Reviews

Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth: The Kotaku Review

It’s getting harder and harder to believe there was once a time I made fun of Razer products. They used to be the worst. The most prominent example of everything wrong with PC peripherals. Silly designs, ridiculous and garish colour schemes, ungh. So many bad memories. The last few years though have seen the company…

Yakuza 4: The Very Late Kotaku Review

In 2011, I started to review Yakuza 4 for this very website. Countless hours later, but with the game unfinished, my PS3 died, taking my save game with it. So I never ended up reviewing it. Today, I make amends for this. Last week, I found my copy tucked away on my collection shelf and,…

Video Games: The Movie: The Kotaku Review

Most Kotaku readers probably won’t need to watch Video Games: The Movie. They’ll already know—and likely love—the mythology being presented in the new Kickstarted documentary. The real question, then, is if the film has the ability to ignite that love in people who aren’t video game enthusiasts. Sadly, it doesn’t. It’s a documentary made on…

Wii U Review Update: 20 Months Later

If you don’t have a Wii U, it’s time to get one. This is our Kotaku review update for the Wii U, the gaming console with a screen in its controller that we’ve been telling you since November 2012 is not yet a must-have. It finally is. It is because the Wii U finally has…

Roccat Ryos MK Pro: The Kotaku Review

Last year, I reviewed a Roccat keyboard and it wasn’t the greatest. Let’s see if this year things get any better. I’m taking a look at the Ryos MK Pro, which doesn’t appear to be brand new, but is still the company’s “flagship” gaming keyboard. After a couple of days of constant use, for both…

​PlayStation Vita Review Update: Two And A Half Years Later

The PlayStation Vita has come a long way in the last two and a half years. Sony’s handheld console has navigated a winding and sometimes uncertain route, often deviating from whatever we thought its original course would be. And yet somehow, these many months later, it has landed in a pretty good place. When Sony…

Shovel Knight: The Kotaku Review

Shovel Knight is a video game about a knight who carries a shovel. It’s an NES game released 25 years too late. It’s the type of platformer that a whole lot of people have been craving for a very long time. There is no way to talk about Shovel Knight without talking about the games…

Valiant Hearts: The Kotaku Review

Valiant Hearts is a wonderful story trapped inside a video game. An epic tale set against a (mostly) realistic take on the First World War, Valiant Hearts tells the story of a number of very nice people caught up in the events of one of humanity’s most pointless and bloody struggles. The way it fleshes…

Kotaku UK‘s review of Grid Autosport: “A fast but ultimately frustrating racing game that improves on its predecessor in some areas, at the cost of ostracizing anyone but the most devoted of driving game fans.”

Soccer: The Kotaku Review

Soccer is a twenty-two-player competitive ball game (CBG). Soccer has been in development for two thousand years. Soccer has been an Olympic event since 1900. Soccer is such an old game that it has a “highest governing body”. That governing body is FIFA—the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, which, as you can see, is both…

Tomodachi Life: The Kotaku Review

How do I describe Tomodachi Life? I’ll start with the name. “Tomodachi” (友達) is the Japanese word for “Friend,” so the title of Nintendo’s new 3DS sim game translates literally to “friend life.” That’s a bumbling phrase. But it helps illustrate why I’ve had such a hard time explaining the game’s appeal to friends and…

Aliens: Colonial Marines Was This Disappointing

Funny Aliens: Colonial Marines review at Steam: I’ve had my heart broken several times in my life. Once, on Christmas Day 1989, I eagerly ran downstairs and gasped at the sight of what was clearly a crudely but lovingly wrapped skateboard. A skateboard that I had wanted ever since I had seen Marty McFly cruise…

Panzer Corps: The Kotaku Review

Panzer Corps is not a new game. It’s been out since 2011, and is a faithful remake (in all but name) of a game first released twenty years ago. None of which matters. In 2014, it’s still one of the best strategy games you can get on the PC. Despite being a huge Panzer General…

12-Inch Nathan Drake Figure Is… Argh! Spider!

The moment I opened Sideshow Collectibles’ Sixth Scale Nathan Drake figure from Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is the moment it stopped being a Nathan Drake figure. No, this is a creepy six-legged spider figure with a Nathan Drake accessory. WHAT IS IT? The figure is supposed to be the version of Nathan Drake made famous…

Watch Dogs: The Kotaku Review

My first question for Watch Dogs was, “Well, what if I don’t want to shoot Maurice?” “Sorry,” the game replied. “You are going to shoot Maurice and that’s all there is for it.” It was the very first interactive moment of the game, and I had two things: A gun, and a prompt to shoot…

Murdered: Soul Suspect: The Kotaku Review

I came across something midway through Murdered: Soul Suspect that summed up the majority of my experience playing this game. I was strolling through a police station as Ronan O’Connor, a detective so hard-boiled that his own death could not stop him from hunting down the notorious murderer as The Bell Killer. The game begins…

Mario Kart 8: The Kotaku Review

“Everyone has fond memories of the Mario Kart series” reads a blurb in the review materials for the eighth game in the series. Up until now, I really didn’t. Mario Kart was never my game. When Super Mario Kart was released for North American Super Nintendo systems in 1992, I was already in love with…

The Edge of Tomorrow Novel is an Excellent Time-Loop Story

As summer blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow hits theaters in Europe this week and America next week, now is the perfect time to look at the Japanese novel it is based on: the futuristic time-loop war story All You Need is Kill Good – A Well Thought-out Time Loop The setup of All You Need is…

Xbox One Review Update: Six Months Later

Last November, Microsoft released the Xbox One. Six months later, the console has gotten a bunch more games and a hefty software upgrade. Microsoft has also decided to sell the Xbox One without the Kinect sensor. Halfway through its first year on planet earth, it’s time to revisit our evaluation of the Xbox One. Last…

PS4 Review Update: Six Months Later

A half-year past launch, the PlayStation 4 still feels like an overachiever. The system runs better and is improving faster than its predecessor. Everything is relative, though. The PS4 is still a year-one console and has familiar year-one issues. It’s not yet a must-have. Early impressions were correct, thank goodness. I reviewed the PS4 in…