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LucasArts’ 1987 point-and-click adventure Maniac Mansion is now on Steam for the first time. The inspiration for things like this year’s Thimbleweed Park, Maniac Mansion is a witty puzzle game about aliens and 80s teens that’s worth checking out even if you’re not a big fan of the point-and-click genre.

Soulcalibur VI Makes It Easier To Fight Back When Being Beaten Down

In the five years since we last saw a mainline Soulcalibur title released, no competitor has really stepped up to fill the game’s specific niche. Focused on armour and weapons, the Soulcalibur games have always had a unique combat range, pacing, and impact speed built around various weapon styles. I played Soulcalibur VI for around…

Catherine Is Being Remade For The PS4 & Vita

Atlus’ cult PS3 hit Catherine is being remade for the PS4 and PlayStation Vita, the publisher announced today. First released in 2011, Catherine wasn’t just a pretty good action/puzzle game; it had a stylish, confident approach to sex and adult relationships that remains fresh even today. Persona 5 director Katsura Hashino is in charge of…

2017’s Good Video Games, In Under Two Minutes

As 2017 draws to a close, let’s try and forget for a moment the hellscape of our daily existence, and instead look back on a year that was full of some damn good video games. As he has for the last five years, reader Malcolm Klockhas put together this tl;dr compilation for the games of…

Let’s Talk About The Weirdest (And Best) Scene In The Last Jedi

I want to talk about the weirdest scene in The Last Jedi. Because I also think it was also the best scene. I say that knowing that The Last Jedi had many good scenes. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD There was the blistering opening section. Which was good. There was Rey and Kylo Ren chatting over Forcebook…

Bizarre Hidden Object Game Coming To Switch

This week, the Switch is getting a port of Hidden My Game By Mom, the most surreal hidden object game you’ll ever play. Mom Hid My Game for Switch was known as Hidden My Game By Mom on phones. It’s pretty simple. Your mom hid your Nintendo DS, and you need to solve some puzzles…

The PS4’s Library Of PS2 Games Is Only Getting More Disappointing

One week ago, the well-hidden section of the PlayStation 4’s online store where Sony and its partners sell PlayStation 2 games displayed more than 50 titles. Today, it lists just one item, a four-game bundle of Jak & Daxter PS2 adventures. The 50-some games are still on the store. Users who search for Bully or…

No Man’s Sky Players Had Their First War And It Killed An Entire Civilization

No Man’s Sky fans can’t exactly play with each other, but they still like to come together to celebrate their communities. Somehow, a new player-created holiday became a story about conflict, betrayal and the disappearance of an entire civilization. No Man’s Sky players have created their own civilizations with their own cultures and governments, many…

The Year In Video Game Sex, 2017

In 2017, the proverbial sex game dam broke, allowing Steam to seemingly flood with sex games. Sex games have always existed of course, but after they started to pile up on Steam’s ‘new releases’ tab every week, they almost started to feel mainstream. Elsewhere, smaller sex games from a wide variety of voices continued to…

I Completely Missed The Best Part Of Yakuza 0

Yakuza 0 is one of 2017’s sleeper hits, a prequel to the popular crime drama that brought it to a wider audience. While most of the game is about criminal intrigue and martial arts brawls, a surprisingly robust club management mini-game is one of its most entertaining activities. Yakuza 0 follows two protagonists as they…

Final Fantasy Is 30 Years Old

Final Fantasy and I have a lot in common. We’re both charming, aging rapidly, and occasionally haunted by anime ladies. Also, we both turned 30 this year. On December 18, 1987, the company formerly known as Square released Final Fantasy, a desperate game that mixed Dragon Quest with Lord of the Rings and added a…

Wii U Games, Ranked By Probability Of Switch Ports

After Zelda, Mario Kart, Pokken, and now Bayonetta, which Wii U games will end up on Nintendo Switch next? Here are the most (and least) likely suspects. Nintendo hasn’t been shy about porting its Wii U games to Switch, and for good reason: Wii U had a few excellent games, but it was also the…

Breath of the Wild‘s DLC Boss Has A Funny Weakness

Breath of the Wild’s new DLC focuses on Hyrule’s past, telling stories of Link’s companions and the ancient world that came before them. The final boss, a centuries old foe, has a surprising weakness. The Champions’ Ballad’s final challenge is a boss fight against Monk Maz Koshia. The ancient Sheikah tribe warrior employs a variety…

Eight Anime Films Worth Watching That Aren’t By Studio Ghibli

What are your favorite anime movies? Spirited Away? Princess Mononoke? My Neighbor Totoro? Eh, I could see that coming. These Studio Ghibli movies are masterpieces. They’re also not the only anime films out there. Crazy, right? It’s safe to say that Ghibli corners the market for 90-minute escapist anime that makes you feel very nice…

Bootleg Cuphead Port Quickly Pulled From iTunes

A game as popular as Studio MDHR’s animated run-and-gunner is bound to get its fair share of mobile rip-offs, but the bootleg version of Cuphead that showed up on the iTunes app store earlier today was something else—a very rough, semi-playable version of the full game. “Cuphead by StudioMDHR Entertainment Inc.” read the iTunes listing,…

Destiny 2‘s Lack Of Transparency Infuriates Players Yet Again [UPDATE]

There is a certain routine that every dramatic Destiny incident follows, and it popped up yet again this weekend thanks to a visit from everyone’s favorite tentacle-faced alien. The steps go as follows: 1) The game is opaque about a feature. On Friday, Destiny 2 re-introduced the Three of Coins, a consumable item from the…

Dragon Quest Builders comes to the Switch on February 9. The Minecraft-style building RPG was one of several Kotaku writers’ favorite games of 2016, and we’re ready to play it all over again in 2018.

Some Of 2017’s Best Video Game Screenshots

Screenshot artist Andy Cull, a man whose work we’ve featured on Kotaku before, has created a gallery with some of his favourite images taken from games he played in 2017. If nothing else, they make for excellent wallpaper. Obviously, as you’re probably noticing some of these shots look a lot better than anything you’d normally…

How To Fix Your Game’s Camera Without Really Trying 

Tokyo 42 came out earlier this year and while its cyberpunk ninja sprawl was both beautiful and exciting to navigate, the game’s camera didn’t always play nice. SMAC Games, the studio behind the game, recently published an update to address the issue and Paul Kilduff-Taylor, a developer on games like Frozen Synapse and Frozen Cortex,…

There’s a great article over at Eurogamer about the development of Dendy, Russia’s knockoff version of the NES. It also goes into how the console helped develop a market for gaming in the former Soviet Union and paved the way for Nintendo to begin selling its original hardware.