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Today's selection of articles from Kotaku's reader-run community: The Importance of Low Budget Games • Thoughts on Smash Bros Wii U's Zero Suit Samus • Weird Theory: Why Doesn't Link Rule the World?Read more...

We've had you vote on your favorite monitors, mice, keyboards, desk chairs, and mouse pads, but we still need some sound. There's a time and a place for the quality, privacy, and immersion that headphones provide, but today we're nominating desktop speakers. Jump in the comments section and tell us about your favorites, even better if you drop in a link and/or picture. Lifehacker tackled this one back in 2012, so feel free to look to there for inspiration and arguments.Read more...

Getting old is never easy. Candy tastes less sweet, hangovers get ever more brutal, pop music becomes increasingly terrifying. And, of course, video games get harder.Read more...

Kotaku is at PAX East 2014 , ready to bring you all news gaming-related throughout the weekend—but before we get started, let's take a look at the show floor.Read more...

Imperial Glory is Now Available on Steam and is 30% off!*
It is a time of war in Europe. Driven by new ideas of Enlightenment, the hearts of men and women across the continent are inflamed with dreams of freedom and glory. This is the moment for a military genius to forge himself a name to be remembered throughout all eternity. This is your moment.
*Offer ends April 18 at 10AM Pacific Time

The wonder and terror of collectible card games is that they evolve and expand over time to continue demanding your time and money and attention and love and it’s just too much and I can’t deal with it, as I may have mentioned earlier today. Blizzard are hooked into this cruel cycle with Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, and today announced the first major addition to its virtual CCG since last month’s launch.

Hearthstone will kick off its single-player Adventure Mode with Curse of Naxxramas, an adaptation of a raid from World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Expect boss battles, new cards to collect, and new ways to pay.

… [visit site to read more]

Yes, you read the headline right. Back in 1984, Andrew Gavin and Jason Rubin formed a company called JAM (Jason and Andy Magic) Software. Five years later, after finding new publishing support, the game development company with the very 80′s name incorporated as Naughty Dog, Inc. Fast forward to 2014, tally up more than seventy million games sold globally, and we’re now celebrating thirty years of making awesome games.

One of the hallmarks of Naughty Dog has always been our top-notch artistic quality and talent. We’re paying tribute to that this year as we’re teaming up with Dark Horse Comics to release The Art of Naughty Dog.

The Art of Naughty Dog will be available later this year. It will span the history of Naughty Dog and feature hand-picked, never-before-released artwork depicting our past, present, and future. Being around for thirty years has bestowed upon us all kinds of incredible art from our amazing fans. Select fan art will be a chapter of the book as well. To mark the occasion properly we’re having a book launch event later in the year. We’ll have more details once the pages and the plans are ready.

We’ll have other celebratory merchandise available and we have some special events planned over the next few months. We’re currently at PAX East with the rest of our PlayStation family and there are hints at what’s coming for our anniversary in our activities there. Also, if you didn’t hear the news, it was recently announced that we are participating in Operation Supply Drop’s 8-Bit Salute. We encourage you to check out Team Naughty Dog’s fundraising page today.

This kicks off several anniversary announcements happening over the coming months. Turning thirty is going to be a fun year for us all. Get ready to celebrate with us!

Operation Supply Drop Inc., 9301 Alvyn Lake Circle, Bristow, VA 20136, (412) 370-3665. Operation Supply Drop is a 501(c)(3) organization, Tax ID: 27-3842517, mission statement.

Praetorians is Now Available on Steam and is 30% off!*
Praetorians is set amidst the political machinations of an emerging Roman Empire. You will be transported back to the dusty battlefields of Egypt, the combat theaters of Gaul and finally to the heart of the Empire itself, Italy in the crusade to become Emperor.
*Offer ends April 18 at 10AM Pacific Time

This is State of Service, an ongoing review of the online service of a recently launched game. See our scored review of Titanfall here. Friday, April 11 | Final Verdict
Overall State of Service: Good
Summary: Stable server performance. Isolated issues on PC.

In its first month of availability, neither the Xbox One or PC versions of Titanfall have run into debilitating or pervasive problems. Apart from a few brief outages, Titanfall's performance has been stable, with developer Respawn deploying a handful of updates, including a special matchmaking pool for cheaters and improved matchmaking in general. Yesterday, Respawn also added the ability to play private matches and issued a number of balance tweaks and bug fixes.

