Nintendo

Pokémon Go Players Are Fighting Gym Raids Against Magikarp, Of All Monsters

Our beautiful, splashy fish son can now occasionally be found as a boss fight in Pokémon Go. Earlier this week, Pokémon Go’s gyms were redone and revamped. One of the new additions are “raids,” which are timed events where powerful monsters take over a gym. Raids come in five different tiers of difficulty, and the…

Nintendo apologized for Switch shortages in Japan, saying it will ship more units in July and August for the Splatoon 2 launch. Nintendo also said it’s ramping up Switch production for later this year. 

We’re putting on our game faces and blasting through some ranked Arms matches right now live on Twitch!

The 12 Best Games For The PlayStation Vita

The PlayStation Vita is something of an oddity—a pricy, powerful portable gaming console adrift in a sea of smartphones, touchscreen controls, and inexpensive app-store games. All the same, we have a fondness for Sony’s beefy handheld, and the many unusual games you can play on it. The Vita gives us a handheld machine with sticks,…

Hololens Super Mario Bros. Looks Dangerously Fun

Designer Abhishek Singh created a first-person augmented reality version of Super Mario Bros.’ first level, which is very cool. Then he dressed up as Mario to test out his creation in New York City’s Central Park. That’s the dangerous bit. On one hand, Singh’s AR game does a great job of demonstrating the potential of…

Ever Oasis: The Kotaku Review

The sad decline of the Mana series has been difficult to watch, and it’s equally unfortunate that its spiritual successor Ever Oasis suffers from similar problems—solid action RPG mechanics and moments of creative brilliance hampered by an experimental gameplay structure that drags everything down with it. Ever Oasis is the latest 3DS collaboration between Nintendo…

Point: Helix From Arms Is Bad; Counter-Point: No He’s Not

Here at Kotaku, we have strong opinions about video games. Currently, Arms’ DNA-themed fighter threatens to tear this snack website apart. Helix is Arms’ gooey fighter whose signature “Blorb” arms squirt blinding goo on opponents’ faces. Depending on who you ask, Helix is either a lovable snot ball with tons of competitive potential or a…

A List Of Things I Still Have To Do In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

According to my Nintendo Switch, I’ve put more than 125 hours into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I’ve defeated Ganon, of course. I’ve also taken down an army of monsters, completed a bunch of shrine puzzles, and found a ton of Korok seeds. There’s still so much to do. Like a lot…

After Dropping A Tier, I Am Freaking Out About My Overwatch Rank

After a difficult string of placement matches for the current Overwatch competitive season, the unthinkable happened. I dropped to a lower tier. I had spent multiple seasons comfortably sitting in the Platinum tier, and suddenly I was Gold. I have become obsessed with undoing this demotion. I like to think that I’m a decent video…

Arms: The Kotaku Review

Arms may look like a Mario Party mini-game, but it doesn’t play like one. Charming and involved, Arms toes the line between a party game and an entry-level fighter with moderate depth. While Arms succeeds as an easy-to-pick-up brawler, its ambitions as a hardcore game for serious players are less certain. Arms does one thing,…

New Nintendo Switch Update Lets You Find Lost Controllers 

JoyCon, the detachable controllers that latch onto the Switch tablet, are small pieces of hardware. They’re probably easy to lose, if you’re not careful. Good thing, then, that there’s a feature for that now. Last night, a Switch system update dropped, and it introduced a number of small quality of life improvements. The most notable…

Japanese Airport Cosplays As Nintendo Advertisement

Travellers arriving at Kansai International Airport in Osaka will soon be greeted by Nintendo characters plastered all over the place. Starting June 23, Nintendo is setting up what it’s calling the “Nintendo Check In” at the airpot’s Terminal 1 with Switch, 3DS, and smart device titles. The airport is also slipping on some huge Nintendo…

Metroid: Samus Returns Feels Great To Play

Last week, Nintendo surprised everyone with the announcement of Metroid: Samus Returns, a remake of Metroid II. Here’s another surprise: It’s basically finished. And a fact that’s probably not so surprising: It looks and feels fantastic. At E3 in Los Angeles last Thursday, in a private room within Nintendo’s VIP booth, I sat down with…

Recent Japanese Pokémon Tournament Full Of Monsters You Rarely See

This weekend’s Japanese National Championships proves that competitive Pokémon plays almost like an entirely different game in the franchise’s home country. While every Japanese top eight team had some common picks you might spot at other tournaments around the world, players made plenty of choices that are almost never seen anywhere else. As an example,…

Pokémon Go Revamping Gyms, Adding Co-op Raids

In celebration of its anniversary, Pokemon Go is undergoing some major changes. Before you get too excited, no, player-vs-player battles aren’t among them. Gyms, though, are about to get more accessible, and you’ll soon be able to team up with friends to go on raids against mega-powerful Pokemon. The gym overhaul should launch at some…

ARMS‘ Helix Is Even More Unnerving In Clay Form

People love the characters from ARMS. For the most part. One Flubber-wannabe in particular hasn’t gotten much love: Helix. A lovingly crafted clay tribute to the DNA molecule might help change that (but probably not). This is the character’s origin story accoridng to the ARMS wiki: “Helix is an anthropomorphic being made of a slimy…

In Super Mario Odyssey Gaming’s Original Damsel In Distress Might Finally Get Her Due

Over three decades ago she was stuck sitting atop steel beams waiting for “the plumber” to rescue her, but in 2017, Pauline has risen to the highest public office of New Donk City, the fictional urban backdrop for Super Mario Odyssey Looking back at the Donkey Kong arcade game from 1981, it’s hard not to…

The Creator Of Metroid II Fan Game AM2R Isn’t Mad About Nintendo

DoctorM64 spent over ten years remaking Metroid II: Samus Return in his free time, only to have Nintendo send him a DMCA and have to take the project down. Now that Nintendo has announced their own reimagining of the same game, he’s just as pumped as everyone else is. When DoctorM64 was working on Another…

The Six Biggest Announcements Of E3 2017

E3 is drawing to a close, and the rain of game announcements has abated. EA, Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo all did their thing. It’s up to us to sort through the rubble. Among the dozens of hype reels, hardware breakdowns, marketing buzzwords and game announcements, a few things stood out. If you don’t…

Tips For Playing Arms

On the surface, Arms looks like a cute game about the dangers of slinky arms, but it quickly gets challenging. Out today, Nintendo’s new fighting game has players throwing punches with spring-loaded limbs. Programming good impulses takes time and guidance. And although only ten fighters feature in Arms, with so many detachable arms to choose…