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With Censorship This Inane, Criminal Girls Should Have Stayed In Japan

Somewhere beyond this eerily silent, pink-mist clogged screenshot is the “motivation” mini-game from the unabashedly risque Japanese game Criminal Girls. Stripping the sound and obscuring the action made it okay for Western release—only no it didn’t. It’s kind of amazing the 2010 PSP game from developer Imageepoch made it to North America in any form,…

How Mortal Kombat X Brings Players Together While Tearing Them Apart

While the fighting is always nice, my favorite elements of modern Mortal Kombat games are the extra bits—challenges, unlockables, and side activities outside of the core one-on-one battles. That’s why I’m excited about Mortal Kombat X‘s Faction War meta game. When players begin their journey in Mortal Kombat X this coming April, they’ll choose from…

The Latest Transformers Game Had Me Until I Spent $20 On Nothing

Forming a team of four Transformers characters from throughout franchise history and participating in online turn-based battles? Transformers: Battle Tactics had me written all over it. Then I dropped $20 on… well, nothing much. The core game behind DeNA’s Transformers: Battle Tactics, available now for free on iOS and Android, is pretty sweet. Create a…

Live-Action Naruto Play Saved The Best Cast Pictures For Last

No live-action stage spectacle covering the first story arc of the Naruto manga series would be complete without the brave boys and girls of Team Kurenai and Team Asuma. Now where’s Akamaru? Live Spectacle Naruto launches next month in Japan, gathering the most attractive actors the country has to offer and transforming them into top-tier…

The Saturday Stream Plays Grow Home, A Wondrous Robot Adventure (Done!)

If it’s worth your time, it’s certainly worth mine. Today the Saturday Stream takes a flight of fancy with Ubisoft’s Botanical Ultility Droid, the kindest BUD of them all. An experimental platformer with clunky controls and strange alien physics, Grow Home is nothing short of delightful. It’s the exact opposite of dark and gritty, in…

2/2/2015: Pikachu Will Make You Happy

I’ve had a really terrible week, but Pikachu waving excitedly at me makes me happy. Thank you, jagzilla You can browse our best stuff from over this week over on Kotaku Selects. Have a good weekend, all. To contact the author of this post, write to [email protected] or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini

Heroes of Might and Magic III HD came out last week, but I wouldn’t recommend it. While HOMM III is still a wonderful game, Ubisoft’s new HD version doesn’t add much (redrawn sprites) yet leaves out the two expansion packs. It’s nice on iPad—some touchscreen wonk aside—but for PC players I recommend snagging the Complete…

It’s Impossible To Get Things Right In Game of Thrones Episode 2

Nothing’s easy in Westeros. There are no simple decisions, no sure outcomes, and just when you think you’ve made the right call, something unexpected turns up and kills you. The second episode of Telltale’s Game of Thrones game came out this week, and man, did it hit the ground running. Over the course of its…

The Secret Reloading Animations Of Battlefield Hardline

Every time you reload a gun in Battlefield Hardline, there’s a very small chance of finding a weird and secret reload animation. The developers thought it would take a while for players to discover them, but as the game’s beta moves forward, they’ve found some rad easter eggs. This all came to light when someone…

Dragon Age: Inquisition Used To Be A Way Different Game

Just a year before it came out, Dragon Age: Inquisition looked very different. And I’m not just talking about trivial things—UI changes, line tweaks—what we saw in 2013 was almost an entirely different game than what we saw last year. At PAX Prime in early September of 2013, BioWare showed off a 30-minute demo of…

Report: Netflix Making Legend of Zelda TV Series

The Wall Street Journal reports Netflix and Nintendo are in the early stages of producing a live-action series based on The Legend of Zelda The publication’s sources describe the project as being in the “early stages” but is being thought of as “Game of Thrones for a family audience.” No writers have been attached the…

Remember Fallout’s crazy superheroes? ShoddyCast gives us a neat machinima of one of Fallout’s more zany storylines, and it’s worth a watch.

Why Five Nights at Freddy’s Is So Popular

It’s been called the “scariest game in years.” It’s at the top of iOS and Android app stores, it has torn up the Steam charts on PC. It has racked up millions and millions of views (and screams) on YouTube. It has hundreds of earnest fan games, and dozens of rabid fan theories. The Five…

Worth Reading: When Games Make Us Feel Sad, Disgusted, And Empty

We tend to hyperbolize whatever game comes along and eeks a feeling out of us besides adrenaline because the experiences are few and far between. Journey, The Walking Dead, To The Moon. It’s early days for games exploring the emotional spectrum, and I’ve got two pieces digging deep into this idea from totally different angles.…

A Game Where You’re a Drunk and Your Boss Is a Jerk

4PM came out a while ago, but I only discovered this strange oddity recently. All you need to know is there’s a horrible man in the game called Keith. Keith is a jerk. Keith is your boss. 4PM is one of those narrative game…things. It’s extremely short, and abrasive, with events happening out of sequence.…

Are you having save-game trouble with Telltale’s Game of Thrones? We’ve seen reports that Xbox One players are unable to carry over their choices from episode one, but I’m on Xbox One and didn’t have any problems. If you’ve had issues, let us know.

Marvel Just Announced the First Women-Only Team of Avengers

We already know that big changes are coming to the Marvel Universe this summer. The publisher just announced one of its biggest: an all-female team of heroes called A-Force that looks like it’ll be taking the place of the Avengers. Two philosophically opposed teams of Avengers have been battling each other as part of the…

Legend of Zelda Graphic Novel, Humble Adventure Bundle, and More Deals

The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past was given the comic treatment many moons ago in Nintendo Power magazine, and now you can own the entire collection. It doesn’t ship until May, but preordering will secure you a nice discount. [Preorder Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Graphic Novel, $13] The…

How Resident Evil Speedruners Save Time By Stair Skating

Every second counts when you’re trying a world record, which means players tend to discover some bizarre tricks to shave off time. Resident Evil speedrunners have been mining tricks for years, but they’re gaining new life with the re-release. The most entertaining one I’ve discovered is what some call “stair skating.” This particular instance of…

The Clever Trick Players Are Using To Decode Dark Souls II‘s New Lore

When this week’s major Dark Souls II patch rolled out, From Software didn’t exactly provide a detailed list of everything that’s changed. That’s not Dark Souls! It’s up to players to piece it together. The game’s lore has been subtly updated and altered through item descriptions, and players have come up with an extremely clever…