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In Defense of Perfect Scores

You will see, occasionally, the complaint that a video game has been given a perfect score. 10/10. 5/5. All five stars. The complaint tends to be that there are too many of these perfect numbers. These scores must come, the thinking goes, from easily-impressed reviewers who are as full of bias as they are breathless.…

Mass Effect 3‘s Free Rebellion Pack Drops Next Week

Outed earlier this month via Sony Hong Kong, Mass Effect 3‘s free Rebellion Pack adds two new maps and a slew of new characters to the game’s multiplayer experience on May 29 for PC, Xbox 360 and North American PlayStation 3s, with the Euro PS3 version following a day after. The Rebellion Pack extends the…

DBGall

I Made Some E3 Predictions, Because That’s What You Do on Talk Shows

Spike TV’s All Access Weekly airs tonight at midnight, but you can watch it right here. Why would you? Because your Kotaku editor-in-chief is on it, chatting with host Katie Linendoll about next month’s E3. We’re talking winners, losers and, uh, we’re doing some guessing. We shot this a couple of weeks back, giving Spike…

This Great Video Game Trailer Is Incredibly Upsetting

Most video game trailers flirt. They tell you: If you play this game, you will feel awesome. The new live-action trailer for Metro Last Light doesn’t do that. It’s here to make you sad. It’s harrowing, wrenching, emotionally-manipulative and captivating. I usually prefer video game trailers that show some gameplay. Not this time. This one’s…

Unfortunately There Are No Rehab Clinics for Addiction To Scramble With Friends

You’re probably at least somewhat familiar with Scramble With Friends. Similar to Zynga’s Words With Friends, you trade knowledge and skill of a wordsmith against your friends, or random online opponents. This isn’t a new game by any means. It’s just one we haven’t featured often here at Kotaku, but one that I’m still completely…

That Red Sand Mass Effect Fan Film Is Shaping Up Nicely

Luke first told us about Red Sand, a fan-made Mass Effect film starring the voice actor—Mark Meer—of Commander Shepard himself, in February. Back in February we got an introduction to Mark Meer’s character and the setting of the film, which is 35 years in the past. We finally get to see another few clips of…

Thursday Watch This, Play This

Watch This: That Red Sand Mass Effect Fan Film Is Shaping Up Nicely Play This: Unfortunately There Are No Rehab Clinics for Addiction To Scramble With Friends

Scammers Behind Fake Version of Angry Birds Ordered to Refund Customers

There is a legitimate, free version of Angry Birds for Android. But one app that appeared on the Android Market (now Google Play) last fall wasn’t it. It was a fake, a piece of malware explicitly designed to part phone owners from their cash. Now, the scammers that took the money have been ordered to…

Minecraft on Xbox 360 Will Edge Closer to Its PC Counterpart With “Difficult” 1.8 Update

When Minecraft hit Microsoft’s game console a few weeks ago, it was readily apparent that the 360 version of Mojang’s popular hit wasn’t going to have quite everything that the original PC game does. But, in true Minecraft fashion, future updates promise to make the game’s sandbox more complex and more creative. According to an…

Talk Amongst Yourselves

There is nothing—nothing, I say—better than the Thursday before a long weekend. Except the Friday before a long weekend. Welcome to Kotaku’s official forum, known affectionately as Talk Amongst Yourselves. This is the place where we gather on a daily basis to discuss all things video game and existential. Want to talk about new games,…

Why Call of Duty Still Has Single-Player Campaigns

Call of Duty was always popular, but became a cultural phenomenon only in 2007 thanks to a revised multiplayer system that hooked players with a then-innovative ability-unlocking level-based system. That year’s Call of Duty IV: Modern Warfare became the new GoldenEye, the new Halo… the new multiplayer game that it seemed like everyone who had…

One of the Best Downloadable 3DS Games Gets a Little Better in This Week’s Nintendo Download

Last week it was a Mario Kart patch, this week it’s a version update, with new content added to WayForward Technologies’ Mighty Switch Force inching the 3DS eShop ever closer to iTunes territory. Mighty Switch Force is a puzzling platformer that relies on the tried-and-true switch mechanic, in which platforms and such phase in and…

Ron Gilbert’s New Game Mixes Maniac Mansion With a Little Metroidvania

Wait, I’m sorry. I think you just said, “Maniac Mansion and Metroidvania.” Did you say that? Or was I just dreaming? GO ON, I’M LISTENING. Okay well, yes, Adventure game legend Ron Gilbert’s The Cave combines the varied, differently abled cast and single ever-shifting setting of Maniac Mansion with a large, fully traversable world a…

Screenshots From Within The Cave

Can Rift‘s Player-Versus-Player Revamp Save it From the Oncoming Storm?

Trion World’s MMO rift has done well enough for itself, but with Tera underway and The Secret World and Guild Wars 2 looming, they’ve got to be feeling some heat. Can the newly-revamped three-faction Conquest system keep folks playing? I’m not quite sure. I mean, Rift is a solid game with plenty of character options…

Another Enormous, Expensive Metal Gear Figure

Though it was unveiled last month at an event in Hong Kong, it was tough to get an idea of the scale of threeA’s Metal Gear Ray figure until now. And boy, it’s just as big and ridiculously excessive as the company’s Metal Gear Rex was That “small” figure underneath it is Square Enix’s Cyborg…

Designing a Better Face for Mass Effect’s Tali

There comes a point in Mass Effect 3 where, your actions permitting, you get to see what Tali looks like under her mask. To say it’s a crushing disappointment is to take the piss Rather than stew in her own rage and/or send hostile emails to BioWare employees, Finnish artist K4ll0 decided to set things…

The Soviets Are Making Their Own Fallout, and it Looks Great

Novy Soyuz is an upcoming game from Best Way, the Ukranian devs behind the excellent strategy series Men at War. It’s basically Fallout, only set in the USSR. The story – translated by Reddit user Dreamercz, since the game’s page isn’t in English – is that the Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t end so peacefully, and…

Now THIS is How You Celebrate a Game’s Anniversary

It’s been really disappointing in the last few years watching companies like Nintendo do so little to really commemorate significant anniversaries in the life of beloved game franchises. Mario got a tiny little extras disc while Zelda got even less. Capcom, though, seem to know what long-time fans are looking for with their anniversaries, that…