey Published September 12, 2016 -
Reviews
Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice: The Kotaku Review
In a world plagued by legal manipulation, political corruption, and a general lack of fairness for the underprivileged, there’s something comforting about a video game where justice is always served. Sure, everyone lies under oath and one out of every four witnesses is a murderer, but at least the innocents always go free. Phoenix Wright:…
By Jason Schreier Published September 9, 2016 -
Reviews
Origin Omni All-In-One Gaming PC Review: Everything In Its Place
I spent my first hour with Origin PC’s Geforce GTX 1080-powered, 34-inch ultra-wide curved screen Omni all-in-one gaming PC just staring at my desk. There’s a lot more of desk now. I didn’t know I had so much desk. Technically I spent the first hour looking for my power screwdriver to extricate the system from…
By Mike Fahey Published September 6, 2016 -
ReviewsBoard Games
The Star Wars Board Games Just Keep Getting Better
Star Wars: Imperial Assault and Star Wars: Armada are two of the biggest and best board games around at the moment. Both have had recent expansions that shake things up, and both of those expansions have been terrific If you’re just joining us, both are games from Fantasy Flight. Imperial Assault is a turn-based tactical…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 30, 2016 -
ReviewsPan-Pan: The Kotaku Review
Indie game Pan-Pan offers players a world they desperately want to be in and then hampers their ability to enjoy it. The game’s take on exploration kept me pushing through frustrating puzzles. By the end of my journey, I’d worked through confusion all for the purpose of remaining in a fantasy paradise. Pan-Pan is an…
By Heather Alexandra Published August 29, 2016 -
ReviewsKingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV: The Kotaku Review
Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is what you’d get if you took two hours of JRPG cutscenes and edited them into a movie: It’s oddly paced, confusing, and full of corny dialogue. It’s also surprisingly fun to watch. As a standalone movie, Kingsglaive is kind of a mess. Most of the plot threads are left unresolved,…
By Jason Schreier Published August 26, 2016 -
Reviews
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: The Kotaku Review
Adam Jensen needs a nerf. Five or six hours into Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, I imagined the game’s bad guys sending angry emails to developer Eidos Montreal complaining about their overpowered player-controlled adversary. Every fortified area Jensen entered started out full of alert, dangerous guards and ended with a heap of unconscious men piled up…
By Kirk Hamilton Published August 23, 2016 -
ReviewsMetroid Prime: Federation Force: The Kotaku Review
Despite abundant expectations that it would be bad, Nintendo’s new Metroid spin-off turns out to be very good. Metroid Prime Federation Force, which runs on the 3DS, is the first game with the M-word in its title since 2010. It is barely a Metroid game, something series fans sniffed out the moment it was first…
By Stephen Totilo Published August 19, 2016 -
Reviews
No Man’s Sky: The Kotaku Review
My lengthy first tour of No Man’s Sky was a disappointment. I spent 30 hours skating across the surface of an endless puddle, searching for depths that didn’t exist. I skipped and skimmed until, with great regret, I stopped. On my second time through, I liked it a lot more. I spent 15 hours standing…
By Kirk Hamilton Published August 17, 2016 -
ReviewsStarbound: The Kotaku Review
The moment Starbound really clicked for me I was tunneling into the center of a planet. I burst through yet another layer of stone, bone, and who knows what else, and I discovered the ruins of an abandoned civilization. It was made up of… tiny toy houses that seemed to have been terrorized by an…
By Nathan Grayson Published August 4, 2016 -
ReviewsAbzu: The Kotaku Review
The ocean can be a difficult setting for games. Some, like SOMA or Depth, embrace the horror of the unexplored, while others, like Subnautica, emphasize the survival aspects of being underwater. But Abzu, Giant Squid’s new game for the PC and PS4, frames the ocean’s unknown depths as a place of life, beauty, and discovery.…
By Riley MacLeod Published August 2, 2016 -
Reviews
Quadrilateral Cowboy: The Kotaku Review
Staring off into space. Drumming a desk with your fingers. Loading the Facebook app on your phone for the fifth time in 20 minutes. Then, it happens: the a-ha moment where experimentation has a baby with logic and a previously “impossible” puzzle is solved. There are many moments like this in Quadrilateral Cowboy, the closest…
By Patrick Klepek Published August 2, 2016 -
ReviewsNear Death: The Kotaku Review
There are no monsters in Near Death, a new video game about escaping an otherwise abandoned, wrecked and unbearably cold Antarctic research station. There are no bad guys at all. There is just the menace of weather: sub-zero temperatures that make it fatal to be outside for more than a couple of minutes, howling winds…
By Stephen Totilo Published August 2, 2016 -
ReviewsKing’s Quest: Quest For the Crown: The Kotaku Review
Deadspin writer and Chopped champion Drew Magary wrote a new book, The Hike, which comes out next week. Since the novel was inspired by old point-and-click adventure games, we’ve asked Drew to come review the original King’s Quest for Kotaku. Don’t worry: the book is way better. – Jason I should not remember the King’s…
By Drew Magary Published July 29, 2016 -
Reviews
Half-Life 2: The Kotaku Review
Half-Life 2 has my favorite moment in any game. It’s this: I never played the original Half-Life, so I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on in Half-Life 2’s opening minutes. Half-Life 2 makes it clear from the get-go that something is wrong: your sudden appearance on the train after G-Man’s eerie monologue,…
By Riley MacLeod Published July 22, 2016
