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20 Games You Might Have Missed in 2014

Christmas is a super time for catching up on that mountain of unplayed Steam-sale/impulse purchase games. At least, in theory. In practice, you mostly end up sleeping, eating and visiting people, and barely have any personal time. This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK There are officially far too many games now for any one…

A Game Where You Can Snuggle Snowmen

Anyone can build a snowman. A good snowman, though? That requires ice-cold nerves, high-level spatial reasoning, and a dash of love—or so A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build claims. Oh, and look at that: there are hugs! I bring this upcoming Steam game to your attention largely because it’s one of the most quietly…

Hobbit Sword Glows When It Detects Wi-Fi

WarSting is a replica of Bilbo Baggins’ famous sword Sting, with a twist: instead of glowing blue when it detects Orcs, it glows blue when it picks up an open wi-fi network. You can’t buy WarSting, but you can make it. Make: have a guide up showing how all you need is a particular brand…

A Ton Of Cheaters Just Got Banned From Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has a cheating problem. It can be infuriating to come up against rule-breakers and code-busters in regular matches, but there’s a silver lining here: Valve is doing its damndest to fight back. If you go on any major Counter-Strike board right now, you’ll notice a trend: thread upon thread upon thread either…

Santa Is Trying To Deliver Presents To Everyone In Skyrim

Just because not everyone celebrates Christmas doesn’t mean Christmas can’t come to everybody. Even the NPCs in Skyrim. PC Gamer decided to create a new character in the game, dress them up as Santa and try and deliver presents to every NPC in the game in a single night. Those presents include: Next, I mull…

GTA Online Has Snowballs Now, Because Christmas

If you log into GTA Online today, you’ll find a nice, wintery surprise waiting for you: snow. Not only that, but you can use this snow to get into snowball fights…and, yes, you can actually kill people with snowballs, as this GIF shows: After watching folks like TwoDynamic play, it seems like you might have…

Five Smash Bros. Basics That You Should Master

So you want to be a Smash Bros. expert. Great! But becoming a better player isn’t just a matter of fast reflexes. It’s also a matter of knowing what to do. You know what they say about knowledge and power, right? Earlier this month we covered Super Smash Academy‘s first “basics” video, which covered things…

Not Even Cinema Sins Can Resist The Power Of Groot

In the midst of tearing apart Guardians of the Galaxy for its regular “Everything Wrong With” series, Cinema Sins discovers why none of the movies’ obvious issues really mattered. He is Groot. I’ve watched the movie a dozen times since it came out on Blu-ray, and while it’s mainly become a pleasant way to put…

A Team Fortress 2 Fan Film Nearly As Good As Valve’s

I always figured heists and car chases were more the domain of games like Grand Theft Auto, but this slick video makes a pretty convincing argument that they’d be unfathomably rad in Team Fortress 2, er, too. “Red Zone” is a machinima film by Dunkle, an extremely talented wielder of the Source Filmmaker’s arcane magicks.…

New Pokémon Hacked, So You Can Play As The Bad Guy

Pokémon hackers have been busy lately. Not only have they spilled the beans on unreleased legendaries in the last few months, they’ve also figured out how to tinker with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire—and the results are hilarious. Here’s one hack, uploaded by Huntereb and created by @Reisyukaku, that involves replacing the main character’s model…

Kotaku‘s Favorite Comics of 2014

It’s an arms race out there in superhero-movie-land. Seems like everybody wants to adapts comics into something else. That’s cool. But let’s not forget the ancestral medium whence all that excitement originates. Because comics had a damn good 2014. Announcements for movies that are years away from release excite fans. The vision for those films…

Far Cry Could Be A Great Horror Game

Far Cry 4 can be a very silly game. It’s hard to keep a straight face when playing anything with exploding animals launching every which way. But that’s not all Far Cry is. Placed in the right hands, the shooter can be downright terrifying. Thanks to the latest game’s robust new level editor (particularly on…

The Pokémon Trading Card Game Goes Primal In February

The more I study the Pokémon Trading Card Game, the more I realize I might never catch up. Hot on the heels of the recent Phantom Forces expansion comes Primal Clash, a new set featuring Pokémon that have undergone Primal Reversion, including Primal Kyogre-EX and Primal Groudon-EX. Now that I’ve almost finished building my own…

The Cockiest Way To End A Smash Bros. Match

Last weekend, a Smash Bros. event called Shockwave 11 went down. And during a Grand Final match with two impressive players, we saw what is probably a master class in swagger. The showdown was intense. A Ness, controlled by a player with the handle “Awestin,” faced off against a Captain Falcon player with the handle…

Player Finds Spooky Secret Message In Dragon Age Inquisition

Not only is there a hidden message inside one of the most important moments of Dragon Age, players think that it might be teasing what’s coming next for the franchise. If you haven’t played through the What Pride Had Wrought mission in Dragon Age, as well as the Morrigan mission following that, you might want…

How Westwood Made The Lion King, One Of Gaming’s Finest Platformers

In the first episode of Double Fine’s new “Devs Play” series, Westwood Studios co-founder Louis Castle explores the challenges of turning one of Disney’s most beloved animated films into a 16-bit platformer. I’ve learned so much. I’m a huge fan of The Lion King for the Sega Genesis. I still remember buying a Genesis bundle…

A Cute Little Holiday Present From the Makers of Device 6

The Sensational December Machine is like a snow globe that you can go inside of. What’s in there? A beautifully drawn, vertiginously presented holiday fable that’s a great little meditation on what it means to give and get something. Totally free and made in three weeks, the latest release from Simogo is the indie developer’s…

Our 2014 Gamers of the Year: You!

In 2006, when I was writing for MTV News, I suggested what seemed like a novelty: that gamers had enough sway in gaming that one should be able to make a list of elite gamers, not just high score kings and queens but gamers who had made an impact on gaming. I wrote: Gaming is…

Steam Sale Continues, $8 Temple of Osiris, and More Deals

Another day of Steam discounts is here. We’ll be highlighting noteworthy deals and price undercuts from competing retailers as always. The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Collector’s Edition ($150) | Walmart | In-Stock for Preorder Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons ($2) | Green Man Gaming | Use code WINTER-SALE20-GROGRE The Walking Dead Season 2 ($6)…

It looks like Dark Souls‘ PC version may not be getting worse after all. The takedown action aimed at eliminating the dissemination of DSFix—the modder-made patch that makes the PC version of Dark Souls actually playable—appears to have been the result of a big misunderstanding, according to a new update on NeoGAF.