The first and sometimes the only thing people say about Dark Souls is that it’s hard. Really hard, migraine hard, ready-to-shoot-yourself challenging. The players say it (“I can’t take this!”). The people who are scared to play it, say it: “Wait, that’s the one that’s really hard, right?”
For his work on novels like War of the Worlds and The Island of Doctor Moreau, British author HG Wells is rightly lauded as a visionary. What often gets lost amongst the applause for his ideas on science fiction, though, is another area he was a pioneer: the field of tabletop wargaming.
Today, Bethesda is releasing their excellent role-playing adventure Skyrim for Nintendo Switch and VR. It’s a massive game, with hundreds of hours of exploration, magic and mayhem.
Forget RPGs, action games or even a broken if decent adventure series. The perfect Game of Thrones video game is a mod for a 2012 strategy game on the PC.
On July 15, 1983, the Famicom was released in Japan. The console, later rebranded in the West as the Nintendo Entertainment System, would go on to change video games forever. Did you know, though, that the Famicom wasn’t the only gaming system released on that day? It was joined on shelves by the SG-1000, the very…
When I first came to Japan in 2001, Halloween was not a thing. At all. Well, it was if you were foreigner, but Japanese people just didn’t really get it.
In the past, there was a tradition in the U.S. military to paint pin-ups on aircrafts. Today, that tradition lives on in Japan. But there’s an important difference: they’re not cheesecake pin-ups. They’re anime girls, and they’re not only on aircrafts, but also recruitment posters.
Those black suits. Those weapons. Martial arts. The image of the ninja is rooted more in fiction than fact. Everything you think you know is probably more “wrong” than “right”.
I run the Fine Art feature on Kotaku because it’s an aspect of the creative process that I have a big interest in, and the utmost respect for. Indeed, there was a point in my life where I hit a fairly substantial crossroads, and if I hadn’t gone down the path that led me here, I’d have ended up pursuing a career in…
With The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers posting record performances at cinemaplexes, it can be easy to forget that not everyone can rattle off the names of Bruce Wayne’s parents or the address of the X-Men’s school off the tops of their heads.
My Neighbor Totoro is a family favorite. Kids and adults alike love the story of two sisters in the idyllic Japanese countryside with magical creatures. But for some viewers, there’s darkness seething underneath. Totoro is no cuddly critter. He is a killer.
There was a Zelda animated series, and it was terrible. Let’s not dwell on it. But if you ever wondered what would happen if the same art style ditched the excuuuuuuuuuuuse me’s and played things a little straighter, you should know that such a thing actually exists.
You can keep Street Fighter, Tekken, King of Fighters and Dead or Alive. My favourite fighting game pre-dates every single one of them, starred large men in furry underpants, and rather than lasting minutes could, if you knew your moves, be over in seconds.
Picture a world-beating gamer. Take your time. Done? Whatever you pictured, you probably did not picture Mr. Awesome.
The remastered editions of the two main Homeworld games are out today, introducing a whole new generation to one of the greatest series in modern video games. So there's no better time to appreciate one of the things people love most about them: artist Rob Cunningham's work designing Homeworld's iconic ships.
Persona 3 is perhaps best described as "Basically, Buffy The Vampire Slayer at a super fashionable Japanese high school." If you're anything like me, that description alone would be enough to make you want to play.
For the eighth consecutive year, I've counted the number of games I finished in the last 12 months. The number has gone up, even as I played fewer games.
The collapse of 38 Studios—the game development company founded by all-star pitcher Curt Schilling—became one of the most colossal video game development flameouts ever. But, in a tweet this morning, the former Red Sox player says that the fantasy creation would still be innovative if someone ponied up the cash to…
This article was originally published on April 3, 2012. We're bumping it up for Mass Effect week. For a different view on Mass Effect 3's malleable ending, check out Stephen's take.
This article was originally published on June 6, 2012. We're bumping it up for Mass Effect week.
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