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The Division‘s Second Global Event Is Live Now And Mostly Good

The Division’s relatively quiet second year continues to see small, smart tweaks made to the co-op cover-based game. Until next Tuesday, the game is running with modified rules as part of its second “global event,” this one changing how much damage players do to computer-controlled enemies (and vice versa) depending on their distance from each…

Watch Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and Square Enix artist Kazuko Shibuya drink some wine and play around on the SNES Classic. The stream is apparently the first episode in a series of let’s plays by Mistwalker looking back at past games Sakaguchi and others have worked on.

Culdcept: Revolt Proves Once More How Great Monopoly And Magic Go Together

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this month, the Culdcept series is a unique combination of the property grabbing of Monopoly with the card-based monster battles of Magic: The Gathering. The latest installment, Culdcept: Revolt, is a very good reason to root around for your 3DS charger. My 3DS hasn’t gotten a lot of use since the…

Don’t Sleep On Oxenfree, A Spooky Adventure Game Now On Switch

If you’re into indie games and have a Switch, you’re drowning in options right now. Even though Stardew Valley and Golf Story are begging to eat up all your free time, don’t forget Oxenfree, a charming adventure game about being a teen, and also ghosts. Oxenfree is billed as a horror game, but it’s mostly…

SNES Classic Hacking Is Moving Rapidly

The Super Nintendo Classic has been out only a week and already there are videos circulating about how to add your own games. Like the NES Classic before it, this new retro device seems prime for emulation, and progress is moving very fast. There’s no way to officially add new Super Nintendo games to the…

Satanists Say Video Games Help Them Practice Their Religion

In survival game Ark: Survival Evolved, Church of Satan member Citizen V (his “under the horns name”) ignores the naked and empty-handed low-level players who supplicate at his tribe’s floating base. It’s an opulent base where his tribe hatches pteranodons and cultivates their naval armada. “Anyone worth my time, who enriches my life and brings…

Stardew Valley‘s Unexpectedly Realistic Take On Getting Rejected

Video games are very good at teaching, even if they have to repeat the lesson over and over. Sometimes the lesson is “don’t fall into that bottomless pit.” Other times it’s “she’s just not that into you.” This post originally ran on 3/07/2016. I’m bumping it up with minor edits because Stardew Valley just came…

Gundam Versus Buries A Good Game Under A Ton Of Unlockables

Giant robots are awesome and Gundam Versus has some of the best. But can a game offer you too many options? Heather takes a look in this critical video. Transcript: Gundam Versus is a fast affair full of laser swords, dashes, and sudden death. The game focuses on arcade battles between giant robots called mobile…

Getting Over It Is A Game About Using A Sledgehammer To Climb A Mountain

My longtime friend Bennett Foddy makes frustrating video games. You might have played QWOP, or GIRP. Somehow, making purposely frustrating video games about humans with malfunctioning legs landed Foddy a job teaching game design at NYU. In other words, the universe conspired to inspire him to keep doing it. So we absolutely deserve his latest…

Help I Don’t Know What To Do With These Damn PS2 And Wii Games

Yesterday I performed the holy ritual of moving to a new apartment, which means that my body is sore and there’s unassembled furniture everywhere. Also, I don’t know what to do with my old video games. While unpacking boxes yesterday, I dug up a bag full of PS2 and Wii games that I haven’t touched…

This Is Either The Best Or Worst Thing In Shadow Of War

Forget the nemesis system, loot boxes, or the well of charisma that is Talion of Middle-Earth, the element of the new Shadow of War game that I’m currently most torn on is its ancient poetry mini-game. In the midst of this game full of bloody orc combat, in between moments of interrogating and decapitating your…

Star Fox 2 Is A Time Capsule Worth Opening At Least Once

One, sixty-four, zero, two. That’s the order of release for Nintendo’s Star Fox series, and it’s the order that I’ve now played them. Star Fox Adventures and Command turned up in the middle, if we’re also counting releases with subtitles instead of numbers. The most recently released game on that list, Star Fox 2, was…

Pinball FX 3gives Zen Studios pinball fans a very good reason to return to their old tables. Every table in the free-to-download game features unlockable upgrades and special abilities, which help players master mechanics and rack up higher scores. The call of “one more game” is very hard to resist.

Battle.Net Gets New Social Features

Blizzard’s Battle.net service is giving players what they want—access to their gaming friends on every device, whenever. It’s a push for hyper convenience, but will undoubtedly lead many players to wonder which chat service they should use. On Battle.net’s beta version of its desktop app, a “Social” tab is now visible. Players can voice or…

Telltale’s Batman Appears To Use Real Photo Of Assassinated Russian Ambassador [Update]

The latest episode of Batman: The Telltale Series looks to use a photo of assassinated Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov to depict the aftermath of a Gotham robbery. Warning: Graphic imagery. The image appears in the recently release Episode 2: The Pact when Bruce Wayne and Alfred are researching crimes. Kotaku has reached out to Telltale…

One Piece Turned Into A Massive Buddhist Rock Garden

To celebrate One Piece’s 20th anniversary, Buddhist temple Daikaku-ji in Kyoto is holding a special One Piece exhibition, with mixes the pirate characters with traditional Japanese motifs and art styles. One of the exhibit’s most impressive displays is an 800-square meter Japanese garden with a scene showing Luffy fighting a Nue, a Japanese-style chimera.  The…

First Teaser For the Tokyo Ghoul:re Anime

The clip is 30 seconds long, but the amount of Tokyo Ghoul footage is much, much shorter. The Tokyo Ghoul:re anime is slated for 2018. The manga by the same debuted in 2014 and is a sequel to the first Tokyo Ghoul manga series. The teaser doesn’t announce which studio is doing the animation, but…

Orange Street in Asakusa. Tokyo, Japan. By Hjalmar Östberg. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

The Iron Banner will make its Destiny 2 debut next Tuesday, along with the “prestige” version of the raid. Iron Banner won’t take power levels into account and will reward tokens for Iron Banner engrams. The prestige raid will be at power level 300 with “minimal” mechanical changes. More info here

It’s not just Stardew Valley release day for the Nintendo Switch. Another celebrated indie, the Metroid homage Axiom Verge, is also now out for Nintendo’s system. That makes two Metroidy games released on portable Nintendo machines in just a few weeks. Is this real life?