Contrast: The Kotaku Review

Contrast starts off like all games of its mysterious, charming nature should: by not telling you much. You meet a little girl when the game loads up. A scene plays out and from it you understand you live in some parallel world where you can turn into a silhouette on demand. Only the little girl…

Watch All Of Today’s Nintendo Direct Right Here

If you missed the latest Nintendo Direct, you can watch all of it right here. Topics included Zelda, Professor Layton, Pikmin 3 DLC and other already-announced games through 2014. But the biggest news is the 3DS update that’s incoming.

Eighteen indie games are coming to the Nintendo eShop for 3DS and Wii U. They were showcased today in this Nintendo Direct video; you can see more about them here.

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy launches Feb. 28 for Nintendo 3DS and will be in stores and on the Nintendo eShop. The game will feature a storyline uniting the two Layton trilogies.

The lovely 3DS role-playing game Bravely Default is out on February 7 in North America, Nintendo just announced. Looks like they’re ditching the subtitle for this one.

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: The Mushroom reports on Bowser’s plans for Thanksgiving, which should of course end horribly. Rathorial offers Last-Gen Hero kudos to Gears of War 3 and Aestevalis introduces you to “The Wrestling Torta.” Mmmmm, tasty. Don’t forget that you can always go join the voices talking…

You Can Be Playing A New PS4 Game In 45 Seconds Or Less

When GTA V came out, I tested how long the mandatory 8GB installation took. 15 minutes on an Xbox 360. All next-gen games need to be installed (and are far more than 8GB), so what can you do with 15 minutes on a PS4? Quite a bit, it turns out. I had a brand-new PS4…

The PlayStation 4: The Kotaku Review

How good is the PlayStation 4? Ask me in five years. Ask me after Naughty Dog’s next couple of games, after I figure out whether God of War is headed in the right direction, after I learn whether it has become unfathomable to play a console game without livestreaming it. You know what? Ask me…

Knack: The Kotaku Review

Next gen visuals. Old-fashioned gameplay. The PlayStation 4 action-adventure Knack looks better than most video games you’ve played, but there’s a good chance you’ve played a game like Knack before. It’s not that I want to knock Knack. It’s a launch game. Launch games seldom offer more than what Knack offers. You get a game…

​Killzone Shadow Fall: The Kotaku Review

One thought ran through my head while playing Killzone Shadow Fall: How beautiful can a cliché look? It’s no surprise that Shadow Fall is beautiful. The Killzone games that showed up on the PS2 and PS3 offered up some of the best graphics ever seen on those consoles. So, yes, the opening hours of this…

Otherwise harmless little things, like the bunny mask from Team Fortress 2, can have a huge impact. For example, it can get someone in the Steam Community to pay homage to Hotline Miami with the game’s characters (complete with 80s sunglasses) in a really stunning way. Dayshot is an image-based feature that runs every morning,…

Need a PS4? Buy One at Sony’s NYC Launch Party

New York City Kotakuites, take note. The Standard, High Line hotel in Manhattan, previously home to the big PS4 review event, will be the site of Sony’s official PS4 launch party in NYC. There will be shenanigans. And actual PS4s—444 of them, in fact. Sony’s just announced that starting at midnight on Friday, people with…

The Assassin’s Creed movie just can’t catch a break. After being pushed back from its original release date of May 22, 2015 to June 19, the movie has once again been delayed by almost two months, to the 7th of August, 2015.

Knock on Your Car. You Might Save a Cat.

It’s fall! In much of Japan, the weather is getting chilly. And while we bundle up, cats want to stay warm, too. And sometimes, they crawl up next to car engines for warmth. Remember that before you start your car! In Japan’s Kochi Prefecture, a non-profit group launched a “knock knock” (“kon kon” or コンコン)…

Steam’s Future Is Filled With… Bollywood Dancing?

Yes, someone’s made a game about bollywood dancing. It’s going on Steam, thanks to Greenlight. The people have spoken! Of course, diversity is still the name of the game with this fresh group of community-approved Steam games. We have a charming puzzle game about chemistry. An adventure game which aims to teach children about being…

Sega in Japan’s Biggest Restaurant Scandal of 2013

This fall, a series of restaurant scandals have been front page news in Japan. Several pricey eateries have admitted to lying about their menus. Establishments Sega owns, it seems, did as well. Yes, Sega runs restaurants in Japan. As The Guardian‘s Justin McCurry reported, luxury hotels and restaurants duped patrons by giving false menu descriptions,…

Sony boss Kaz Hirai recently said in Shanghai that Sony is working to release its home console in China. However, Sony explained it needed to first create a retail network that can support the PS4. As TechInAsia explains, specifics like a timeline, weren’t given.