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The Best Video Game Music Of 2016

2016 was a great year for video games, and an even better year for video game music. It was also a diverse year, with a mix of Norse folk music, spy movie histrionics, ambient soundscapes and extremely heavy metal. This piece originally appeared December 21, 2016. As with past years (see: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015)…

The 100 Steam Games That Made The Most Money In 2016

Today Valve announced the 100 games that have brought in the most revenue on Steam in 2016. The list is quite varied, ranging from top dogs like Grand Theft Auto V and the company’s own Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to more granular games like Stellaris The is the first time that Valve has put together such…

The Biggest Video Game Disappointments Of 2016

If 2016 taught us anything at all, it was that sometimes, things don’t go your way. For every lovely surprise, there is a major disappointment around the corner. This piece originally appeared December 16, 2016. We’ve already recounted the best surprises of the year, so it’s time to let our bitterness reign. As in past…

The Best Video Game Surprises of 2016

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, the world of video games will surprise you in the best possible way. This year had even more great surprises than usual. This piece originally appeared December 12, 2016. As has become an annual tradition here at Kotaku, we’ve made a list of the best surprises of…

PS4 Sizzle Reel Highlights Console Exclusives Coming In 2017

This latest trailer shows off a number of games planned for release on the PS4 sometime in 2017, including Detroit: Become Human and Horizon: Zero Dawn, as well as some smaller ones you might not have heard much about like Drawn to Death. Oh, and also Knack 2 That’s right. If we take Sony’s marketing…

Here Are The 2016 Winners Of The First Ever Steam Awards

After over a month of voting, Valve today revealed the winners of The Steam Awards, or what amounts to a “greatest-hits” victory lap for some of the digital retail platform’s most played games. The awards were announced during the Autumn Steam sale near the end of November, with categories ranging from The “Whoooaaaaaaa, dude!” Award…

The Adorable Story Of How Pokémon Go Helped Rescue A Kitten

On a particularly hot day last summer, Imgur poster Joelalmeidaptg was walking down the street playing Pokémon Go when they heard a kitten crying for help from behind a nearby electrical post. Months later, the cat, named Spock, is thriving in its new home thanks to an unlikely string of events. According to Joelalmeidaptg’s account,…

Overwatch Player Shows How Curiosity Killed The Reinhardt

In Overwatch, if the fall doesn’t kill you, Mei definitely will. When Reddit user NinjaDuck25 saw a Reinhardt refusing to give up the chase, the Mei player decided to create an ice bridge that would buy just enough time for both heroes to duel. Despite the giant hammer swinging overhead, Mei made short work of…

Space exploration game Elite: Dangerous will add Fisher’s Rest, a memorial outpost to Carrie Fisher, in its 2.3 update, according to a forum post by Executive Producer Michael Brookes The Star Wars actress passed away at the age of 60 this week.

One Father’s Issue With Peach Getting Kidnapped In Super Mario Run

Super Mario Run, Nintendo’s first mobile game, follows the standard Mario formula: Princess Peach gets kidnapped right away, and it’s up to Mario to save her. It’s for this reason that Chris Suellentrop doesn’t want his daughter to play it, as he wrote in an Op-Ed for The New York Times, saying, “the game is…

The Year In Video Game Sex, 2016

2016 was a big year for nerdy perverts. Overwatch alone probably started an entire sex industry, VR porn became the face of virtual reality, and more games tackled raunchy subjects. More than anything, 2016 felt like the year horny fandom took over the internet. We talked more about the characters people wanted to kiss and…

Nathan Grayson’s Top 10 Games Of 2016

“Pa,” said the girl, “famine took everything from us, and disease the rest. Also the other day a pack of wolves plain stole old man Edwards, and they didn’t even ‘splain what they was plannin’ to use him fer.” The father studied his daughter, gaunt but strong, face hollowed by months of uncertainty. “The video…

Super Mario 3D World Hack Is Totally Normal, Don’t Worry About It

Yep. That’s good ol’ Mario, alright. Our favorite plumber would never kill us in our sleep. CosmoCortney decided to stretch Mario’s joints apart with a hack, and the result is this monstrosity: It’s like Skinny Mario all over again, dear god. Every aspect of this is terrifying: Somehow, the happy-go-lucky music only makes it better/worse.

The Nier: Automata Demo Lets Players Kill Themselves By Unequipping An Item

The demo for Nier: Automata released last week. Playing as a super fashionable android, players slice and dice their way through waves of robot enemies. But un-equipping one essential item gives an instant game over. The item in question is the OS Chip. In Nier: Automata, players can equip various skill chips to enable or…

The Year In Patch Notes [Updated To Version 1.02]

2016 was a fine year for gaming at launch, but over the course of the past 12 months various updates and bug fixes have made it even better. Here are some of the year’s finest patch notes. Can you tell which games they are from? Before we jump into the notes for this year’s update,…

I Introduced My Mom To VR For Christmas And She Took It Like A Champ

On Christmas evening, after the rest of our extended family had fled to their respective homes, I hooked up my Oculus Rift to the new Razer Blade Pro, pushed aside the plants and cat food bowl on the keeping room table and introduced my 70-year-old mother to virtual reality. It went quite well. The idea…

A Friend Convinced Me To Shut Up And Enjoy Halo 3

It took my buddy Dave several months to coerce me into playing play Halo 3 with him. “We should nail down our weekend plans,” he texted me on July 1st. “I’m thinking of getting an early start around 8 a.m. and just play straight through until we beat it.” “I can bring Mountain Dew and…

Furby Horror Game Captures The Terror Of Owning A ‘90s Robo-Pet

‘90s virtual pet horror game Tattletail, released yesterday, is a game specifically about my fear of Furbies. More specifically, it’s about how unoriginal, how generational and how predictable my fear of Furbies is. Tattletail taps the well of millennial capitalist terror that ‘90s Nickelodeon cartoons injected into our bloodstream. Your character wakes up in a…

I Put A Bunch Of Celebrities In The Sims 4 And Drake Got Owned

In The Sims 3 and 4, you can upload your creations to a virtual gallery for other players to admire and download for their own games. This means that virtually every celebrity has been made and is ready to download from the gallery. Today I decided to just throw a bunch in a house to…

Pirates Leak Pokémon Prism After Nintendo Shuts It Down

Pokémon Prism is a fan-made ROM hack for Pokémon Crystal. Over the course of eight years, creator Koolboyman and his team crafted a new Pokémon experience, which they hoped to release this Christmas. Nintendo hit them with a cease and desistfour days before release. Thanks to a group of pirates, the project still made it…