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Esports
The Weekend In Esports: Smash Bros. And Cruise Ships
It’s finally fall, and as if there weren’t already enough games coming out to play, there’s plenty of big things going on in competitive gaming to watch. This weekend, Europe will crown a Hearthstone champion to send to BlizzCon later this season, and a slew of Chinese Dota 2 teams will compete to see who…
By Ethan Gach -
Culture
The Week In Games: Pumping Iron
Rise of Iron, the final expansion for the game everyone wishes people would stop talking about, and everyone else wishes they could stop playing, is almost upon us. My fingers are getting twitchy just thinking about it. But of course the fall is almost here as well, which means that for everyone who never wants…
By Ethan Gach -
Ten Years Later, Okami Is Still Great
One day, my 8th grade art teacher decided to try to teach his class sumi-e, the Japanese art of Ink wash painting. It’s a minimalist style with a long history and subtle philosophy behind it, not exactly the best thing to show a bunch of distracted adolescent kids. He told us to be very conscious…
By Ethan Gach -
Esports
Last Man Standing In Counter-Strike Somehow Wins The Game
Virtus.pro went on to win the entire tournament, but before they could do that, Filip “NEO” Kubski had to help get his team through the semi-finals against Team Dignitas. Despite his age, the 29 year old Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro has really come into his own these last few years, helping VP take first place…
By Ethan Gach -
Diaries of A Spaceport Janitor Makes Cleaning Up Trash BeautifulÂ
Diaries of A Spaceport Janitor came out last Friday, so you can now relish the futility of late space-capitalism in all of its bright, low-poly glory. The object of the game is to go around a space port collecting other aliens’ garbage, with aim of eventually getting out of dodge and creating a new life…
By Ethan Gach -
Esports
Crowd Shouts, Throws Things At Counter-Strike Tournament
Today, Virtus.pro swept a two game series against Cloud9 to win the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive finals at the DreamHack Open in Bucharest. The all-Polish team appeared all but unstoppable, defeating the Americans 16-9 on both the first map, Train, and the second, Cobblestone. However, during the finals, some people in the crowd began holding up…
By Ethan Gach -
Another Final Fantasy XVÂ Tie-In Game Is Coming To Mobile
Square Enix announced a new mobile game called King’s Knight: Wrath of the Dark Dragon at Tokyo Game Show 2016. It’ll be part of the Final Fantasy XV Universe, and is actually one of the games played by the characters in that world similar to Justice Monsters Five, that “mobile pinball thing” that came out…
By Ethan Gach -
Deaf Destiny Player Petitions Bungie For Captioning
Tigersharkdude loves Destiny. He’s also deaf. As a result, he asked the “DestinyTheGame” subreddit to help him petition Bungie to make the game’s subtitle options more robust. Yesterday, he wrote: “I am asking if you all could help me start a petition to ask Bungie to caption the random NPC dialogue (think engram remarks from…
By Ethan Gach -
Study Confirms People Love To Play Pokémon Go While Driving
People do all kinds of absurd stuff while driving, including but not limited to: eating, texting, reading books and apparently even playing the guitar. Ever since PokĂ©mon Go came out, people have also been trying to catch Pidgeys and Zubats while driving, because you can never have enough Pidgeys and Zubats. They’ve crashed into schools,…
By Ethan Gach -
Culture
Sunday Comics: Don’t Look Now
Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by JosuĂ© Pereira. Published September 15. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published September 12. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…
By Ethan Gach -
Overwatch Player Uses Actual Turntable To Control Lucio
Video games have a long and sordid history of using various objects as controllers: guns, peripherals shaped like penises, and hell, even fruit. So it’s only natural that some of the weirder ones be put to more sensible use. That’s what YouTuber Whybeare did a couple weeks ago when he tried to play Overwatch’s Lucio…
By Ethan Gach -
EsportsStruggling Halo Team Replaces Players With Last Year’s Champions
Imagine it’s the end of the month. The new NBA season is about to start just days later, but right before that, a majority of the Los Angeles Lakers’ owners decided to cut their losses with the team and sign a new one. With a once proud legacy firmly in the rear-view mirror, they’d had…
By Ethan Gach -
Halo 5 Forge Maps Get Some Polish With New Update
According to 343 Industries, Halo 5‘s Big Team Battle (BTB) community refresh is now up and running The update is a collaboration with Halo 5‘s community to improve a number of different multiplayer maps made in Forge, the game’s level editor. Those of you who have been around since the early aughts will remember that…
By Ethan Gach -
Gorgeous New GTA V Mod Is The Work of One Person
Grand Theft Auto V, already one of the prettiest, most immersive sandbox games to-date, now has a mod that turns everything up to 11. The GTA 5 Redux mod not only improves things like lighting and contrast, but also little, slightly more morose details like how NPCs act as they’re falling to the ground after…
By Ethan Gach -
FIFA YouTuber Prosecuted Under New Gambling Law
NepentheZ is a popular YouTuber known for his FIFA videos featuring things like “#Top20 Fastest Players in #FIFA #17″ and “FUTGALAXY – FIFA BETS, FIFA PACKS & FIFA 16 COINS!” where he does breakdowns of player abilities, stat comparisons, and also promotes gambling sites. Now, he could become well known as being one of the…
By Ethan Gach -
Esports
The Weekend In Esports: Hearthstone Summer Championships
It feels like only yesterday I was sitting down to embark on Hearthstone’s latest adventure, One Night in Karazhan. Just over a month later and the scene is completely lit. Blizzard announced it would remove 45 cards from the game’s arena mode to try and restore some semblance of balance to the otherwise rigged casino,…
By Ethan Gach -
Playable Version Of Cancelled Warcraft Adventure Game Leaks After 18 Years
Did you know that Blizzard was working on a point-and-click game called Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans back in the late 90s, but then canceled the project after two years in development? Well the project recently surfaced again when a user by the name of Reidor located in Russia posted a download link for…
By Ethan Gach -
Culture
The Week In Games: Num Num NumÂ
According to the thermometer I totally keep by the window in my office, it’s 91 degrees outside and definitely still summer. According to the list below, however, fall is definitely upon us. I mean, not just one, but TWO Vita games are coming out this week? Then again, according to the 3DS, and the remake…
By Ethan Gach -
Esports
After Getting Kicked Off His Team, Counter-Strike Pro Returns To Help Them Win
In Kiev, Ninjas in Pyjamas are victorious after beating G2 Gaming in a swift, 2-0 series. The Swedes went 16-7 on the first map, Cache, followed by a much closer, 22-18 nail-biter on Overpass which found the Frenchmen unable to stop the bleeding. NiP’s commanding finish was helped in no small part due to Mikail…
By Ethan Gach -
Halo 5 Player Makes Map Out Of Ocarina of Time Boss
This is CaptainDireWolf’s take on Zelda. It’s called Bongo Bongo, and he made it in Halo 5 Bongo Bongo was created using Halo 5: Forge, the game’s level builder which just recently became available free on Windows 10 as well. As a result, players can now create Halo levels and then test them without ever…
By Ethan Gach
Ethan Gach
I'm a senior reporter who's been writing about games and internet culture at Kotaku for almost 10 years. I cover everything from company earnings and player boycotts to emerging trends in gaming like AI, creator economies, and the changing console landscape. You can share story and news tips securely and anonymously at [email protected] or over Signal at +12673263042.
Ethan Gach's posts