Reviews

Dead Rising 3: The Kotaku Review

The real world can be a frustrating place. Stuck in traffic, trapped in line at the supermarket… it always feels like there’s someone in the way. Certain games—the Grand Theft Autos, the Dead Risings—show us a world where it’s okay to act on our worst, most violent impulses. Our forest of problems becomes a lawn…

​Need for Speed Rivals: The Kotaku Review

Everyone in this year’s Need For Speed—racers and cops both—is an asshole. Neither side is likable. Thank God. It’s incredibly freeing to be a total, speed-obsessed jerk, especially when it’s accompanied by amazing visuals and intense velocity. Way to welcome us to next-gen, Need For Speed Rivals Viewed on PlayStation 4, Rivals will make your…

Resogun: The Kotaku Review

A twin-stick shooter with a mess of action on screen is the perfect launch title for the PS4. For the uninitiated: twin-stick shooters are pretty easy to control. One joystick moves you around, the other joystick shoots in the direction you push it. The challenge is in using these controls in the best possible way.…

Contrast: The Kotaku Review

Contrast starts off like all games of its mysterious, charming nature should: by not telling you much. You meet a little girl when the game loads up. A scene plays out and from it you understand you live in some parallel world where you can turn into a silhouette on demand. Only the little girl…

The PlayStation 4: The Kotaku Review

How good is the PlayStation 4? Ask me in five years. Ask me after Naughty Dog’s next couple of games, after I figure out whether God of War is headed in the right direction, after I learn whether it has become unfathomable to play a console game without livestreaming it. You know what? Ask me…

Knack: The Kotaku Review

Next gen visuals. Old-fashioned gameplay. The PlayStation 4 action-adventure Knack looks better than most video games you’ve played, but there’s a good chance you’ve played a game like Knack before. It’s not that I want to knock Knack. It’s a launch game. Launch games seldom offer more than what Knack offers. You get a game…

​Killzone Shadow Fall: The Kotaku Review

One thought ran through my head while playing Killzone Shadow Fall: How beautiful can a cliché look? It’s no surprise that Shadow Fall is beautiful. The Killzone games that showed up on the PS2 and PS3 offered up some of the best graphics ever seen on those consoles. So, yes, the opening hours of this…

The New MOGA Android Controllers Have The Power

For the past year, Power A has been chipping away at the Android accessory market with its MOGA line of game controllers, combining convenient clips with console-quality controls. Now they’re releasing the MOGA Power line, adding device charging capability to a pair of slightly retooled controllers, at a price. What Are They? The MOGA Hero…

XCOM: Enemy Within: The Kotaku Review

Few things fill me with dread like the first terror response mission in XCOM. Kidney stones, for sure. The DMV. But that terror mission—which costs you a nation on the spot if you flunk it—comes when your force is young and underpowered. I know I’m gonna lose someone. I’m probably gonna lose two someones. Not…

The Hori Gem Pad May Just Make You a Better Fighting Gamer

Hori as a company has been making video game controllers for years. These have ranged from joysticks and FPS controllers to a mouse for console gaming. Their newest controller, the Gem Pad, is specifically designed for those who think fighting games are best played with a pad, and not a stick. A little background before…

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: The Kotaku Review

What took so long? I’m not talking about a LEGO Marvel game. LEGO getting the Marvel license is a relatively new development, all things considered. They announced it in 2011, video game in 2013 — that’s fairly quick turnaround for a game as massive in scope as LEGO Marvel Super Heroes What I am talking…

Call of Duty: Ghosts: The Kotaku Review

Three men huddle around a campfire, eager to hear the story of an elite force of highly-feared soldiers. Ghosts, they’re called. Two of the men listening—the sons, Logan and Hesh Walker—are skeptical. Surely the tale-spinning father doesn’t expect them to believe such an outlandish story? They’re skeptical, but we know the story is true, because…

WWE 2K14: The Kotaku Review

Twenty-five years ago my best friend and I set up a wrestling ring in my basement—four barstools for the turnbuckles, some old mattresses for the canvas. The actual wrestling we did was hesitant, unplanned and uncompelling. But man, the stuff we did out of the ring makes me smile to this day. My facemask was…

Hunting Down The Fourth Season Of The Walking Dead Action Figures

With the fourth season of AMC’s hit television series underway and the promise of the second round of comic-based interactive adventure coming from Telltale, it’s the perfect time to peruse the painted plastic people (living and dead) of McFarlane Toys The Walking Dead series four TV figures. Now I am more of a comic book…

Battlefield 4: The Kotaku Review

Let’s just admit it. Battlefield 4 was never a game you were going to play for the single-player. And thank god for that, because in DICE’s latest entry in their fantastic, consistently polished military first-person shooter series, the campaign is useless and forgettable. There are these big set-piece moments—the Michael Bay explosions and extravagantly violent…

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag: The Kotaku Review

The loading screen is always the same in Assassin’s Creed. Your character stands, clad in the robes of his people, armed to the teeth and surrounded by empty space. A desaturated digital landscape fades into the distance and out of sight. You press the thumbstick forward, and he begins to jog. What’s left to do…

The Snacktaku Monster Cereal Review Spooktacular will continue on Monday. Due to an amazing amount of horrendous back pain that’s left me in not a very eating-things-and-talking-about-them mood, Yummy Mummy and Franken Berry will have to wait. In the meantime, enjoy Count Chocola, Boo Berry, Frute Brute, and this amazing GIF.

Batman: Arkham Origins: The Kotaku Review

Troy Baker’s Joker voice is one of the best things about Batman: Arkham Origins. But it’s also a disturbingly reverent impersonation of Mark Hamill’s take on the Clown Prince of Crime. Therein lies the conundrum of the latest video game featuring the Dark Knight. On multiple levels, this game is about finding one’s voice. Players…

Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate: The Kotaku Review

The worst thing Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate has going for it is its mouthful of a title. The second worst thing is its plot and setting, a less interesting retread of the first great Batman game, 2009’s Arkham Asylum But past those two flaws, we gamers are getting a gift with this game: a Metroid-style…

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies: The Kotaku Review

A shout. “Hold it!” The camera cuts between stunned faces as everyone waits, sweating, wondering what sort of interjection will shake things up next. This happens so often, you’d think they would be used to it by now. But no. Shock. Disbelief. Someone barges into the courtroom—someone new, someone unexpected. Maybe someone shouts a new…