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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…

Boy Admits Raping Sister After He Watched Porn on Xbox

A 13-year-old in the U.K. admitted to raping his 8-year-old sister, telling police he had been watching porn on his Xbox 360 when he “decided to try it out.” The gut-wrenching case adds fuel to the controversy there over whether and how access to online pornography should be controlled. While there are no dedicated applications…

Strider‘s reboot will release in North America on Feb. 18 for PS4 and PS3 (via PSN) and on Feb. 19 for PC (Steam), Xbox One and Xbox 360 (Xbox Live), Capcom said today. You may see our impressions of the game here

The Xbox One’s First 2014 Dashboard Update Adds Some Important Stuff

The Xbox One is about to improve in a couple of small but useful ways. The console’s first dashboard update, zapping into consoles on Tuesday, February 11, will add a controller battery-level indicator and an interface for managing system storage. The battery indicator is self-explanatory. You can see it in the screenshot above (we added…

The second, concluding episode of BioShock Infinite’s Burial at Sea expansion arrives on March 25. That’s one more visit to the underwater city of Rapture on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. New crossbow-tastic screenshot for you above.

World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition will release globally on Feb. 12 (a week from tomorrow.) The game is free-to-play for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. World of Tanks had been in an open beta on the console since December.

Murdered: Soul Suspect is headed to next-gen—Airtight just confirmed an Xbox One version of their upcoming detective game. It’ll also be on 360, PS3, and PC. No word on PS4 yet (but that’s likely coming, or else Microsoft would be touting the exclusivity).

South Park RPG Trailers Show off Mr. Hankey, Ginger Zombie Nazi Plague

Overnight, Ubisoft released three new trailers for South Park: The Stick of Truth. And… that’s all you really need to know, actually. Let’s dig in! First, we have a TV spot. Perfect for increasing hype levels. Oh, and before you check, there are actually no new videos on the website. That reminder is just there…

The Week in Games: Back in Business with Bravely Default

We now return to our regularly scheduled The Week in Games, now that we have enough titles to properly justify discussing an upcoming week for them. Key releases are Bravely Default on 3DS, the latest episode of The Wolf Among Us, and The LEGO Movie Video Game doing a Full Ginsburg on all eight (8)…

Cops: Man Cut His Way Into a Pawn Shop to Get His Xbox Back

A 19-year-old Nampan (that’s the demonym for Nampa, Idaho) is in the slammer after police there say they caught him cutting through the roof of a pawn shop and making off with an Xbox he had pawned. More concerning, perhaps, was the AR-15 rifle cops say Olin Vickers had in his possession. That thing is…

Xbox One Trolls Trick People Into Using Bing

When you’re in the middle of an online match against other people, the last thing you want is an interruption—but interruptions are exactly the sort of thing Xbox One trolls will try to induce. The secret? The trolls use gamertags that are actually Xbox One voice commands. Last time, we saw folks use “Xbox Sign…