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The Best Of Kotaku, The Week Of June 9

The storm that was E3 2014 has passed, a hurricane of amazing new games, fancy booths, expensive presentations and controversial comments. Now the weather’s clear, the skies are quiet, and a week’s worth of E3 Kotaku Selects are yours for the reading. And what a better place to read than the fields of Hyrule? That…

Mario Kart Toys Are Coming To McDonalds

The good news is that the next Happy Meal toy selection will feature Mario Kart toys. The bad news is that Luigi’s action feature is not giving a death stare. And yes, there will be alternate choices for girls: Via McDonalds You are now looking at Screenburn, a Kotaku blog dedicated to the best gaming…

The Saturday Morning Stream: Destiny Awaits [Update — We Won!]

As announced at the big show, Bungie’s next big thing scored a PlayStation 4 exclusive alpha test this weekend. I just so happen to have a PS4 and access to that alpha test. Wanna watch? If I’m lucky, this stream will feature an appearance by Kotaku East’s own anime master, Sir Richard “Not a Sir”…

A common sight in 1980’s Los Angeles—billboards of wannabe starlet Angelyne are included in the post-apocalyptic world of Wasteland 2 You are now looking at Screenburn, a Kotaku blog dedicated to the best gaming images, videos and GIFs online.

Ubisoft Refused To Talk To Me About Women

It was a simple enough question, I thought. “If you had been able to work with a playable woman character in Far Cry 4, what would you have done? It sounds like you were in the planning phases of it, at least.” The response from the game’s narrative director? Total silence. I didn’t do my…

​Why I’m Excited for No Man’s Sky

The game that got me and a lot of other people the most hyped this E3 is getting built by less than a dozen people. And, to my mind, No Man’s Sky has totally screwed with the idea of what it means to be a Big Game. Assassin’s Creed Unity is being made by hundreds…

Already, Far Cry 4 Has A Fan Film

Well, that didn’t take long. Literally days after being announced, folks are already making short films about Far Cry 4. Damn. In this short, RocketJump shows us what a real-life co-op attack on an outpost might be like. One of the dudes totally looks like Hurk from the game, too: …now lets just hope nobody…

Ten Things You Might’ve Missed About The New Zelda Reveal

Time for some trailer analysis! While we didn’t get to see too much of the new Zelda, the short footage we saw was still jam-packed with small stuff that was easy to miss. I mean, let’s be real, most of us were busy thinking about how amazing the grass looks now and such. Thankfully, GameXplain…

Games Are Harder When Your Self From Two Seconds Ago Is Chasing You

N++, like the other N games before it (Ncestors? Ntecedents?) is hard. In fact, this time, there are “evil ninjas” chasing you in some levels. These ninjas are, in fact, you from two seconds ago and you from four seconds ago, etc. They’re not in all of the upcoming PS4 game’s 1,000 levels, but there…

The Swedish Military’s Recruiting Game Is Really Fun

Games as recruiting tools aren’t anything new, but this little free browser game was more entertaining to me than America’s Army ever was. The point of the game is to emphasize how important teamwork is (and how you can learn it in the military), so it matches you up with 3 other players and gives…

It’s Like Super Mario 64, But You’re The Camera

Most of the time when people think about playing a game in virtual reality, they think about being in the game. If you were going to play a VR Mario game, you’d see the world through Mario’s eyes, right? Turns out, that might not be the most fun way to play. While visiting the Oculus…

What Does Battlefield Hardline Have That Battlefield 4 Doesn’t?

Battlefield Hardline is still a long way off, but we can get a look at what’s different from Battlefield 4 in this video from Levelcapgaming. Ziplines! Grappling hooks! Tasers! Some of the highlights I liked: Instead of a default knife, you’ll have a nightstick or a baseball bat, which you can use to choke out…

One Of The Show-Stoppers At E3 Was An Awesome Kinect Game. Not Kidding.

We’ve covered Fru before, and we’ll cover Fru again, because Fru isn’t just the best game I’ve ever seen on Kinect (sorry, Dance Central, though you’re pretty good, too)…it’s a game I really want to play. I shot a short video of it in action at E3 with developer Mattia Traverso at my side. Fru…

​E3 Made Me Excited About Big-Budget Games Again

I used to dream about Warcraft III. This was before it came out, before Blizzard had even settled on making the epic real-time strategy game that would eventually come to be known as Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. I would check the mailbox impatiently every day for the new issue of PC Gamer to arrive,…

The New Zelda Might Not Have The Puzzles You Expect

Are you hoping for something different from the new Zelda, which blew everyone away when it was announced earlier this week during Nintendo’s E3 show? Series producer Eiji Aonuma has promised that this one will shake things up, with an open-world focus that calls back to the days of Zelda on the NES. He’s also…

New Star Fox Game Will Support Co-Op. You Pilot. I Shoot.

An optional co-op mode in the upcoming Wii U Star Fox game is going to let two players command one Arwing with one flying the ship and the other shooting from it. Nintendo’s lead game designer Shigeru Miyamoto described the mode to me this week in L.A., as he elaborated on the value of designing…

Vita Fans Are Pissed About Final Fantasy Type-0

Earlier this week, just after press conference day, Square Enix dropped one of E3’s biggest bombshells—that they’re remaking the PSP game Final Fantasy Type-0 and bringing it to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One here in North America. This was exciting news for fans desperate to play one of the few Final Fantasy games that never…

Deals: $350 PS4, PS4 Storage Upgrades, Movie Anthologies, 4K Monitor

A while back we gave you our storage upgrade recommendations for your Playstation 4, and incidentally, they remain the same. Today they’re on sale. Our choice for most people is the Seagate 1TB Solid State Hybrid Drive, which combines a lot of the speed of SSD with a lot of the affordability of not SSD.…

How You’ll Play Far Cry 4 With Friends Who Don’t Own It

One of the big surprises at this week’s Sony E3 press conference was the announcement that PlayStation console owners would be able to share Far Cry 4 for multiplayer co-op with friends who don’t own the game. How’s it’s going to work? Well, for starters, it sounds like you’re going to need a lot of…

E3 Comic #6: Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Some game makers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on gigantic displays to draw the attention of E3 visitors. Others lurk in quiet corners, winning hearts one at a time. Elizabeth Simins is an artist & illustrator living in New York. She makes comics primarily about games, but also sometimes about other things. Follow her…