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ReviewsSex: The Kotaku Review
If you’re already a fan of Sex—and there are plenty of you out there—you probably don’t need this review. But if you find yourself on the fence about whether to try this much-heralded, much-argued-over activity, pull up a chair! We’ve got a lot to discuss. Like many other extended franchise juggernauts, Sex has been around…
Matthew S. Burns Published September 23, 2015 -
ReviewsSOMA: The Kotaku Review
When the credits rolled on SOMA, my head fell into my hands. I felt relief that the harrowing journey was over, and was reeling at what my character had sacrificed along the way. SOMA is not just a horror game, it’s a nightmarish commentary on the possible future of humanity. SOMA is the latest scarefest…
By Patrick Klepek Published September 22, 2015 -
ReviewsSkylanders Superchargers: The Kotaku Review
The latest entry in Activision’s annual toys-to-life video game franchise has that new car smell. Over the past four years the Skylanders franchise has delivered a consistently solid action platforming experience bolstered by the joy of placing colorful plastic characters onto a “magical” portal and seeing them come to life on the screen, but the…
By Mike Fahey Published September 20, 2015 -
Reviews
Dragon Age Inquisition: Trespasser: The Kotaku Review
The longer a game is, the harder it is to end it. The more sprawling the cast, the trickier it is to give its actors closure. The looser the dangling plot threads, the tougher to tie them up. Enter Dragon Age: Inquisition: Trespasser, the final downloadable expansion for last fall’s RPG epic Dragon Age: Inquisition.…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 14, 2015 -
ReviewsSuper Mario Maker: The Kotaku Review
Mario Maker feels like a game that should not exist. Consider this: Nintendo is the sort of company that has specific ideas about the way Bowser would drink a cup of coffee in a movie. It is the sort of company that would develop a height graph, so game developers always know what size a…
By Patricia Hernandez Published September 11, 2015 -
ReviewsLovers in a Dangerous Spacetime: The Kotaku Review
By and large, love is better with other people. And when saving all the love in the universe means shooting a bunch of weirdo space aliens—as it does in Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime—you definitely want another person helping you. Out this week for Xbox One and Steam, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is a…
By Evan Narcisse Published September 10, 2015 -
ReviewsHatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX: The Kotaku Review
It’s quite likely your reaction to this image will dictate whether or not Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX is the sort of game you’d like to play. Musical notes, button prompts, anime girl with headphones—it’s immediately recognizable as a rhythm game, a genre that’s never reached the heights of popularity in the Western world that…
By Mike Fahey Published September 8, 2015 -
ReviewsMetal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: The Kotaku Review
There’s a cutscene, late in Metal Gear Solid V, that’s ostensibly serious but contains a musical interlude so awkward it sent me into giggle fits. A dozen missions later, there’s a harrowing sequence that ranks among the best video game scenes I’ve ever played. If you don’t know how to reconcile those two things, then,…
By Jason Schreier Published September 4, 2015 -
ReviewsMad Max: The Kotaku Review
A little more than 10 years ago, not long after I quit my job to become a freelance writer, a colleague warned me that sometimes the work could be grueling and unrewarding. “I want to talk to you when you’re writing a story only for money,” he said. It took a decade, but I finally…
By Chris Suellentrop Published September 1, 2015 -
Reviews
Disney Infinity 3.0: The Kotaku Review
I played the first Disney Infinity. Hated it. More importantly, my kids hated it too, because it had too many menus, janky controls and some tedious mission design. Yet here we are, having skipped the sequel, for Dadtakupurposes playing our way through Disney Infinity 3.0. Or as most kids will know it, “the Star Wars…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 30, 2015 -
ReviewsDevil’s Third: The Kotaku Review
Probably the only thing that most people know about Devil’s Third is that it’s been in development for an unusually long time. Valhalla Game Studios’ debut started life as an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game, announced in late 2011 by publisher THQ, which has since folded. Back then, it was still a game that…
Keza MacDonald Published August 26, 2015 -
Reviews
Satellite Reign: The Kotaku Review
I’d been led to believe that Satellite Reign was a modern-day Syndicate. Turns out it isn’t. Phew. I mean, I love Syndicate as much as the next person who loves Syndicate, in that I grew up thinking it was one of the best games of all time. I still find its filthy, cyberpunk art style…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 25, 2015 -
Reviews
Until Dawn: The Kotaku Review
My wife and I fell for one another while drinking crappy beer and watching horror movies of questionable quality. This last week has been a repeat of that experience, but rather than watching a movie, we’ve been cackling our way through a video game. Until Dawn is a new horror game developed by Supermassive Games…
By Patrick Klepek Published August 24, 2015 -
ReviewsVelocity 2X: The Kotaku Review
Level 26 of Velocity 2X has taken over my day. I wish I could just let go and move on with my life, but I am literally ONE SECOND away from a gold Perfect medal. A SECOND. I have been chasing that second for about an hour, now. This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK…
Keza MacDonald Published August 19, 2015 -
ReviewsVolume: The Kotaku Review
Thomas Was Alone, Mike Bithell’s charming 2010 platformer about the inner lives of hopping geometric shapes, was an experiment in the power of storytelling to triumph over abstraction. Volume, Bithell’s new game, is also a successful experiment in abstraction, although the narrative is realistic, or realistic science fiction. This time, it’s the interactions that are…
By Chris Suellentrop Published August 18, 2015 -
ReviewsGalak-Z: The Kotaku Review
One of the tool tips in Galak-Z says, “Death is just part of the circle of life.” That’s true. But, also: screw you, Galak-Z Galak-Z feels like how video games used to be. It looks simple but plays hard. You’ll keep telling yourself, “I know I can beat this freaking mission.” You can’t. Not at…
By Evan Narcisse Published August 11, 2015 -
ReviewsEverybody’s Gone to the Rapture: The Kotaku Review
The insult of “walking simulator,” lobbed at video games whose strongest elements are exploration, discovery, and story, misses its intended target. It conjures something more like Bennett Foddy’s QWOP. Then again, we all know what the term means by now: something like Gone Home that removes the elements of puzzling and physical challenge from an…
By Chris Suellentrop Published August 10, 2015 -
Reviews
Rocket League: The Kotaku Review
Luke and Patrick have been playing a lot of Rocket League, one of the surprise hits of the year so far. Rather than have them fight it out to review the game, we figured it was best to just let them both do it. Luke Plunkett: The thing that impresses me the most about Rocket…
Kotaku Staff Published August 3, 2015 -
ReviewsRare Replay: The Kotaku Review
Rare games meant a lot to the people who played them, so a collection of 30 of (most) of their best works should mean a lot to children of the Spectrum ZX, the Nintendo 64 and even the Xbox 360 eras. Combined, they’re part of a new collection on the Xbox One that is one…
By Stephen Totilo Published August 3, 2015