Joystiq staffers have encountered no serious problems with either the PC or Xbox One versions during Titanfall's launch month. Some users have reported technical problems on PC, though these seem to be isolated and most have workaround solutions. We've spent some time with the Xbox 360 version since its launch on Tuesday and, while it's visually less impressive and its frame rate isn't as solid, online play appears on par with what we've experienced on PC and Xbox One.

In short, the online-only warfare of Titanfall seems to be running as intended, and we're comfortable declaring that its overall State of Service is Good. The quality of online play has been consistent, and Respawn seems committed to delivering updates and listening to its community.

The UK hit mob ponders whether to replay The Last of Us on PS4, plus tackles the week's hot topics.

“Privacy? Privacy is dead!” say the cynicism-sick portions of the peanut gallery referring to the modern state of surveillance and not really shooty shooty bang bang games about giant robots at all. But if, for the sake of argument, they were upset about the multiplayer-only Titanfall‘s bizarre lack of multiplayer options, they’d now have one less thing to complain about. Titanfall’s latest patch adds in the oft-requested option to break off from the rest of the world and host matches with friends, neighbors, fellow Illuminati members, etc. Take that, everyone else.

… [visit site to read more]

Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash, the developer's code-breaking puzzler, is "just weeks away" from its release on Steam Early Access, the Broken Age and Psychonauts developer announced. The game is in development for PC, Mac and Linux and will cost $14.99. The developer also issued a funky new trailer that shows some of the game's hacking options.

First announced in December, Hack 'n' Slash has players guiding a young elf and modifying the game by toggling options in its menus, affecting the environment to their benefit to advance the story. The game came about during one of Double Fine's internal game jams, Amnesia Fortnight, and was funded thanks to a collaborative effort between a slew of parties, including Indie Fund and Humble Bundle. [Image: Double Fine]

T.E.C. 3001 is Now Available on Steam!
Run, Rush, Haste, Burst

Speed has never been pushed this far.

Jump, Charge, Dodge, Slide

You just slipped and got crushed! You cant handle T.E.C 3001 yet…

Try again until speed holds no secrets for you.

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn enters its Early Access phase ahead of its full launch on Monday, and that means existing PS3 players can transfer their Eorzean adventures to PS4 as of today. Before you head off to hop across the generations, a reminder: It's a one-way trip. Once it's done, it's done, finito, end of. Your PS3 game is no more, it has ceased to be.

To summarize, once you've switched to the PS4 game, Square Enix says there's no playing again on PS3 with your existing copy, so be sure it's what you want to do. If you'd prefer to play on both systems, you can purchase a PS4 version separately.

As for the how, the PlayStation Blog has a step-by-step guide to take you from PS3 to PS4. Once you're there, you'll be able to explore among PS3 and PC players, and you can use your characters across all platforms that you've activated with your account. [Image: Square Enix]

MonkeyPaw Games has another import retro title ready. You better have a good grip because you’ll be climbing your way to the stratosphere. Our newest game is Hyper Crazy Climber, a series that has roots all the way back to the start of arcades.

Hyper Crazy Climber is a sequel to Crazy Climber. As you likely guessed, with Hyper Crazy Climber the challenges are more hyper, crazier, and climb…ier.

The goal for each level is to start at the bottom of a tower and navigate the level while avoiding obstacles to reach the top. It might not sound too difficult, but that isn’t the case at all.The controls were designed to be difficult to master, and you’ll need to operate the left and right side of your character independently to reach the summits. It’ll take expert hand-eye coordination to gracefully climb your way to the peak of beanstalks, clock towers, and other tall structures.

Hyper Crazy Climber originally launched in Japan in 1996 for the PSone. It’s a continuation of the arcade games, and the first time a new entry in the Crazy Climber series found a home on consoles. Here are some gaming fun facts: the Crazy Climber series was the first video game to ever feature a character climbing or scaling large structures — and this is the first time Hyper Crazy Climber will be available in North America.

Starting April 15th, you’ll be able to download the game from PlayStation Store for your PS3 and PS Vita as a cross buy title.

I come and go on old franchises and old ideas being resurrected by rich old men for rather less rich and old men and women. Sometimes it seems like a roadblock to fresh invention, other times it seems like returning to roads that games were forcibly and unfairly turned away from as forces of marketing and demographic-chasing decided they weren’t suitably commercially viable. For example: space sims didn’t all but die out because the possibilities were exhausted. They all but died out because they required huge budgets to pull off well, but could not command the sort of easily advertised-at mainstream audience required to earn their keep. What remained turned inwards, servicing the very particular demands of a passionate few, and making themselves all the more inaccessible to those who were interested but not quite so fervent about it.

