Reviews

Beyond: Two Souls: The Kotaku Review

In Beyond: Two Souls, you‘ll do some things you rarely get to do in video games. You’ll control a young, frightened girl as she hugs a stuffed animal and tries to fend off nightmares. You’ll decide whether to accept beer at an awkward high-school party, and you’ll try to pick music that’ll impress a group…

I’m Playing Assassin’s Creed IV Right Now. On My Desk. With Toys.

While the rest of the world has to wait until the end of this month to get their hands on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I’ve got Edward Kenway and friends right here on my desk, ready to pillage, loot, burn, and maybe make-out a little. With three generations of Kenways — Edward, Hatham and…

Scribblenauts Unmasked: The Kotaku Review

I have a lot of action figures. Every once in awhile I like to pull them down from their shelves or out of their boxes. I admire each one. Maybe I’ll pose then and take a few pictures. Then I get bored and put them away again. Playing Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure feels…

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn: The Kotaku Review

Final Fantasy XIV Online, massively multiplayer online role-playing game — an MMO barely alive. Square Enix rebuilt it. They had the technology. They had the capability to build the world’s first relaunched FF title. A Realm Reborn is that game. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster. Unlike 1970’s action heroes, video games don’t…

Rain: The Kotaku Review

Rain is one of those games that comes so close to getting everything right that it seems unfair not to praise it just for the proximity. Rain is basically a stealth game, with some elements that might remind you of puzzles and platformers. Generally, you’ll spend your time devising the best way to avoid the…

Burger King’s Satisfries: The Snacktaku Review

Earlier today Burger King revealed the ridiculously-tagged Satisfries, a new crinkle-cut potato product that’s lighter and leaner than the competition. As it turns out, they are not the saddest fries. They might be the best fast food fries going. Despite its best efforts, Burger King has never been known for its french fries. When I…

NBA 2K14: The Kotaku Review

It’s possible that basketball fans have been spoiled by the NBA 2K series, which over the preceding four titles has churned out some of the most conspicuous year-to-year improvements from the brutal treadmill of annual sports video games development. Looking back, the highly polished gameplay and presentation that other series would kill for seems almost…

Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket: The Snacktaku Review

To make the new Smokehouse Brisket sandwich, Arby’s starts with quality beef brisket, smoked for at least 13 hours for that falling-apart-in-your-mouth texture. Then it covers it in unnecessary junk, because that’s what Arby’s does. Note that in the video I say 24 hours several times. This is because 24 is a better number than…

Riddick: Merc Files Is A Bad Game For A Bad Man

Vin Diesel’s signature character is a brutal killing machine; a predator pouncing from the shadows to take down his terrified prey. Riddick is not a guy standing patiently in the shadows for extended periods of time, waiting for patrolling guards to pass. Or is he? I suppose there is a lot of prep work that…

Angry Birds Star Wars II Could Have Been A Great Shameless Cash-Grab

Making a mobile game crossover is easy. Just take your popular game and re-skin it to resemble whichever pop culture phenomenon will rake in the most cash. This is twice now Angry Birds developer Rovio has screwed up that simple formula. It’s probably because they’re Finnish. The first Angry Birds Star Wars game was noticeably…

The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD: The Kotaku Review

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of drinking with me and bringing up the subject of video games, you’ll have suffered through me telling you how Wind Waker isn’t just my favourite Zelda game of all time, it’s my favourite game of all time. Note I say my favourite, and not the best. For one,…

Mionix Avior 8200: The Kotaku Review

I’m left-handed. Yet when it comes to computers, like most other lefties I know, I use a mouse with my right hand. It’s just…how I was taught. So I’ve never seen the need for a mouse that tries to somehow accommodate both normal humans and sinister mutants. I mean, let’s look at the situation here.…

All’s Well That’s Haswell In Origin PC’s Millennium Gaming PC

Origin PC makes a damn fine $3,500 gaming system, even when the CPU isn’t exactly geared towards the high-end PC gamer. Well, that was an easy review. Who’s for dessert? It happens every time Intel introduces a new processor line — a barrage of announcements from the boutique PC industry mainstays, announcing that they’ve got…

Grand Theft Auto V: The Kotaku Review

Rockstar Games has scaled a mountain with Grand Theft Auto V, creating the best-looking, best-sounding and, most importantly, best-playing version of gaming’s most notorious franchise. Scaling one peak, however, reveals another—their cloud-piercing ambition to create a great ensemble video game drama, an epic of intersecting, interactive lives. Rockstar doesn’t summit that new peak as impressively…

The Wonderful 101: The Kotaku Review

The Wonderful 101 is a frustrating game, a confusing maelstrom of aliens and superheroes that seems to punish players for all the wrong reasons. The controls make no sense, the action is disorienting, and the camera is a mess. And then… Then… Somewhere during the first two hours, something clicks. Everything changes. Control schemes that…

The Clown Prince Of Crime Is Positively Petrifying In Plastic

I don’t know what’s worse. Having this Sideshow Collectibles Sixth-Scale Joker figure standing on my desk, or knowing he’s on a shelf or in a closet in his box, biding his time, chuckling under his breath. Give me the Batman: The Animated Series Joker any day. At least I know my demise will be quick…

Our Grand Theft Auto V review will run on Monday at 10am ET. Sorry, we can’t tell you more about the game right now, but the review, as they say, is in progress. GTA V will be released the following day, on September 17, for Xbox 360 and PS3.

Killzone: Mercenary: The Kotaku Review

Portable first-person shooters generally suck. The controls are too limited, the screens too small for fine detail, or the stories aren’t more than simple set dressing for an egregious bullet and blood ballet. Killzone: Mercenary does not feel like a portable first-person shooter. I was honestly expecting the worst when I discovered I’d been assigned…

Your Vast Knowledge of Trivia Is Your Greatest Weapon In Quiz RPG

What RPG-based genere mash-up could be more satusfying than GungHo Entertainment’s wildly popular Puzzle & Dragons‘ combination of collectible creatures and match-puzzle dungeoneering? The answer is Quiz RPG: The World of Mystic Wiz. Quiz RPG is almost exactly the same game as Puzzle & Dragons. Players collect, combine and evolve elemental-based spirits, forming a team…

Holy Walking Dead, Batman! That’s One Massively Ugly Action Figure

Standing 13 inches tall and sporting a removable chest piece that reveals his internal organs, DC Collectibles’ $90 Arkham City Solomon Grundy figure is the most hideous rendition of the character yet. With DC’s resident mutant zombie set tomake a return in the portable installment of Batman: Arkham Origins, now is the perfect time for…