Kotaku

The 'Shop Contest Awards: 2020

3 years 4 months ago

Hello everyone and welcome to this year’s ‘Shop Contest Awards. This year, like last year, we will be looking back at the best, worst, funniest and weirdest images you all created over the course of 2020. And as always, I’ll be handing out some awards!

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Zack Zwiezen

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The Worst Games Of 2020 According To Metacritic

3 years 4 months ago

2020 was a terrible year in many, many ways, but we did get some great games too. Hades, Ghost of Tsushima, Fall Guys, Miles Morales, Crusader Kings III, and more all released this year. But as usual, it’s not all good and this year saw the release of some games that weren’t well-reviewed by critics or fans.

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Author
Zack Zwiezen

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The Robot Apocalypse Looks Like A Lot Of Fun

3 years 4 months ago

Happy new year! This week we check in on the best games released in 2020, hang out with Dunkaccino, learn what this month’s PS Plus games are, mourn the lack of people playing Dreams and watch some robots dance like nobody is watching.

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Author
Zack Zwiezen

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Both Sides Claim Victory In Massive EVE Online Battle

3 years 4 months ago

Ragnarök, the death of the Norse gods, played out in EVE Online in the wee hours of New Year’s eve. Hundreds of the game’s mightiest vessels gathered together in the M2-XFE system, and Titans from the game’s two largest factions spent over 12 hours exchanging fire and unleashing their incredibly devastating doomsday…

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Author
Lee Yancy

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Princess Peach Floated So Rosalina Could Fly

3 years 4 months ago

35 years on, Princess Peach’s lot is somehow still primarily about being kidnapped and rescued. But is there hope on the horizon? And might it have taken the introduction of—gasp—a second female regular into the cast to bring in the changes?

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Author
Mike Sholars

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What Even Is a Hit Anymore?

3 years 4 months ago

“I want the world to know, that Billboard is a lie. You can buy No. 1s on Billboard,” is how rapper troll 6ix9ine kicked off an Instagram video he posted in May of this year. His purpose was to allege that he had been cheated out of reaching the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, the most trusted weekly tally of the…

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Rich Juzwiak on Culture, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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Students Are Filling in the Plot Lines of the Green New Deal

3 years 4 months ago

The Green New Deal tells an important story about what society could be instead of what it currently is. It’s about transitioning to a system that allows everyone a fair shot at succeeding and fixing past wrongs from pollution to colonial land grabs.

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Brian Kahn on Earther, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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All the Times We Hacked Each Other's Lives in 2020

3 years 4 months ago

Lifehacker’s ethos is to help our readers “do everything better,” and that includes each other. Because even when we’re hacking others’ lives, we still need to live our own.

In this post, each of us has selected a favorite 2020 post from another writer on staff. The choices represent the most useful, the quirkiest, and…

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Joel Cunningham on Lifehacker, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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The 12 Best Video Games Of 2020

3 years 4 months ago

2020 is over, which is great, even if it doesn’t mean everything terrible about this year is now in our collective rearview mirror. Video games played a bigger role in many of our lives than they have in years past, which made picking Kotaku’s top games pretty tricky. But, as always, here are our favorite 12 games of…

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Author
Riley MacLeod

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R.I.P. MF DOOM

3 years 4 months ago

Daniel Dumile, the musician and producer best known as the masked MC MF DOOM, is dead. According to an Instagram post signed by his wife, Jasmine, Dumile died on October 31. The post reads:

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Erik Adams and Shannon Miller on News, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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Carto’s Cozy Puzzles Are Just Tough Enough

3 years 4 months ago

Ask people which superpower they’d want, and you’ll likely hear the same answers. Flight. Super-strength. Invisibility. You’re less likely to hear about the unusual ones—say, the ability to literally reshape the planet to fit your needs. Such an ability is the crux of Carto, a cozy adventure game that grants you…

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Author
Ari Notis

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The Best Things We Paid Real Money for in 2020

3 years 4 months ago

For better or for worse, in many ways, 2020 was defined by capitalism, a system unprepared to provide as many hospital beds as there are sick people during a pandemic. Or PPE gear to health care workers exposed to those sick people. Or even face masks to those ordinary people just trying to shop for groceries who are…

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Gabe Carey, Sheilah Villari, Andrew Hayward, Jordan McMahon, and Giovanni Colantonio on The Inventory, shared by Gabe Carey to Kotaku

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The State Of The Sims 4 In 2020

3 years 4 months ago

We are six years into The Sims 4, and with 2021 around the corner, it will be exciting to see what’s next from this franchise. But before we enter a new year, I want to reflect on the best and worst aspects of Sims 4 content this year. The main game has improved in some subtle yet excellent ways, but the numerous…

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Author
Robin Mosley

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Nathan Grayson's Top 10 Games Of 2020 (That Aren't From 2020)

3 years 4 months ago

Wow, what’s a year it’s been. I memorized the pattern of tiny paint bubbles on the wall behind my computer monitor. I also re-watched the same three TV shows one thousand times. I’ve become convinced that the outside world is a hologram, and I’m about to embark on a lucrative YouTube career persuading flat earthers to…

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Nathan Grayson

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You Might Abandon Your New Year's Resolutions, But the Internet Never Will

3 years 4 months ago

After the past year’s wall-to-wall cavalcade of death and dreck, it’s not a surprise to see a lot of folks stepping into 2021 with what can best be described as “modest expectations” for the world writ large and their Capacity To Deal with whatever it throws their way. This is the year that we’ve seen people finally…

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Shoshana Wodinsky on Gizmodo, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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With Xbox Game Pass I Am Too Powerful

3 years 4 months ago

Through a bit of luck, I managed to acquire an Xbox Series S for the holidays. I’ve only had it for about a week now, but the slim, be-speakered machine—and, more specifically, the Game Pass subscription I purchased for it—has utterly changed my gaming life in ways I’m still trying to process.

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Author
Ash Parrish

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Super Meat Boy Forever Is Not The Sequel I Was Hoping For

3 years 4 months ago

After 10 long years Super Meat Boy is back, this time as an auto-runner in a sequel that channels much of the original except for what I loved most about it: snappy controls and tight platforming. In the year of Spelunky 2 and Hades, it’s a letdown to see Meat Boy return without the key aspects that made it great.

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Author
Ethan Gach

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This Weird Driving Controller Had Force Feedback Before Steering Wheels

3 years 4 months ago

One of the fortunate things about racing, compared to other sports, is that it’s relatively easy to simulate in a virtual setting. The experience of playing NBA 2K, for example, doesn’t correspond to any of the physical skills required to actually play basketball in real life. Those of us who love to drive are…

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Adam Ismail on Jalopnik, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2020

3 years 4 months ago

In the 2020 gaming judgment system, year-end lists are determined by two separate but equally important groups: the players who play the games, and the games they enjoy playing. These are their stories. Bah-Dum.

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Author
Mike Fahey

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Ethan Gach’s Top 10 Games Of 2020

3 years 4 months ago

2020 was a shit year for a lot of things, but a bunch of really good games came out during it. And not just your run-of-the-mill, extremely playable, very good games, but a ton of truly special ones.

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Author
Ethan Gach

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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s Glitch Kept Making Eivor Drunk, And Then It Got Weirder

3 years 4 months ago

Every time my viking hero Eivor dies in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, she returns to life drunk. This is a known bug that the developers appear primed to patch, but in trying to just bear with it last night, I somehow made it worse. Though, in this case, “worse” also means “better.” And now I’m conflicted about whether I…

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Author
Stephen Totilo

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