The comeback, thanks to the removal of almost all middlemen and the ability to engage directly with an audience large enough but spread far and wide, is something I find incredibly exciting. After having barely touched space games for years, I now find myself owning a £120 joystick and obsessed with Elite 4. … [visit site to read more]

Press Play, the Danish studio behind Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, announced its next game today, codenamed Project Totem. Like Max, Project Totem is a colorful platformer, and is currently in development for Xbox One and Xbox 360. Press Play is preparing to launch the game this fall.

The "playful yet precise" game has players guiding two totem pole pieces with one game pad. The gameplay concept comes from two brothers, Asger Strandby (Game Director) and Bo Strandby (Lead Designer), who opted to add local cooperative multiplayer to Project Totem in addition to its single player campaign. [Image: Press Play]

Have you seen Child of Light
Ubisoft's platforming RPG?
It's coming on April 30
For consoles and PC.

If you hadn't already guessed
The whole story's told in rhyme
Luckily Ubisoft has better poets
Than Joystiq does. Check out our preview. [Image: Ubisoft]

If you missed our first announcement, then hear us roar again. For the first time ever, five of PlayStation’s Worldwide Studios community teams have banded together to construct a community focused booth at PAX East. Additionally, there will be some great PS4 and PS Vita games showing at PAX from some of our talented indie developers as well, which we will detail below. The PlayStation family will be in booth #608 at the Boston Convention Center April 11-13. Not only will we be selling exclusive merchandise and highly collectible PlayStation memorabilia, but you can also discuss, share, and create PlayStation memories with community team leads from Guerrilla, Media Molecule, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, and Sony Xdev.

Wait! There’s more! We have a slew of daily booth and online activities planned for all attendees, even those who cannot make it to Boston. Join the conversation today and continue it all show long by using #PSPAX whenever you talk about PAX or PlayStation online. Here’s the grand rundown of events and our full booth schedule below!

PlayStation Loves Indies

Come check out a few of the Indie games that will be at PAX:

Game Developer Platform Booth Transistor SuperGiant PS4 Supergiant Booth Secret Ponchos Switchblade Monkeys PS4 Indie Mega Booth Source FenixFire PS4 Indie Mega Booth Sportsfriends Die Gute Fabrik PS4 Indie Mega Booth Octodad: Dadliest Catch Young Horses PS4 Indie Mega Booth Guacamelee! STCE Drinkbox PS4 Indie Mega Booth Nuclear Throne Vlambeer PS4 Indie Mega Booth Hand of Fate Defiant PS4 Indie Mega Booth Race the Sun Flipfly PS Vita Indie Mega Booth

Share with #PSPAX to win

Create or find any of the PlayStation symbols – Square, Triangle, Circle, and Cross – from wherever you are in the world and post pictures or video directed at us on Instagram or Twitter. Every day during PAX East our PlayStation studios will select random winners for our mystery prizes, which include the rare Tearaway PAX Exclusive Iota pinny!

Follow our studios on Twitter and Instagram, and then participate by sharing your photos and videos using #PSPAX. You must include #PSPAX in the post to enter. There is no limit! Let your creativity rule!

Cosplayers: Come one, come all

If you are cosplaying at PAX East as any PlayStation character, stop by our booth, and we’ll award you the Tearaway PAX Exclusive Iota pinny while supplies last. Let’s see your best PlayStation character! We like cosplay!

Daily booth contests

The following contests will be running all day, every day at our booth:

Killzone Shadowfall Botzone Challenge

Take on the Botzone Deathmatch challenge to rack up as many bot kills in the set time. The daily Top 3 on our PAX Killzone Leaderboard will claim Dogtags, DLC Season Passes, signed posters, and a Custom Killzone Dualshock 4 controller.

Sound Shapes Speed Run

Race the music of Deadmau5 “Invaderoids” in Sound Shapes. The Top 3 daily fastest times on our PAX Sound Shapes Leaderboard will win a bundle of DLC, full game codes, and a rare poster.

Name That Tune

How well do you know our PlayStation music? We’ll be blasting tunes from our games all day at the booth. Find the designated “jar next to our speaker” and tell us a game you think the music is from. Random correct winners will be selected at the end of every day for great prizes.

Our live booth schedule

You didn’t think we’d just stand around flipping PlayStation controllers in the air now did you? We have a number of live activities planned every day at our booth, so stop by frequently!

