I've never met Clyde Mandelin, whose online handle is Mato (as in "tomato"), but if I ever did I'd shake him by the hand and try to buy him a beer. I don't feel that way about every internet stranger, but I love this guy because he's the main reason I was ever able to play Mother 3, a Japan-only RPG that happens to be one of the best games Nintendo's ever made.

Though Halloween never had the prolonged media battering of the present day, the audience of the 8-bit era was as fond of a good scare as we are. Stephen King and James Herbert were selling millions with each new novel in the early 80s, while cinematic teen slashers saw their heyday with iconic maniacs, like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, alongside countless John Carpenter wannabes contributing with their own take on the genre.

When most games today focus on streamlined experiences that promote steady progress, there’s something almost anachronistic about the roguelike, with its constant restarts and uneven level design. And yet it’s in this environment that the formula has blossomed and spread into countless different genres, precisely because of those factors. With this summer’s Dead Cells the latest of its kind to find success, it’s clear that there are still countless ways to tweak that formula into subtly different, compelling results.

Gwyn, Lord of Cinder and former Lord of Sunlight, sits at the centre of the tangled labyrinth that is Dark Souls. The harmful consequences of his presence spread through every capillary of this world and propel the Chosen Undead’s actions. Gwyn isn’t evil, but his ailing stature and increasingly desperate deeds have become a corrupting influence on the realm he was trying to protect.

Whether you want to rekindle the flame and begin a new Age of Fire, or let it die and plunge the world into the Age of Dark, Gwyn must die first.

Marvel's Spider-Man is a hugely enjoyable if slightly mixed bag: a gorgeous and colourful open world starring the perfect open world character. Part of what makes the whole thing work is the way Spider-Man moves, and much attention has been rightly focused on the great web-swinging and city traversal.

The most pleasant surprise for me, however, is that Insomniac has delivered an extremely well-engineered take on what combat as Spider-Man should feel like, and in the process made this probably the first 3D Spider-Man game where fighting muggers is the highlight.

When I saw Cyberpunk 2077 at Gamescom, shortly before a 48 minute video went up online for the public, it blew me away. One of the things that stuck with me after the presentation, however, wasn't the game itself but a statement from level designer Miles Tost, who told us "being a Cyberpunk is all about being your authentic self, no matter who that is."

My eyes hurt. This is due to several circumstances: firstly, Frozen Synapse 2 has a beautiful neon crispness that I can still see when I shut my eyes. Secondly, I appear to activate the part of my brain that makes excellent tactical decisions via squinting. And finally, my eyes are sore because I've stayed up far too late playing brilliant matches of tactical shooter chess against people across the globe.

Something shuffles in your peripheral vision, your crosshair twitches, and a short burst of gunfire is followed by the gentle thud of a lifeless body collapsing to the carpet.

Tango Down.

At 3 a.m. on the second day of last year's Pokemon World Championships, Australian competitive player Sam Pandelis was still finalising his team of Pokemon — even though his first battles were a handful of hours away.

Recently revealed was Dontnod's Twin Mirror, a 'moral choice' game that's all about an unlikable arsehole. He's got a mind that balances on a fine line between showing mental health conditions, and plain supernatural superpowers.

Back in January, Kotaku UK published a huge list of British developed games which were due to release in 2018 that we thought were worth keeping an eye on. While Supermarket Shriek (geddit?) got pushed out of its 2018 release window to Q1 2019, it's still one of the games that we were most excited to check out when the year began.

I've just finished watching an hour of Cyberpunk 2077's first-person open-world futureshock, and I'm exhausted.

On the show floor at Gamescom, we've just finished playing one of the most pleasant surprises: Stellaris: Console Edition.

I'm on the show floor at Gamescom this week, and one of the first things we rushed over to check out when we got in was the demo for Devil May Cry V. We've seen CGI trailers at E3, and a little bit of hands-off gameplay footage, but this was our first chance to see how Capcom plans to revitalise the series and feel the controller in our hands — which is rather important for a series where smashing enemies in stylish ways is the whole appeal.

This week, Kotaku UK (and AU) is reporting live from the Gamescom 2018 show floor in Cologne, Germany, and we're busy playing every game we can get our hands on.

Vampyr is a moody RPG with a combat-to-conversation ratio that heavily favours the latter. You play as a conspicuously well-groomed Tory in a dying 1918’s London, named Jonathan Reid. After opening with Reid’s vampiric rebirth and “accidental” murder of his sister, Dontnod explore Reid's character through a mix of simple but not-to-be-underestimated cinematography that parallels his experience, expectations and position.

In 1992, Michealene Risley was brought in as Sega of America’s director of entertainment and consumer products, and her first job was to steer a new deal with ABC for shows involving Sega's hottest property: Sonic the Hedgehog.

One reason we may play Games is simply to switch off from the world. More so than when reading a book or watching TV, the concentration required for playing games makes them ideal for shutting out unwanted distractions. Plus there’s the reassuring comfort of being in a world with clearly defined goals and rules, where our decisions feel transparent and consequential.

Condemned may start out like an adaptation of David Fincher's Se7en, but soon enough it gets much more wild and throws some paranormal elements in the mix. It's an atmospheric game with great detective gameplay, inventive fighting mechanics and enemy AI made of nightmares. It’s an unjustly overlooked gem that not only preceded the later FPS horror craze but also outscared most of them.