Xbox

​Need for Speed Rivals: The Kotaku Review

Everyone in this year’s Need For Speed—racers and cops both—is an asshole. Neither side is likable. Thank God. It’s incredibly freeing to be a total, speed-obsessed jerk, especially when it’s accompanied by amazing visuals and intense velocity. Way to welcome us to next-gen, Need For Speed Rivals Viewed on PlayStation 4, Rivals will make your…

Heads Up: Our Xbox One Review Will Run On Tuesday Night

It’s PS4 day, but what about the Xbox One? Don’t worry. We’ll be getting to it. We’ll have a review of Microsoft’s console live on Kotaku at 9pm PT on Tuesday, November 19 (that’s midnight on Tuesday for those of us on the east coast). The system launches on Friday, the 22nd. Sony allowed us…

So Many Different Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes Bundles in Japan!

When Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes goes on sale next spring, Japanese gamers will have a bundle of different bundles to choose from. First, they can get the retail version, which is 2,980 yen (around US$30) and available for the PS4, the PS3, and the Xbox 360. They can also get a slightly cheaper…

Fable Re-Rated Because Sex is A “Reward”

This is strange. Very strange. When Fable was originally released on the first Xbox the game’s Australian rating was ‘M’. Today the Australian Classification Board revealed that Fable: Anniversary, the HD remastered version of Fable for the Xbox 360, would be rated R18+. Adults only. The reason? “Sexual activity related to incentives and rewards”. Very…

Class Acts

The PS4 And Xbox One, Side-By-Side

Picture this as a very intimate cage-fight, or an even more intimate snuggle between colleagues. Up to you. German site PCGames has gotten hold of both an Xbox One and a PS4, and doing what the internet wants them to do, put them next to each other. And on top of each other. There’s a…

South Park Takes On Xbox One vs. PS4

Last night’s South Park was all about the next-gen console war, and if you’ve ever wanted to watch a bunch of kids fight and betray one another, Game of Thrones-style, over the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, this one’s for you. The premise: Black Friday is coming, and the kids have to figure out how…

Dead Rising 3 Is Going To Be The Best Mega Man Game In Ages

Come for the zombies, stay for the robot boy dress-up party. Capcom’s Dead Rising 3 once again lets its protagonist don fabled armor from the fan-favorite franchise, gifting a Mega Man X costume to any brave soul who completes the game. The Mega Buster, on the other hand, (ha!) takes some work. Completing the game…

This Xbox One Takes Around 13 Seconds To Boot Up

Microsoft’s Larry Hryb has posted a short clipshowcasing how long it takes an Xbox One to boot up from a Kinect voice command. I timed it at 13.3 seconds. That’s going from the moment he stops talking to the point where the dashboard pops up ready for user input, which seems to me the most…

Someone Stuck an Xbox One at the Bottom of a Shark Tank in New Zealand

Sorry, New Zealand—you are not the site of the first Xbox One to be sold in the world, despite this promotional stunt involving an Auckland aquarium. About 150 folks already have theirs and didn’t have to swim to the bottom of a shark tank for it. But Microsoft pressed ahead with this anyway because, hell,…

Contrast: The Kotaku Review

Contrast starts off like all games of its mysterious, charming nature should: by not telling you much. You meet a little girl when the game loads up. A scene plays out and from it you understand you live in some parallel world where you can turn into a silhouette on demand. Only the little girl…

Say Goodbye To The Xbox 360 Era By Blowing One Up With C4

If you’re gonna ring in a new generation of gaming consoles, might as well do it… with a bang. This new video, from RatedRR, is quite… explosive. In it, they take a red-ringed Xbox 360 and place it… in the smoking section. The Xbox then gets a new kind of red ring: A red ring……

Xbox One Call of Duty Offers Better Framerate than PS4, Say Reviewers

The furor that kicked up two weeks ago over Call of Duty: Ghosts‘ native resolution on the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One appears to have gotten its sequel. With reviews of the Xbox One version trickling in today, some are saying the Xbox One does not suffer the framerate drops that were reported in…

The fantastic Rayman Legends comes to non-Nintendo next-gen in February. During Ubisoft’s fiscal year 2013-2014 conference call, CEO and chairman Yves Guillemot revealed that the second game in the limbless wonder’s console rebirth will hit next-generation consoles in February 2014. Can it possibly get any prettier?

Watch Xbox One’s ‘Snap’ Multitasking In Action

Not to be outdone by Sony’s PS4 launch week extravaganza, Microsoft today released this video showing off how the Xbox One’s sleek Snap feature will work. That’s how you’ll multitask if you get yourself the newest Xbox, which launches on November 22. We’ll have a full review (and much more coverage) for you next week.

Okay, Maybe Call Of Duty: Ghost‘s Spawning Could Use Some Work

Now I’m no first-person shooter expert, but I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be able to kill the same opponent four times in ten seconds. Not only does YouTube’s Gold Glove kill one guy four times in that time span during this Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer match, he kills another two enemy players while he’s…

Overheating Consoles Were the Worst Problem of Last Generation

With this past generation, the most terrifying thing console owners could see was a small red or yellow light that meant their several hundred dollar console was dead. Without a doubt, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are amazingly complex pieces of hardware—each a powerful computer shoved into a tiny box. Unfortunately, as it turned…

All-Seeing Eyes: check out this article by Fast Company that asks interesting questions, like: should we care about how much gaming tech like the Kinect can see, particularly when it comes to our bodies? Should developers censor their imaging tech in any way? Something to chew on.

XCOM: Enemy Within: The Kotaku Review

Few things fill me with dread like the first terror response mission in XCOM. Kidney stones, for sure. The DMV. But that terror mission—which costs you a nation on the spot if you flunk it—comes when your force is young and underpowered. I know I’m gonna lose someone. I’m probably gonna lose two someones. Not…

BioShock Infinite‘s New Expansion Bites Off More Than It Can Chew

What to make of Burial at Sea? Planned as a two-part episodic expansion for BioShock Infinite, it takes us back to where the series began: The majestic underwater city of Rapture. One part BioShock nostalgia trip and one part extraneous BioShock Infinite epilogue, Burial at Sea‘s first episode falls unfortunately short of both its predecessors.…