Evan Narcisse

Tomb Raider: The Kotaku Review

I never wanted to have sex with Lara Croft. And I didn’t want to protect her either. In the early Tomb Raider games that I played and loved, the relationship was simple. The lethal, archly snippy adventurer was me and I was her. I wanted what she wanted: to unearth the relics of antiquity. To…

Hey, Watch Dogs Sneakily Showed Off The First Instance of PS4 Multiplayer Last Night

Watch Dogs came out of cover last night and Ubisoft’s open-world hacking game had a strong showing that built on the buzz of its surprise unveiling at last year’s E3. Among the things announced about Watch Dogs was the fact that it would be debuting first on PS4 Last June, Ubisoft kept mum on which…

Year Walk‘s Trippy Vision Quest Might Be the Most Ominous iPad Adventure Ever Created

Up until this week, I hadn’t really played a game on my iPad that gave me the creeps. Games that made me laugh? Yeah. Games that challenged my brain? Absolutely. But nothing yet has made me feel as unsettled as Year Walk Out today, Year Walk takes its inspiration from the ancient Swedish tradition where…

PS4? What PS4? It’s the Nintendo Download.

Hey, did something happen in video games last night? You couldn’t tell from looking at Nintendo’s corner of the world. It’s business as usual over there, with wacky Nintendo Direct hi-jinks and a new crop of downloadable goodies for consoles and portables. Worth noting is the debut of Wii U and 3DS demo versions of…

Here’s How Diablo III Will Look on the PS3 and PS4

Diablo III coming to PlayStation was one of the big reveals from last night’s PlayStation Meeting. The fact that a PC-only release would be coming to consoles made some people angry. But, for all the rage, we didn’t get an example of what Blizzard’s action RPG will look like in its reconfigured form. The screens…

The Superhero Dad from One of 2013’s Most Anticipated Comics Dies In His Very First Issue

Paul Pope hasn’t been hiding. You can find the writer/artist behind such acclaimed works as Heavy Liquid, Batman Year 100 and THB on pretty easily on Twitter, for example. And he just had The One-Trick Rip-Off/Deep Cuts—a collection of older work—land on the New York Times best-seller list for graphic novels. But sussing out the…

This Is How We Get More Black People In Video Games

It’s Black History Month, that time of year when people look at exceptional achievements and moments having to do with African Americans and black culture. What does that have to do with video games? Sadly, not a whole lot. There’s such a paucity of black characters and creators in video games that it’s difficult to…

Some Tips For Playing Metal Gear Rising, Since It Does A Terrible Job Of Explaining Anything To You

There’s a part early on in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance where you’re going to want to give up. Please don’t. It’s not your fault that you might be stuck; It’s Platinum’s. And don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Myself and Kotaku colleagues Kirk Hamilton and Chris Person all hit the same ridiculously hard moment…

Assassin’s Creed 3’s Hero Looks Different—and Cooler—in Its New Alternate Reality DLC

After a really long wait, the Tyranny of George Washington DLC for Assassin’s Creed III drops today, bringing with it an evil version of the United States’ first president. This trailer shows Connor’s alternate, first-nations look in action as well as new abilities for him to wield. The Infamy, part 1 of the three-chapter expansion,…

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: The Kotaku Review

They had to make up a word for it. For all the over-the-top cyber-machismo dancing across the screen in this new Metal Gear game. Nothing currently extant in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition would do. And the definition? Something like, “the confluence of bionic ninja warriors, near-future war profiteering and giant, quadraped war machines.”…

Get a Load of Gears of War: Judgment’s New Weapons and Multiplayer Features

Sure, the clip above is just a reel that rattles off bullet points of stuff in Gears of War: Judgment. But what makes it sing is the snarky narration provided by Fred Tatasciore, the guy who voices main character Damon Baird. Without him, this would just be a soulless rundown of ways of shooting, things…

Harmonix’s Rock Band series has rolled out new songs every week for five years. But, sadly, the music stops this April

Naughty Dog Made “Some Stupid Mistakes” Moving from PS2 to PS3 But Feel Ready for PS4

The guys responsible for Nathan Drake’s adventures have made some of the PlayStation 3’s best games. But the excellence of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted franchise came after a lot of hard lessons. Just as a probable reveal for the next PlayStation looms, a new interview on Eurogamer reveals that the development studio had a rough time…

Assassin’s Creed Liberation beat out Halo 4 and, uh, Assassin’s Creed 3 to win the WGA Videogame Writing Award. Awkward?

Kinect + Department Store Mannequins = Horrible Waking Nightmare

Microsoft exec Larry “Major Nelson” tweeted out this melding of Kinect and commerce earlier today. Nelson is likely proud of the execution here, since it shows the flexibility of the company’s motion-sensing camera in a non-gaming setting. But me? All I can think of is how utterly disturbing it would be if a mannequin in…

VGLeaks has what it says are early screens of a purported Gears of War strategy game. Delta Squad looks so… small.

Video Game Plates So Gorgeous You’ll Pause Before Dropping Your Filthy Food On Them

Wait! Before you go reaching for your wallets, you should know that the 8-bit styled dinnerware pictured above doesn’t actually exist. The images come from superstar graphic designer Olly Moss‘ Tumblr and are the result of some noodling around while he had time on his hands. Moss says that the dishes riff on the famous…

Finally, A Decent Look at The Star Trek Game

If you’re like me, you’ve wanted to actually see what the upcoming Star Trek tie-in plays and looks like. You have to put up with a lot of movie executive blather but there’s a bunch of gameplay on display in this promo clip for the Digital Extremes-developed title. It seems like players will be abe…

A Game So Weird, It Needs to Come With Its Own Encyclopedia

The developers at Simogo have made some of my favorite mobile games, the musical platformer Bumpy Road and rhythm stealth hybrid Beat Sneak Bandit. Those games were cute and easy to grasp. But their latest one Year Walk looks like a weird, first-person exploration head-trip. Thankfully they appear to know this and are offering up…

Class, Your Homework Today Is to Learn About BioShock Infinite’s Creepy Pseudo-History

The first installment of the Columbia: A Modern Day Icarus? video series reminded Luke, me and loads of other folks of the low-budget, off-putting documentaries and filmstrips that aired in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I used to have to watch those things in class, too, with some annoying homework assignment attached to them. Imagine if…