Uncategorized

Before Violent Video Games, There Were Just Plain Violent Games

Covering sports video games means I can take a break from the politically motivated and manipulated controversy of What Must We Do About Violent Video Games. Well, gee, thanks PBS. As this discussion argues, it turns out sports were simply society’s first violent games. Wrestling, as host Jamin Warren (of Kill Screen) notes, is basically…

The Moment You Stopped Playing A Game Forever

In my review of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, I had a lot of fun identifying the game’s many Nope Moments—the times when a half-open door or a darkened hallway were almost too foreboding. But of course, lots of games have lots of different Nope Moments, and we don’t always overcome them. I thought I’d…

Here’s Proof That Raging Costs People Games

Sometimes, you just can’t help but get frustrated while playing a game. It’s fair; we’re human. But it’s probably in your benefit to keep cool and not rage while playing—at least, if the game is League of Legends Riot, the developer, has collected evidence to prove not just that ragers lose more games, but that…

Well, Okay. Maybe This Is A More Typical Day With PlayStation.

The other day we ran a PlayStation ad that gave us a tease of what life with a PS4 and PlayStation Vita could be like.I, for one, was pumped. Gamesies: The Show brings us a most excellent parody of that ad, playfully reminding us that things aren’t always so rosy in the land of PlayStation.…

Fan-Made Last of Us Plushie Is Totally The Best

Say you really like a game, and in that game, your character comes across a cool, cute stuffed animal. Makes sense that you’d want to re-create it in real life and give it to the people who made the game, right? SPOILERS: This plushie is itself a sort of Last of Us spoiler. I know…

Australian artist Patrick Brown updated his gallery with an intense Grand Theft Auto V piece to celebrate the impending release of the game. I love the tiny details such as the billboard with the fake company names, the Banshee next to Franklin, or the ad in the background with guys in Republican Space Ranger costumes.…

Okay, The HD Version of Wind Waker Looks Incredible

Better frame rate, new textures, all sorts of shiny new lighting… the HD version of the second-best Zelda game looks pretty damn good. We’ve showed you a few side-by-side videos that compare The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker on GameCube with The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD for Wii U, but this is the…

Superhero Crossovers Aren’t Going Away. Can They Please Get Better?

Baseball starts in the spring. Just when that sport’s season is wrapping up, football kicks off and goes into the winter. When it comes to comics crossovers, though, it seems like big universe changing-events are always in season. Right now, DC and Marvel have major happenings threading across big chunks of their superhero universes, promising…

The Way Americans Ski Jump Is Bonkers…According to a Japanese Game

So, um. Apparently I’ve been watching the wrong type of ski jumping! The GIF above is a clip from Ski Jump Pairs, a Japanese ski jumping game from 2008 with an amazing take on the sport. Observe this recent footage provided by Funny Video Daily: You can’t even get mad at the football stereotype. Oh,…

Attack on Titan‘s Opening—Starring the Cast of Super Mario Bros. 3

Uploaded in July, about a thousand or so people have viewed this fan’s virtuoso recreation of Attack on Titan‘s opening using Super Mario Bros. 3 sprites. The Bill Blaster at the one-minute mark, followed by the billowing Mushroom Kingdom standard and the squadron of Tanooki Toads—this is strict attention to detail. Dedicated Attack on Titan…

Before Jurassic World Was A Movie, It Was A Video Game Project

Yesterday the upcoming film Jurassic Park IV officially became Jurassic World, coming to theaters on June 15, 2015. Despite sharing the same name and featuring dinosaurs, this trailer has nothing to do with that film. Though the YouTube user who uploaded the footage, captured a couple months back during a panel held at the Star…

Your 5 Nominations For Best Gaming Monitor

Welcome to Part 2 of our Moneysaver Co-Op segment on the best Gaming Monitors. In Part 1, you nominated your favorites, and today you’ll be voting on the top 5 nominations. Like our mouse nominations, parsing the votes was not a simple process, in fact it was even more complicated, but we think we made…

Will The 21st Century Be Defined By Games?

On Monday, Kotaku ran Eric Zimmerman’s Manifesto for a Ludic Century, a treatise on the importance of games as a paradigm for understanding the 21st century. Eric outlined systems thinking, play and design as crucial future literacies and argued that games as an art form should not have to be justified. Before running the manifesto,…

Oh Wow, Kingdom Hearts III Is Gonna Take Forever

Were you expecting Kingdom Hearts III, announced at this year’s E3, to come at some point in the near future? Maybe even around the same time as Final Fantasy XV, also announced (or, re-announced) at this year’s E3? EXPECT NO MORE. As series producer and Square Enix exec Shinji Hashimoto explained to IGN, director Tetsuya…

Moneysaver: Humble Bundle 9, Puppeteer, Arkham Origins, GTAV

Before you dive into today’s deals, head over to part II of our latest Moneysaver Co-Op and vote on your favorite Gaming Monitor from the top 5 nominations. After that, pre-order GTAV and Arkham Origins, then grab the beautiful Puppeteer for a nice discount. The latest Humble Bundle is live, featuring Trine 2, FEZ, FTL,…

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: DocSeuss elaborates on why he can’t love Payday 2, with a Part 2 that includes Twitter responses from the game’s director. Joshua Rivera continues looking at how his life intersects with the lowdown slo-mo sad-sack saga of Max Payne 3. And General McFist wonders—rightly so—how…

Report: Mewtwo Has More Than One Mega Evolution In Pokemon X & Y

And so the Mega plot thickens. According to magazine scans of Japanese magazine Corocoro published by Serebii, the Mega Mewtwo that we’ve seen thus far (pictured above) is actually is exclusive to Pokemon Y. There’s also a Mega Mewtwo X, exclusive to Pokemon X—it’s supposed to be psychic/fighting type, with the “Steadfast” ability. You can…

Soon You’ll Be Able To Share And Borrow Steam Games

You’ll soon be able to borrow digital PC games like you would disks—Valve has just announced a program called Steam Family Sharing that will let up to ten Steam accounts share a single library of games. But there’s a catch. If I authorize your computer to be one of my sharing buddies, you can download…

Microsoft Doesn’t Feel Bad About Flip-Flopping On Xbox One Policies

Mandatory Kinect. Unpopular game-sharing rules. An online connection requirement for starting games. The summer has seen Microsoft back away from all of those things as it prepares to deliver the Xbox One to a next-gen-hungry world. The company’s gotten a lot of flack for their reversals on the strategies once attached to their upcoming console…

What It’s Like To Be A Woman Making Video Games

There’s been a lot of anger creeping into my corner of the internet: Anger about the unequal or insensitive treatment of women and minorities, specifically within the game industry. As a woman working in games since 2007, I’ve felt hurt, discouraged, and isolated by various forms of discrimination. Most of it came from people who…