Xbox

The Week in Games: There’s Money in the Banana Stand

Rayman Legends makes its way to Xbox One and PS4 this week, followed by Strider’s long-awaited return to the PlayStation and Xbox consoles, plus PC. But the week’s big gorilla arrives on Friday, with Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for the Wii U. Tuesday, Feb. 18: Earth Defense Force 2025 (PS3, 360) NASCAR 14 (…

The dulcet, Brokaw-esque baritone of Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) introduces you to Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, due to arrive sometime this year. In science fiction—whether video game or film—nothing says “mailed-in sequel” like a title with a colon followed by “Rise of the Something–Something.” [IGN] The game will launch on everything: PS4 and…

Titanfall Beta Open to All on Xbox One, with PC to Open ‘Maybe’ Today

The Titanfall beta opened up to players on Xbox One yesterday evening, allowing anyone to join without using a beta key. The PC beta will become open soon, added Respawn Entertainment’s Vincent Zampella, “maybe” even today. Major Nelson made the announcement at 9 p.m. EST yesterday, and the beta opened up sometime thereafter. It is…

Here’s a start-to-finish look at the first mission in Thief, 10 days away from its Feb. 25 launch. Garrett’s trying to make his way back to his hideout during “Lockdown,” when, well, opportunities arise, as they usually do.

Titanfall Server Problems Keeping Many From Playing, Microsoft Fixing [UPDATE 2]

Some Microsoft-run beta servers for the multiplayer-only, always-online game Titanfall have been down (or not working in some way) for at least three hours and counting on this, the first day of widespread access to the beta for the much-anticipated marquee next-gen first-person shooter. This, perhaps, is what betas are for! We don’t know how…

Tips For Playing The Titanfall Beta

Are you in the Titanfall beta? Need some tips n’ tricks? Check out this new video by the folks at Respawn, the studio behind the game, for some helpful advice on shooting your way through as many giant robots as possible. (If you haven’t registered for the beta yet, you can right here.)

Kinect Sports Rivals‘ twisted take on motion-controlled athletic competition drops April 8 in North America, Australia and New Zealand, April 11 in Europe. Help its colorful characters triumph at climbing, wake racing, target shooting, soccer, tennis and bowling in lovely 1080p.

Now Here’s A Titanfall-Themed Xbox One That I’d Buy

Sleek, classy, and minimalist: it’s hard for me not to like this Titanfall-themed Xbox One. If nothing else, it’s definitely better than the mock-up that was floating around in a rumor dump recently. Here are a few more shots—you can expand the picture, if you’d like: Nice, right? The Xbox above belongs to Reddit user…

NBA Live 14‘s Latest Patch is Talkin’ About Practice

As promised, NBA Live 14 pumped out a very large patch today to address the many shortcomings, omissions or problems the title showed at launch. Straight away it includes something that should make the game a lot more understandable: A simple practice mode. “Shootaround” is the first thing you’ll see when you download the patch,…

Nas could be making his way to your Xbox soon—Deadline reports that the rapper is working on a 30-minute TV series with Xbox Entertainment Studios. It’ll be called Street Dreams, and set in New York during the 1990s.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: The Kotaku Review

I’ve never been less emotionally invested in a character than I am in Final Fantasy XIII‘s pink-haired powerhouse, so when Square Enix tells me Lightning Returns, my response is “That’s great. What else you got?” She’s gorgeous. She’s powerful. She’s relentless. She’s fiercely dedicated to whichever path she finds herself on. Lightning embodies all the…

Here’s the latest trailer for Dying Light, Techland’s upcoming free-running-slash-zombie-apocalypse simulator. As the accompanying blog post from the game’s producer explains, this one lets us take a closer look at the setting and story behind all the zombie-bashing. Dig in!

Four Players Are Co-Op Heroes. The Fifth Is Their Giant Enemy. Fight!

In a lot of mainstream multiplayer video games, we dress up as a soldier and take on opposing teams of other, similar soldiers. What if there were a game about a team of soldiers taking on one GIANT opponent? Maybe a massive beast that breathes fire? That’d be cool. That’d also be an actual thing:…

​He Made Halo‘s Energy Sword, and It Looks Really Awkward to Use

Master Chief makes it look easy, doesn’t he? But, it turns out that wielding the famous bladed Covenant weapon from the Xbox sci-fi FPS isn’t all that graceful. Watch yourself, dude. You ain’t no Spartan! In the latest segment of the Man At Arms webseries, Tony Swatton and crew craft one of a video game…

Adam Orth Is Turning His Personal Disaster Into A Beautiful Game

Adam Orth, one of last year’s most notorious people on the Internet, was nervous last week as he was showing me his new creation: a beautiful, unusual game that he says was borne from his 2013 travails. “This is how I chose to, in the words of a famous philosopher, ‘deal with it,’” he self-consciously…

The Week in Games: Lightning Strikes

The week’s big new packaged release is Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, with a couple of bundles and re-releases arriving with it on Tuesday. The MMO World of Tanks fully launches on Xbox 360 on Wednesday, and The Last of Us gets its prequel, Left Behind, on Valentine’s Day. Here’s the week in games: Tuesday,…

Join the KKK and S–t Your Pants: South Park‘s Achievements Are Awesome

Achievement reveals have lost some of their appeal here over the years. But then I see the list for South Park: The Stick of Truth and I feel compelled to share it. Here’s the very first one, for 15 Gamerscore. “New Kid on the Block: Join the KKK.” “Fling a turd that you created at…

Time to go back to the island, Jack. Ubisoft has sent out a release saying that Far Cry Classic—a remastered version of the open-world shooter already announced for Europe—will be heading to the U.S. The publisher says it’ll sport “graphical enhancements, revamped cut-scenes, and a fresh new user interface” and will be a $9.99 digital…

Not only is The LEGO Movie out in theaters today, The LEGO Movie Video Game is out in stores as well. Can the game of the film be as good as the film of the toys? I don’t know, man. My copy just got here. If all else fails, the game comes with a $7.50…

Wow, Elder Scrolls Online Graphics Comparison is Like Night And Day

Sure, the difference between playing the PC version of a game on minimum and maximum settings is a big one. It’s supposed to be. But the gulf between the less-intensive option for The Elder Scrolls Online and the all-of-the-things alternative looks massive. The side-by-side comparison comes courtesy of IGN, who ran the upcoming MMO with…