Xbox

Aww, Voodoo Vince Is Getting An HD Remaster

2003 puzzle platformer Voodoo Vince is a game that deserved better than original Xbox exclusivity. Creator Clayton Kauzlaric agrees, so his independent studio is releasing an HD remaster for Xbox One and Windows next year. Between its colorful New Orleans setting and the concept of a living voodoo doll that hurts himself to hurt his…

Newest Madden Puts Sun On Wrong Side Of The Sky, EA Vows To Fix

The makers of Madden NFL 17, the most realistic football game on Earth, have confirmed to Kotaku that their latest game puts the sun in the wrong part of the sky. During evening games in Los Angeles, the sun appears to set in the east, a problem that probably won’t be fixed until next year’s…

Lost Odyssey, the underappreciated Xbox 360 JRPG, is now backwards compatible on Xbox One. Anyone with a disc copy—well, four-disc copy—of the Mistwalker game can play it on their new Xboxes starting today. Enjoy those short stories.

Two Wild Nights In GTA Online Finally Made Me A Fan

I’m finally into Grand Theft Auto Online. It took me a while. The game launched in late 2013, though I’m not sure I could have been excited for it sooner. What’d it take? Two nights of chaos and a revelation about what Rockstar’s multiplayer game actually is. For some time I have been a GTA…

N64 Emulator Pops Up On Xbox One, Gets Removed

A Nintendo 64 emulator was briefly available on Xbox One earlier this week, but Microsoft yanked it from the store today. Sad news for people who yearn to play Paper Mario on an Xbox. The emulator Win64e10, which has been a Universal Windows App for months now, popped up Sunday on the Xbox One. Microsoft’s…

That Time Donald Trump Fired Fake PlayStation Employees In An Xbox Skit

Ah, 2004. It was a simpler time—a time of MySpace and Xanga, a time of American Idol and 7th Heaven. In games, 2004 was the year of World of Warcraft and Half-Life 2. George Bush defeated John Kerry. It was also the year Donald Trump appeared in an Xbox E3 ad spoofing The Apprentice and…

There’s a new Witcher 3 patch/”hot-fix” today for consoles. Just hit. Looks like they want to get in on the shortening load-times thing, too. We can all agree that infinite loading screens are a tad too long, yeah?

Players Celebrate As Star Wars Battlefront Cuts An Amusingly Controversial Feature

It’s rare that the removal of a feature from a video game makes fans of that game happy, but fans of Star Wars Battlefront seem pretty happy that, thanks to a new update, anyone playing as a Stormtrooper in the game is forced to keep their helmet on. “No more wretched storm troopers without helmets,”…

Xbox has released October’s Games With Gold lineup: Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings, The Escapists, MX vs ATV Reflex, and I Am Alive. Remember: they’re “free” if you’ve paid for an Xbox Live Gold subscription.

A lengthy new blog post from the developers of The Division outlines major changes being made to character stats, skills and gear as part of the big October 1.4 patch that’s intended to make the endgame fun. The update, including big changes being made to popular skills like Smart Cover, will be playable on a…

The New Death Star DLC Makes Star Wars Battlefront More Interesting

The new paid Death Star expansion for Star Wars Battlefront won’t significantly alter the game’s reputation as a fairly casual shooter designed for quick, chaotic fun. But it does add an interesting three-stage mode that culminates with the possible destruction of the Death Star. That new mode at least makes a session with the game…

The most recent Black Ops III DLC added more Gobblegum power-ups to the game’s Zombies mode. Here’s a snippet of a match we played with the Newtownian Negation Gobblegum activated: “Zombies killed fall straight up.” We’re still divided on whether Gobblegum is worth focusing on in Zombies. Thoughts?

Body-Bending Video Game Perfect Woman Critiques Female Stereotypes

Womanhood can be a contortion act. Prospering is often a matter of stretching, compressing and jaggedly code-switching like artists’ jointed wood mannequins—the kind girls buy in middle school when a Cosmopolitan quiz augurs the life of a painter. Perfect Woman, a Kinect game released last Wednesday, is about those contortions and uses physical posturing to…

ReCore: The Kotaku Review

Irredeemably bad video games are a simple, tidy affair. Their badness is straightforward. The game stinks. It was a waste of time to play. Probably shouldn’t have even finished it. It is different and perhaps more frustrating to play a promising game that starts well, carries many great ideas and then stumbles. The new Xbox…

Microsoft Accidentally Sent An Xbox One To A Random Customer Two Months Before It Was Announced

In March of 2013, two months before Microsoft officially unveiled the Xbox One, they accidentally mailed one of their prototype units to a random customer. For years that story has remained quiet—until today. Over at Business Insider, my good friend Ben Gilbert tells the story of the time Microsoft lost track of top-secret hardware. Back…

Overwatch ‘Healsluts’ Turn Playing Support Into An Erotic Experience

The process of engaging in some BDSM in the seemingly squeaky-clean video game Overwatch is simple. Equip the angelic healer Mercy with her Imp skin, spray-paint an arrow on the wall, and crouch beneath it. If you’re lucky, a tank will walk up to you and emote “understood.” You’ll serve them dutifully and wait for…

Promising Microsoft-Published ReCore Hampered By Long Loading Times On Xbox One [Update]

It can take more than two minutes to respawn in the Xbox One version of the new open-world action game ReCore, though sometimes it takes just three seconds. Traversal inside the game’s handful of major zones is smooth, but transitioning from one to another, which players are encouraged to do, can take 30-60 seconds. These…

Rainbow Six Siege Has Turned Into One Of The Best Shooters Around

The tactical, tough team-based shooter Rainbow Six Siege has picked up a lot of traction in the past six months. That’s been possible thanks to the release of new maps, new character releases, updates and bug fixes, turning one of Ubisoft’s more low-key releases of the past year into one of the best shooters out…

The Witcher 3 Game of the Year edition releases tomorrow and the base game is getting a big patch in preparation. Detailed patch notes show a great many fixes coming to version 1.30. Tweaked item drops, an end to game altering glitches, and a host of quest fixes are highlights.

Why Final Fantasy XV Was Recently Delayed

Final Fantasy XV was delayed earlier this month. It will now be released in late November. (Fingers crossed!) If you were wondering why, director Hajime Tabata recently shed some light on the situation. Speaking with Famitsu, Tabata talked about the delay. Some of the reasons will be obvious, but not all. “For starters,” Tabata told…