Evan Narcisse

The Natural: The Trouble Portraying Blackness in Video Games

Every morning, I run a pick through my hair. It’s important that I do this when it’s still spongy and damp from the shower. Wait too long and my hair gets drier and less cooperative, making it harder to pull the comb through my natural. (Pro tip: A natural is something black folks sometimes call…

Uncharted 4 Solves The Series’ Identity Crisis

Depending what part of an Uncharted game you see him in, Nathan Drake is either a wisecracking dude clinging to a cliff face or a cold-blooded murder machine. Players have to do a fair amount of mental gymnastics to believe that this is the same guy in both instances. Uncharted 4 makes that cognitive exercise…

The State Of The DC Universe

DC Comics has another line-wide reinvention coming up. It’s exactly the kind of thing I should be excited about, but I’m more worried than anything. This piece originally appeared April 8, 2016. Because of everything they’ve done in the last few years, it’s almost impossible to get amped up about what’s next for Superman, Batman…

The First Episode of Preacher Gets The Important Stuff Right

A filmed adaptation of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s classic Preacher comic book series has been an on-again, off-again project for more than ten years. Yesterday, the first episode of the upcoming AMC TV series finally saw the light of day. Judging by what I saw, Preacher’s going to be bringing the word of God…

Hello, I Must Be Growing

I’m not the first person at Kotaku to call this wretched hive of GIFs and wordsmithery a family. And I won’t be the last. Here’s the thing about families: sometimes they nurture you so well that you have to take yourself away from them to achieve more in the world. Kotaku’s been my family for…

The Politics of Marvel’s Black Panther

Marvel’s most important black superhero has evolved a lot over 50 years. The Black Panther has gone from being an under-utilized figure in the background of Avengers group shots to arguably being the most fearsome strategist in the Marvel Universe. His elevation to Marvel’s top tier is a fascinating meta-story. [This post originally ran on…

What We Liked and Loved About Captain America: Civil War

It’s an Avengers movie! It’s a Spider-Man movie! It’s a Black Panther movie! Captain America: Civil War manages to be all of those things and more, thanks to a feat of truly impressive cinematic plate-spinning. This movie wasn’t just good. It’s the best Marvel superhero film so far. This week sees the release of the…

Uncharted: Fortune Hunter Is A Puzzle Game Worthy Of Nathan Drake

Once again, Nathan Drake is following in Lara Croft’s footsteps. Released today ahead of the much-anticipated debut of Uncharted 4 next week, Uncharted: Fortune Hunter gives players a new perspective from which to control Naughty Dog’s iconic hero. Much like Hitman Go and Lara Croft Go, Fortune Hunter places Nathan on a grid-based puzzle environment…

Already great on PC and mobile platforms, Downwell’s fantastic vertical shooting action will be hitting PS4 and Vita on May 24

Spider-Man And Iron Man Have Beef Now

Spider-Man and Iron Man have been on-and-off allies for decades and worked in close partnership on the Avengers. Nowadays, they’re more like frenemies. It used to be that Peter Parker and Tony Stark saved the world in differently scaled adventures. The wall-crawler was more of a street-level guy while the armored genius fought everywhere from…

Marvel’s New Punisher Comic Gives Frank Castle Big New Problems

Frank Castle doesn’t say a word in the first issue of his new series. He really doesn’t need to. At the height of his popularity in the 1980s, the Punisher’s war on crime was shown in stories that were almost exclusively narrated by the lead character. Frank Castle would tersely describe his worldview and methodology…

When Superman Finds Out You’ve Been Drawing His Dick

This might be the best Superman fan-fiction I’ve ever seen. Hell, it’s better than most of the Superman stories DC is putting out nowadays. How do we nominate the Weedhorse69 Saga for an Eisner? Because the Imgur post that plays out a text message conversation between Jimmy Olsen and an artist friend deserves the highest…

Clique is an in-development game with an intriguing, hybrid premise: you control Zhora, a young girl in a first-person POV who plays a third-person game to escape her stressful life. But it’s not all that peaceful because she needs to win the trust of the people inside the gameworld she enters. Find out more on…

The Only Thing This Ant-Man Cosplay Doesn’t Do Is Shrink

That’s not an insanely detailed Hot Toys figure up there. Nor is it the product of a big-time Hollywood special effects division. This here Ant-Man costume was made by two very talented people. Rick Louis is the guy wearing the Ant-Man get-up in the video above, which was crafted by Eliza Eldredge of the Eldritch…

Uncharted 4‘s year-long DLC multiplayer plan, which is promising free maps and modes, gets detailed on the official PlayStation Blog

Better Hope Batman Doesn’t Find Out Who Your Dad Is, Kid

It’s going to be interesting to see what transpires when Batman finds out the identity of this particular teen vigilante. This unauthorized Robin will be lucky if getting fired is the only thing that happens to him. Ever since it launched last summer, DC Comics’ We Are Robin series has been concerned with picking up…

DC Universe Online is available for Xbox One today. The superhero MMO launched five years ago on the PS3 and PC; today’s debut marks the first time that it’s been playable on a Xbox platform. (Disclosure: Daybreak owner Columbus Nova has a minority stake in our parent company, Gawker Media.)

The crowdfunding campaign for Blackroom—a new shooter being developed by Doom co-creator John Romero—has been cancelled so developers can work on a demo. Once the demo is out, the funding efforts will be relaunched.

Severed Is A Great Reminder Of How Good PlayStation Vita Games Can Feel

You can shut off your brain with some touchscreen games, tapping and swiping mindlessly until something else distracts you. Severed is not one of those games. Lose focus in this new Vita release and you’ll die real quick. Developed by Drinkbox Sudios, who previously released Guacamelee in 2013, Severed centers on a girl named Sasha.…

When Dragon Ball Z and One Piece Do The Running Man Challenge

Everybody else can stop doing their funny little spontaneous dance videos. The Running Man Challenge has reached its final form. Fungal internet obsessions like the Harlem Shake and the Nae Nae crop up every so often, popping up on your Twitter feed with no damn context whatsoever and pulling you into a rabbit hole as…