Japanese people have different tastes from their Western counterparts (Heck, many of Kotaku East's Culture Smash columns focus specifically on this sociological difference), and Japanese gamers are no exception. Every week, Japanese gaming magazine Weekly Famitsu collects user impressions of newly released video…

The staff of Kotaku nominated nine games for 2012 Game of the Year. One game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, blew the competition away.

So far, the biggest gaming surprise of CES 2013 is the totally unheralded reveal of Project Shield, the new handheld from Nvidia. Some of the functionality was run down in last night's reports but if you want to know what's inside the thing, then you might get some clues from this very-impressed-with-itself reveal…

April 16, 2015
Location: Sapporo, Japan
Operation: Extraterrestrial Terrorism Response
Codename: Lost Spark
Mission Parameters: Failure will result in the immediate loss of resources and support from Japan. This would deal a devastating blow to the XCOM project.
Project Goal: Save the Earth, and all who call it home.

Earlier today, our own Luke Plunkett nominated Crusader Kings II for Kotaku 2012 game of the year, writing that it's "the only game on this list that's about sex and politics."

It's easy. Because it's the only game on this list that's about sex and politics.

The first time I played Journey, I thought, "Okay."

Papo & Yo did something that too few games manage to do: it let me step into the life of another, actual-living-breathing person. And once I did that, I played through an experience that showed me how that person got through a painful relationship and was left with a lesson that I too could pick and use if I needed…

On the surface, Spelunky is a roguelike platformer where you become like Indiana Jones, going farther and farther inside ancient caves holding untold riches and perhaps even lost civilizations. You have some rope, some bombs, a whip and whatever else you find along the way. It's a difficult game, and you will die a…

YouTube superstar Freddie Wong has a knack for making fun, special-affected videos based on games, tropes in games, and whatever else about games.

The Walking Dead is lovely in the most horrifying ways.

To describe why Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward was my favorite game of 2012 is to describe why I fell in love with games in the first place.

Far Cry 3 should not be my nomination for 2012 game of the year. I'm not a huge fan of first-person shooters. While I appreciate the technical accomplishment of the first two games in the series I've not felt compelled to complete either. I felt absolutely no excitement leading up to the third installment's late…

On Monday, January 7, you will know what Kotaku's 2012 Game of the Year is. But before then, you're going to see us try to figure it all out.

We're gearing up for our Kotaku-official game of the year nominations set to be ready for your eyes next week, but in the meantime we'd like to hear your thoughts. Maybe even give you all the opportunity to have an influence on our decisions. So let's hear your best cases for the absolute best game (or games, feel…

Merry Christmas everyone! It's Christmas day! Is it snowing outside? Is your cat currently cuddled in your lap? Are you eating pie?

Japan: The birthplace of Mario, Sonic, Final Fantasy, and Street Fighter—just to name a few. Each year scores of games are made and released here. The best of these come to the West—or rather most of the best do. Each year, a few great titles manage to slip through the cracks for whatever reason and 2012 is no…

Malcolm Klock put together this nice video book-ending the year in video games in under two minutes.

It's been a heck of a year for games. We've had our highs and we've had our lows, but more importantly, we've all turned those highs and lows into animated GIFs for the rest of the internet to behold.

One of the most interesting ways of determining the popularity of something is to see how many people are looking for information on it via Google. So let's see what the search engine has to tell us about what people were looking for in 2012.