Overwatch’s new hero Ana Amari is a badass support sniper who can shoot you with bullets to heal you or just shoot you to kill you. In this video, we’ll take a closer look at her mechanics and what they communicate. What does Ana tell us about Overwatch? What does she tell us about AAA game design? We’ll find out in…
Like many of you, I’ve been making my way through The X-Files over the last several months in anticipation of the new six-episode revival later this month. And this week I came upon an episode in season 7 written by acclaimed author William Gibson, “First Person Shooter,” about a VR video game. It might be the best…
In the late 20th century, people hoped that the new millennium would usher in an age of promise: hoverboards, flying cars, personal robots, and the like. That future, the one that everyone predicted, never quite came to pass. Not in the way we thought it would, anyway.
Fallout 4 is set in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston is pretty close to Salem, the town famous for the wrongful execution of women who were suspected of being witches. Naturally, Bethesda had to include Salem in some way in Fallout 4—and they did!
RealmPictures’ concept was to build an immersive first person shooter level, and let unsuspecting people on Chatroulette take control of the protagonist. They had to make it perfect for it to be immersive, but it’s safe to say they succeeded.
I’m actually not a huge Star Wars fan (I know, I know), but after spending a couple of hours playing Battlefront on the PS4 today, I’m starting to feel a lot of hype.
In December, former Battlefield developer Ben Cousins revealed The Drowning, an ambitious first-person shooter aimed at both hardcore shooter fans and casual players alike. The game's simple two button control scheme is key to bridging the audience gap, and now we get to see how it works.
Do you miss the early days of first-person shooters, when everyone was pretty much equal and the little guy had a chance of coming out on top? I just played a Free for All match of Offensive Combat, dropped in after the round had already started and still managed to win by one kill—and I suck.
As the former creative director of DICE Sweden, Ben Cousins knows console shooters. His team at Scattered (formerly Ngmoco Sweden) has collectively worked on five Battlefield games, the first three Halo titles, two Far Cry and Crysis games and the upcoming Tom Cruise film All You Need is Kill. If any development team…
Level designer and writer Robert Yang has written up a fascinating "People's History of the FPS" as a three part series at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. In it, Yang posits that first-person gaming and first-person-shooters are not, as we tend to think of them, just an industry-dominated gorefest with a linear evolution, but…
What is it about military first-person shooters and July 10th? Is it San Diego Comic-Con? Are gamers that competitive? Regardless, feel free to now compare and contrast the two recently released military FPS trailers, that of Black Ops 2 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Focus on multiplayer and explosions versus…
It's good timing for everyone to be excited about Call of Duty: Black Ops II, it seems. New research finds that playing the game, and others like it, can actively change your brain for the better.
Code Hero isn't your basic first-person shooter. You'll have enemies, and you'll be "shooting" them, but it won't be with assault rifles and pistols. Instead, you shoot lines of Javascript to command the environment around you. Need a platform moved over? A certain kind of enemy eliminated in one fell swoop? There's…
In today's rapidly aging edition of Speak Up on Kotaku, old man commenter AcornPop hangs up his first-person shooter guns, unless a loose cannon of a young partner can drag him back in.
Earlier this month I took a good hard look at Hard Reset, the upcoming single-player shooter coming out next month from Polish developer Flying Wild Hog, telling you all about my favorite parts of the game. Now I can show you.
It's okay if you've never heard of Hard Reset, the new single-player cyberpunk first-person shooter coming next month from Polish developer Flying Wild Hog. Up until a couple of weeks ago, no one had. It happens. It just doesn't happen often with a game this good being released this soon.
In the mid 1700's an Arab Amir took on the military might of Dutch colonials occupying Iran's Kharg Island, capturing their fort and liberating the southern Iranian cities from colonial rule. This Amir, called Mir Mahna, is an Iranian national hero.
The war between the United States and Russia escalates today as EA's browser-based shooter Battlefield Play4Free enters open beta, allowing gamers everywhere to enter the fray with the default equipment or pay to play the tricked-out way.
This is what passes for well-protected in SG Interactive's newly-launched free-to-play online first-person PC shooter Project Blackout. Nothing says "I'm combat ready!" like a camouflage crop jacket, Daisy Dukes with fishnet stockings, and a padded orange thermal bikini top.
What's it look like to get shot in a video game? The portrait of pain has been changing over the years. We took a bullet in 18 years' worth of games to bring you this montage.