PlayStation Community Town Halls

Every day at PAX East during the various times noted in the schedule below, each of our PlayStation studios will be taking the mic at our booth to answer your questions live in-person. We call it our “Community Town Hall”. We’ll be fielding all questions and aiming to share more about what we do as Community Managers at each of our studios, tidbits related to our current games, studio culture, and why it’s awesome being inside the development of great games. This is your opportunity to get to know us in a very fun, informal way. See the full schedule below.

Friday

11AM – Trivia Contest with Naughty Dog & Media Molecule
12PM – Tearaway Poster Giveaway
1PM – Community Town Hall with Media Molecule – Get To Know Us!
2PM – Trivia Contest with Sony Santa Monica & SonyXDevEurope
3PM – Tearaway Poster Giveaway
4PM – Trivia Contest with Guerrilla Studios

Saturday

11AM – Trivia Contest with Guerrilla Studios
12PM – Tearaway Poster Giveaway
1PM – Community Town Hall with Naughty Dog – Get To Know Us!
2PM – Trivia Contest with Naughty Dog & Media Molecule
3PM – Trivia Contest with Sony Santa Monica & SonyXDevEurope
4PM – Community Town Hall with SonyXDev – Get To Know Us!
5PM – Tearaway Poster Giveaway

Sunday

11AM – Trivia Contest with Sony Santa Monica & SonyXDevEurope
12PM – Tearaway Poster Giveaway
1PM – Community Town Hall with Sony Santa Monica – Get To Know Us!
2PM – Trivia Contest with Guerrilla Studios
3PM – Community Town Hall with Guerrilla Studios – Get To Know Us!
4PM – Trivia Contest with Naughty Dog & Media Molecule
5PM – BLOWOUT GIVEAWAY! WHATEVER WE HAVE LEFT!

Whew! We’re going to have some sore throats when all is said and done but there’s just one more thing…the Molecules and all of us want to make sure the PAX Exclusive Iota Pinny will get in the hands of those who interact with us. The pinny game of PAX has a simple rule: trade or kindly ask for it. Chat with any of us at the booth wearing a World Wide Studios PAX T-Shirt and perhaps we will pin Iota to your lanyard, shirt, or give to you at our discretion. Maybe we’ll even trade you for an Ellie pinny.

The PAX PlayStation Community Exchange is a constant conversation, come join and get to know us. We can’t wait to see you all! #PSPAX

Remember when Watch_Dogs was first announced back at E3 2012? That sure was something, huh? It was all shiny and “next-gen” and rain-spattered, like a soaked-to-the-bone canine shaking off in perfect slow motion. Subsequent trailers, however, have looked… less great. Not terrible by any means, but just a little plain. Why? I can’t say for sure, but I do know that this bells-and-whistles-enabled PC trailer is barking up the right tree. Many textures look more detailed, lighting’s taken a definite step up, and I want to go bounce up and down in those puddles like an obnoxious school child. It’s still not the best-looking game ever, but I can’t complain too much.

… [visit site to read more]

Co-founder Mike Wilson has been around the gaming block a few times: id Software, Ion Storm, Gathering of Developers. With Devolver Digital, he wants to empower developers by helping them only where they need it.

Here at Flare Path we take flight simulation extremely seriously. When a company like Eagle Dynamics goes to the trouble of releasing a free aerodyne as lifelike and lively as the ‘new’ DCS World Mustang, we believe it’s important that machine is flown responsibly and realistically. If you know yourself to be a hellraiser, a tearaway, a speed merchant, a rowdy, a clown, a daisy botherer or a beret shredder, be sure to read the following Enjoyment Guide before clambering into the cockpit of the weaponless TF-51D.

… [visit site to read more]

I wouldn’t be writing about Below on RPS if it weren’t coming to the PC, because in spite of the many, many, oh-so-very-many emails from marketers and PRs about iOS hidden object games (and the occasional moment of writer’s prerogative), this is mostly a PC site. So we haven’t mentioned Capy’s Below until now, because it was tied up in Xbox Xclusivity. That’s changed, as was revealed in a very elegant fashion in the trailer I’ve embedded yonder. I’m not going to spoil how they did it, because I think what they did was lovely and speaks to the game’s core adventurousness, and I want you to smile like I did.

And just what is Below? Well I’ve attempted to find out for you bel-, er, beneath. It’s not entirely clear.

… [visit site to read more]

Chin up, little buddy. Maybe you fell off the monkey bars, weren’t selected as the Presidential candidate, got turned down by that sapient life you deem attractive, or perhaps your Kickstarter fell short of its goal, but that doesn’t mean you give up. Two of those apply to Eden Industries and by Jove, if they weren’t crushed by disappointment then you shouldn’t be either.

