Uncategorized

Yoshi’s New Island Is Like the Old Yoshi’s Island. That’s a Good Thing.

The new game for Nintendo’s most nurturing dinosaur was available to play this week at E3 and Kotaku‘s Jason Schreier did exactly that. In the video above, you’ll see Jason try to talk and play at the same time—harder than it looks, especially in a crowded E3 Nintendo booth—while he gives you a quick glimpse…

Compare the Look of the Newest Smash Bros. Game to the Old One

Lots of attention—some of it creepy—has been paid to all the new characters coming to the fourth installment of Nintendo’s all-star beat-em-up. It’s great that the Animal Crossing villager, Wii Fit trainer and Mega Man are getting people excited. But there’s another reason to get hyped: this Smash will be in hi-def. That means a…

There’s A $90 Steam Game, And People Are Freaking Out

Strategy game Planetary Annihilation, which looks awesome, went live on Steam this week. Sort of. The game isn’t finished, but anyone wanting to play it now, ahead of schedule, can do so. For $90. That’s a lot of money, sure, for what’s essentially an alpha of the game, but in addition to access now it…

The Poster for the First GTA Doesn’t Look Like Grand Theft Auto

Nowadays, we’re all used to the house style of the marketing art for Rockstar Games’ blockbuster open-world games: paneled mosaics with character likenesses and heavy black orders, with the game series’ name spelled out in the Price Is Right font. But GTA promo images didn’t always look like that. They used to be a lot…

Because E3 Needed Giant Bugs To Blow To Hell

As sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, there will always be a new Earth Defense Force game to look forward to. Blowing up everything on the screen, from giant ants to giant robots, never gets old. This is the E3 trailer for the latest game in the series, Earth Defense Force 2025. If…

Battlefield 4 Won’t Support Mods. Sorry.

Developers DICE never officially sanctioned the use of mods in Battlefield 3, fearing it could lead to stuff like exploits in multiplayer matches (which, you know, happened anyway). So has the studio reversed that decision for the upcoming Battlefield 4? Of course not. Speaking with PC Gamer at E3, DICE general manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson broke…

The Oculus Rift Now Does 1080p

If there was one complaint about the early development kits for virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, it’s that the low-res display gave everything a kind of “screen door” effect. Fixed. Newer units of the headset now feature full 1080p support, doubling the number of pixels available, which is quite the feat considering how close these…

Boy Thinks He’s Meeting Iron Man, Meets Actor Instead, Gets Very Sad

Jaxson Denno, who is 18 months old, is a huge Iron Man fan. So when his parents found out Iron Man himself Robert Downey Jr. was nearby shooting a movie, they arranged the meeting of a lifetime. Like only an 18 month year-old could, though, Denno burst into tears when introduced to Tony Stark, because…he…

The Present Day Part of Assassin’s Creed IV Is a First-Person Adventure

Ubisoft likes to keep the modern parts of its Assassin’s Creed games as secret as possible. But at E3, they revealed a few details for the present day part of ACIV: Black Flag. For starters, you’re the main character. You’ll be playing in the present as an employee of Abstergo Entertainment, the fictional video game…

Goodbye, E3 2013. It’s Been Fun.

That’s a wrap, folks. The doors are closed and E3 2013 is done for. At least for the people actually there. For you, reading at home, good news! It’ll continue for a few more days. We’ve still got plenty of impressions and interviews to come from the show, which we’ll be posting tonight, over the…

A Slightly More Convincing Reason For The Xbox One’s Forced Online

There’s a very good argument that Microsoft’s biggest failure this week was not its Xbox One policies, but its messaging. The way gamers were lumped with obligation, instead of opportunity Take the console’s mandatory online check-in. For nearly every single one of you, that will never be a problem, at least on your end (should…

We’re Slightly Less Than a Year Away From the Next E3

As is tradition, show organizers wished E3 attendees farewell on this final day of E3 with a banner to tell them when to come back. Mark your calendars. Please note: the excitement always begins the day before E3, on the day of the big Microsoft, Sony, EA and Ubisoft press conferences . That’ll be June…

The Witcher‘s Anti-DRM Studio Finds Itself in a Bind with Xbox One

Few major developers could be as publicly anti-DRM as CD Projekt Red, makers of the Witcher series. Yet there they were with The Witcher 3, getting a good five minutes of stage time with the Xbox One, the face of console DRM going forward. The studio is committed to releasing on Xbox One but none…

This Is The Most Confusing Game I Saw At E3

It’s called Hohokum and it’ll be out on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and Vita (though what you see here is on the PS4). You control a snake-like character while you explore worlds and discover new ones. You help in-game characters and creatures locate items and other characters and creatures. Sometimes, you turn lights on…

Here Are A Couple of Cool Uses For The Wii U Controller

It might lack the charm of Mario Party, but Wii Party U manages to make good use of the Wii U game pad judging by what I saw on the E3 showfloor today. The mini game above, for instance, asks players to guess why the person holding the game pad made a certain facial expression…

The New Smash Bros. Characters Blew Up The Internet

Smash Bros. got introduced for the Wii U and for the 3DS on Tuesday, during Nintendo’s E3 direct and we had the chance to see the Villager from Animal Crossing, the Wii Fit Trainer and Mega Man among others. People liked them a lot and they can’t get away without some Internet attention. Especially the…

Jonathan Blow Thinks Adventure Games Are Bad. So He’s Making One.

Behind The Witness—Jonathan Blow’s next puzzle-esque game after Braid—is a mission. To solve all those awful adventure game tropes. Adventure games can be tricky. Most either love or hate them. Personally? Flaws and all, I love them. But Blow, an independent designer whose games are published on Sony’s platforms, thinks he can solve some of…

The Mad March Of The PlayStation Mascots

When we think video game mascots, PlayStation isn’t the first console that comes to mind, but Sony has quite a few iconic heroes and villains in its ranks, as proven by both PlayStation All-Stars and this series of Vine vids our fearless leader capturing during his E3 travels. Can you name them all? No, you…

Dammit, Avengers Alliance Is On iOS Now

Avengers Alliance, the oddly-compelling Marvel-themed turn-based role-playing game that I had serious trouble tearing myself away from on Facebook, is now a free iOS game. This is not good. It’s good for those of you who’ve avoided playing the game on Facebook or Playdom. It’s really a nifty little social game, all things considered, with…

Look, no one’s actually expecting that more characters and critters died in this week’s Nintendo Direct broadcast than in Sony or Microsoft’ E3 presentations. But, still, the question remains: just how many folks kicked the bucket while the House of Mario showed its cuddly brand of carnage? More than you’d guess? Or less? Watch The…