PlayStation

Skylanders: Swap Force Buyers’ Guide: What You Need, What You Don’t

You would think that on the third installment of Activision’s highly-successful toys-meets-games series they’d give folks the option to just buy the game by itself. Ha ha! We’re not getting off that easy. Every Skylander figure released thus far will work on Skylanders: Swap Force. You could play through the entire game using only first…

One Of The Weirdest JRPGs We’ll See Next Year

Note: Today on Random Encounters, we’ve got a very special treat for you: a guest column by Kotaku bossman Stephen “JRPG Lover” Totilo. Be nice! —Jason. Thanks, Jason… can I start my column now? —Stephen. Some of us like video games that we might call “insane.” We mean this in the best of possible ways.…

GTA Online, Week Two: All People Want To Do Is Kill Each Other

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNfhcD… I’m a week into playing GTA Online. My character mysteriously had a sex change during one of the Social Club outages. She still never has arms when I log in, and changes clothes every time I look away. Somehow I ended up in a dogfight with a fighter jet and, some time before that,…

A Horror Game From 2001 Still Has The Best Ending In Gaming History

It’s not enough to have multiple endings in a video game to make it feel like a satisfying conclusion to the hours you’d just spent making your way there. There’s a real art to constructing an ending, and throwing three options you can click your way to with one button doesn’t suffice. Of course, you…

GTA Online Players Get $500,000 In-Game Make-Good for Unstable Launch

If you’ve played GTA Online over the last few days, you might have noticed that things feel a bit better than when the multiplayer portion of GTA V first opened its doors. It takes patience to stick around during a launch as creaky as the one GTA Online had. So Rockstar wants to say thank…

Rapper Says GTA V Stole His Music

Grand Theft Auto V is packed with tunes. But according to rapper and music producer Daz Dillinger, the game uses two of his without permission. Now, he wants Rockstar to pay up or to destroy all unsold copies of the game. Dillinger’s tracks “C-Walk” and “Nothin’ But the Cavi Hit” appear in the game. But…

Watch Us Play the Visually Stunning Arcadias no Ikusahime

Going into Arcadias no Ikusahime (The Warrior Princess of Arcadias) I expected two things: 1) A beautiful-looking game and 2) gameplay like that of an old school side-scrolling brawler. What I didn’t expect was having to control an army in real time while I did it. While there are many levels that are typical of…

A Great-Looking Game with a Beautiful Soundtrack to Match

Earlier this week we took a look at the stunning visual beauty of the backgrounds and enemy sprites of Arcadias no Ikusahime (The Warrior Princess of Arcadias). Of course, visuals are only half of the presentation package. Thankfully, Arcadias no Ikusahime has a quality soundtrack to match. Honestly, the soundtrack of Arcadias no Ikusahime seems…

This Man Designed The PlayStation 4

Tetsu Sumii would in most circumstances be a man you’d never hear of. So it’s nice that Sony have given him a shout-out on the PlayStation blog. Why? Because he designed the PlayStation 4. Not the guts, of course, but he is the main man responsible for its appearance. You know, the box that so…

The New Fables Game Is Cool, But Something’s Off

It’s a killer setup for a mystery: Hundreds of storybook fables have relocated to New York. One man—the Big Bad Wolf—is in charge of keeping order. And now, someone is murdering fables. That’s the premise for The Wolf Among Us, a new game based on Vertigo’s popular Fables comics. And while the game is often…

Saints Row IV‘s Next DLC Stars An Evil Dominatrix

See that scantily clad dominatrix? She’s your new villain this month in Saints Row IV. You’ll be fighting her and her army of sex-workers. Seriously. Check her out: Remember the expansion we were going to get for Saints Row: The Third? It was called Enter The Dominatrix. Volition is still calling it by that same…

The Fables Game Comes Out Tomorrow! What The Hell Is Fables?

The folks behind the astounding The Walking Dead games kick-off a new serialized adventure tomorrow with The Wolf Among Us, based on an award-winning comic book about fairy tale characters. If that sounds childish and prosaic to you, you’ve been reading the wrong fairy tales. Strewn about the stories crafted to entertain us as children…

No PS4 Until 2014, Japan. But Here’s An MMO For Your Trouble.

The PS4 launch looks to have a wider variety of play options than previous generations. Now it looks like Japan will be getting an extra option. Video game and entertainment developer, CyberStep has announced a new MMORPG for the PC and PS4. Oni-Giri (鬼切 “Demon Slash”) will be a free-to-play online action MMO featuring characters,…

Two Words No Gamer Wants To See During An Intro Sequence

Before or after? Sure, what the hey. During? Nooooo. The intro sequence to a video game sets both the stage and the tone of what’s to come, and Sen no Kiseki does it in a bad way. Walking around at TGS this year, I’d noticed a lot of people carrying bags bearing the logo of…

Sony’s PS4 Demo Consoles Look Great

The image you’re seeing here was posted this morning by PlayStation Germany’s Facebook page. It’s a PS4 demo unit, complete with big TV, games, two controllers and a camera. Smart move not just including two controllers (for stuff like FIFA), but also those big guides to PlayStation Plus and the Vita. Actually including a Vita…

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster is dated for Japan. Out December 26, it will also include “The Eternal Calm” and “Last Mission.” No word about a Western release.

Report: College Students Forced To Make the PlayStation 4 [Update]

While the PlayStation 3 was originally produced in Japan, Sony now outsources its hardware assembling to the Asian electronics mega-manufacturer Foxconn. So, the PlayStation 4 is being made in China. And according to reports, thousands of college students were forced to manufacture it. Shanghai’s Dongfang Daily (via China.com) reports that “thousands” of students from Xi’an…

Illegal PS4 Preorder Scheme Sounds Nasty

SimplyGames, a retailer in the UK, has been in the news this week after it emerged it was trying to strongarm customers preordering a PS4 into spending more money. Here’s what’s happened: customers who originally preordered just a PS4 from SimplyGames were told last week that in order to remain in the “line” for their…

Beyond: Two Souls Is Better With A Friend

Hopefully you could tell from my decidedly mixed review of Beyond: Two Souls whether or not the game is for you. And if it is for you, a piece of advice: Consider bringing a friend. Beyond can be played from start to finish in 2-player local co-op. I found that I had a much better…

Multiplayer Isn’t So Massive Anymore

Bungie seems to have coined the term “shared world shooter” for their newest IP, Destiny, but the general concept might sound familiar. While not everyone may be a fan of huge MMOs, lots of people seem to be into multiplayer gaming and downsized, explorable worlds where you can play with a relative handful of other…