The Canadian developers last year fell short in their Kickstarter for Citizens of Earth, an Earthbound-inspired RPG where the US Vice President engages in gang violence. They picked themselves up, dusted their clothes down, found a publisher in the RPG-adoring Atlus, and plan to launch the game later this year. And you’ll make the hover-hockey team one day, I know it.

… [visit site to read more]

Hello again. It’s Friday, the week is almost over, and for some of you, early access on PS4 is about to begin. A weekend full of adventures in Eorzea lies ahead — the first of many!

So, for those of you who have already been playing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn on PS3, only one question remains: “How in the world do I upgrade my PS3 version?!”

And this is what we’ll help with you, right here, right now.

Some general information before that:

• If you’ve played Final Fantasy XIV on PS3, you can upgrade to the PS4 version for free.
• The upgrade will be available from today until at least the end of the year.
• Make sure that you’ve logged in on your PS3 version at least once, so it’s correctly registered in our systems.
• Remember that you will not be able to access the game from your PS3 anymore after the upgrade to PS4 has taken place!

Step 1: Get Your Promotion Code

Important: the upgrade option is currently scheduled to go live at approximately 1:00 AM Pacific on Friday, April 11th.

First of all, log into the MogStation using your Square Enix account, visit the account services page, and select the service account that you want to upgrade. Once selected, you should already see a banner with the option to upgrade from PS3 to PS4. Click on it. You’ll now be presented with the details of the upgrade campaign. I know it’s a lot of text, but please read it carefully, as it contains a lot of information about the upgrade process. When you’re done reading, confirm that you agree to the terms and click “Next.” On this page you’ll be asked to confirm your upgrade. If you have multiple service accounts, please make absolutely sure that you’ve selected the correct service account you want to upgrade. If all is in order, click on “Upgrade.”

And you’re done! You’ll now be displayed with a summary and your promotion code to download the game from PlayStation Store.

Step 2: Redeem Your Promotion Code

Please note: if you’ve participated in the second PS4 beta, this step is optional, as you already have the game client installed on your system and only need to update it. You still need to go through step 1, though!

Boot up your PS4, log in to your PlayStation account, and go to PlayStation Store. Make absolutely sure that you have the correct PlayStation profile active before you enter the store! Promotion Codes can only be used a single time, so using it on the wrong account would leave you stranded. Select “Redeem Codes” from the option menu displayed at the bottom left of the screen and enter the promotion code. When you’ve done so and confirmed the regulations, you can start the download. If something goes wrong with the download, you can try to restart it using the “Library” option in the PlayStation Store menu.

And that’s it! You’ll be ready to go in no time.

If you have any further questions, please direct them to the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Here's the launch trailer for Double Fine's fantasy hacking adventure, Hack 'n' Slash. Does it remind you of anything? 'Cause it really should, at least if you're old enough. Or you like retro commercials. Anyway, the game launches on Steam Early Access in "just a matter of weeks"—check out our impressions here .Read more...

“Alice!” friends scream in my face. “You have to play Netrunner! Why don’t you play Netrunner? Let’s play Netrunner! Netrunnerrr!” I sneer dismissively but turn away to hide a single tear rolling down my cheek. I can’t play Netrunner, I just can’t. Having spent so much of my teenage years obsessing over Magic: The Gathering, I’m too afraid that I’d be held rapt by its cardboard wiles.

The annual Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers games from Stainless have always given me just enough to tide me over, reminding me of how wonderful a game Magic is but being limited enough to stop me sinking in. It’s a bit concerning, then, that the newly-announced Magic 2015 edition is said to expand deck-building. … [visit site to read more]

The Humble Weekly Sale features a lineup of PewDiePie-approved games, with sales helping out the Save the Children charity. Available for anything you want is Surgeon Simulator 2013, Guacamelee Gold Edition and QWOP for Android. Up for $6 or more is SpeedRunners on Early Access and Garry's Mod, at $10 or more unlock Probably Archery, and for $15 or more you'll receive State of Decay.

All games are on Steam, except for "QWOP for Android." That one's on - wait for it - Android. [Image: Humble]

According to reports out of China, a mother and her son are presumed drowned after a fight over online game League of Legends. Read more...

In Chongqing, China, beekeeper She Ping thought the best way to promote his honey business was covering himself in hundreds of thousands of bees. Seems to have worked, no? Read more...