Reviews

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…

Wolfenstein: The New Order: The Kotaku Review

Trapped in a vegetative state for 14 years, Wolfenstein hero B.J. Blazkowicz awakens to a 1960 dominated by Nazis and a life no-longer solely defined by the killing of them. Not that killing Nazis isn’t an important aspect of Wolfenstein: The New Order, the third entry in reboot of the classic first-person shooter series that…

Transistor: The Kotaku Review

“Jesus, how much longer is this?” I texted my friend, putting down the PlayStation 4 controller to pause Transistor “I think I’m just bad at video games,” I added. “About 5 hours maybe,” he wrote back, laughing in the way that one makes clear through a text message. He had finished the whole thing in…

Sword Art Online’s Fourth Arc Is Both Heartbreaking and Beautiful

Last year we took a look at the third arc of the light novel series Sword Art Online (which is getting an anime adaptation later this year); but as enjoyable as that was, it is nothing compared to the heartbreaking, beautiful tale that follows it: Mother’s Rosario. [This review assumes you have seen/read the first…

Maingear’s Ultimate 4K Gaming PC Shows Ultra HD How It’s Done

The average PC gamer won’t be able to afford to put together a 4K Ultra HD capable system for at least another couple of years. For the non-average PC gamer looking to spend upwards of $10,000 on a complete Ultra HD system, there’s the Maingear Rush Vesuvius Edition — a showcase for AMD’s water-cooled Radeon…

​Super Time Force: The Kotaku Review

You know how the last 60 seconds on the clock of a NBA game can take 18 actual minutes to play through because of time-outs or commercials? Super Time Force is kinda like that, only awesome instead of annoying. Super Time Force is a throwback in more ways than one. Its characters, plot and settings…

Snowpiercer Is One Of The Best Sci-Fi Movies In Years

Imagine the claustrophobia and last-man standing dystopia of Battlestar Galactica married to the comedic oppression of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Now imagine all of that is stuck on a train. That’s Snowpiercer. In a weird twist of fate, the United States is one of the last places on Earth in which the sci-fi movie Snowpiercer (an…

I Designed The Most Hideous Xbox One Controller

The custom controller masters over at The Controller Shop have built a photo-realistic lab for their website, where customers can create and save their dream creations. As you can see, this is not always the best idea. Blue sparkly directional pad? Check. Candy red buttons? Check. Pink and black metallic tiger striped face? Yup. Green…

The New Vita Is An Improvement, Mostly

There’s a new PlayStation Vita handheld out today. It’s called the Vita Slim, and while for the most part it’s similar to the first model, it does improve on a number of small things. Though there is the issue of that new screen… The Vita is, generally speaking, a good portable gaming device. For more…