-
God of War: Ascension‘s Multiplayer Bloodbath is Getting a Beta Soon, and a Trailer Now
Adding a multiplayer component to a God of War game still sounds a little confusing. Earlier looks have been tantalizing, in that violent, kill-everything sort of way. Today, Sony shared a new trailer for the 4 vs 4 team bloodbath. They have also announced a multiplayer beta to run in the “near future.” Should you…
By Kate Cox -
ReviewsDarksiders II: The Kotaku Review
I am become Death, destroyer of crates. Also vases. And skeletons. And bees. And, oh yes, enormous slavering eldritch horrors from Hell. I destroyed a bunch of those, too. Darksiders II begins more or less where the first Darksiders left off. In that game, War—as in, the apocalyptic horseman—accidentally triggers the Armageddon before the correct…
By Kate Cox -
Something They’re Proud Of: The Women in the New XCOM Look Like Real Women
Last week, during a visit to Firaxis to have a look at XCOM: Enemy Unknown, I had some time to talk with the game’s art director, Greg Foertsch. Foertsch discussed the challenges of creating both recognizably human art and architecture, as well as alien shapes, and the process of blending the two together as the…
By Kate Cox -
That Guy You Hated in The Walking Dead Game Has Been Punched In the Face 1.4 Million Times
One of the things that makes Telltale’s The Walking Dead video game tick is choice. Players get to make a series of both time-critical and leisurely decisions as the chapters go by. Everything from “who is Lee polite to” to “who gets to live and who dies horribly” is up for grabs, and the game…
By Kate Cox -
XCOM: Enemy Unknown‘s Multiplayer Mode is One Giant, Violent Toybox
Call it beginner’s luck: my first round of XCOM: Enemy Unknown‘s multiplayer was my strongest showing. It came down to a tense showdown at the end. I lost, but could feel proud of how close I had come. Alas, that was my best performance. From there, I got my rear end most thoroughly handed to…
By Kate Cox -
Playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown Was Worth The Speeding Ticket I Got Last Week
Last week, I was invited to spend some time at Firaxis to see the new XCOM. Early Wednesday morning, I hopped in the car and braved the DC morning rush to wind my way to an unassuming office building just north of Baltimore. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is many things. It is a strategy game, about…
By Kate Cox -
A Mass Effect Point-and-Click Adventure Fan Game? Yes Please!
Regular readers may have noticed that I have rather an addiction to classic point-and-click style adventure games. Those same astute readers may also have noticed I have a wee bit of an obsession with Mass Effect. This fan project that puts the two together, making a Mass Effect point-and-click adventure game, is therefore completely irresistible.…
By Kate Cox -
There Are Good Ways To Experience The Walking Dead As A Game. The Facebook Experience Is Not One of Them.
There is an excellent game out there based on The Walking Dead. It’s a five-part serial, of which the first two chapters have been released, and it’s made by Telltale Games. One by one, many of us here at Kotaku have become fans, each for our own reasons. If you would like to play a…
By Kate Cox -
I Wouldn’t Know Gameloft’s First Unreal Engine Game is for Mobile if I Hadn’t Been Told
Gameloft, most recently of the Dark Knight Rises tie-in fame, have recently been promising their first mobile game using Unreal 3. That game is Wild Blood, and that is its trailer you see here. By itself, without context, this trailer might not be terribly impressive. These are elements we’ve seen before, after all. Giant sword,…
By Kate Cox -
Windows Is Its Own Biggest Threat to the Future of PC Gaming
Hey, do you remember Blackberry? Remember how for years, every white-collar professional who worked in every office had to have one? And how they made consumer smartphones, that some people actually bought, and wanted to be all cool? When I started work at the headquarters for a major media company in 2008, every executive had…
By Kate Cox -
This Should be Commander Shepard’s Favorite Case Mod On or Off the Citadel
Yes, nitpickers, I know: the Normandy was never red and black. That’s strictly for Shepard’s default N7 armor. Possibly the case should have been Alliance blue, or Cerberus yellow and black. But I think this is gorgeous just the way it is. Because this might have to be what I do to my next PC.…
By Kate Cox -
This Charming Indie Puzzler Isn’t Mechanical At All. It’s Unmechanical.
This is not actually a little blue apple, though you might be forgiven for thinking so. It’s a lonely little helicopter, who got separated from its little helicopter friends and sucked into a bizarre underground labyrinth. The dark and twisty maze in question is a series of contradictions. Some areas move right to left; others,…
By Kate Cox -
The Father of Video Games Explained The All-Purpose Multimedia Home Console… in 1973
Ralph Baer basically invented video games. During the 1960s, when television itself was still fairly newfangled, he was piecing together how the first video game console, launched in 1972, could work. It wasn’t just video games that Baer figured out, though. The folks over at Gamasutra have shared this 30-minute video from a German computer…
By Kate Cox -
The Trouble With Most High Fantasy Dialogue Is That It’s Terrible
I can pinpoint the exact line that finally broke me. Despite being an ardent fan of many books and games that use high fantasy settings, I’ve never had very much patience for some of their tropes. And last night, one ridiculous line in a thoroughly ridiculous, but mostly enjoyable, game finally pushed me over the…
By Kate Cox -
Chell Explores The World Outside of Aperture in This Gorgeous Short
We featured a work in progress last week, the beginnings of a music video looking at Chell’s life after Aperture. Zachariah Scott has finished his work now, and sent the new link along to us. “After Aperture” is a slow, meditative, thoughtful look at Chell from outside the first person perspective. What exactly does one…
By Kate Cox -
The Cutest, Cuddliest Krogan (and Turian, and Asari) You Ever Will See
There are some really cute characters in the Mass Effect series. Liara has charmed many a Shepard with her smile, as has Garrus with his. But there’s cute, and then there’s adorable. Like these handmade Mass Effect plushie characters. They aren’t for sale, sadly, because they simply take too much time to make. But one…
By Kate Cox -
I Never Thought my Favorite Games Could Look so Good as Eye Make-Up
I don’t ordinarily think of “makeup artist” and “gaming” as going together. After all: the characters whose stories we so ardently follow are virtual people, and they are as fantastic or as plain as any other set of pixels can be. Makeup artist Jangsara, though, has made me rethink that connection. She creates all sorts…
By Kate Cox -
EsportsLeague of Legends E-Sports Just Kicked It Up A Notch
For most League of Legends fans, the game is, well, a game. But for world-class competitive, professional players, the cutthroat, competitive online battle arena is a serious business. And it’s one that’s about to get even bigger and more lucrative. Riot Games announced today their plans to form the League of Legends Championship Series, an…
By Kate Cox -
Fake Gamers of the Week: Maybe Don’t Drink This Family’s Punch
There is no color allowed in this family’s home. Theirs is a cult of khaki, a wasteland of white. Their mission is to match. Every inch, every item, every tooth, every person, must be white and well-lit. There can be no dissent. And when they have scourged all color from their world, they must play,…
By Kate Cox -
If Mario Were a Mexican Jumping Bean, This Would Be His Game
Imagine that you are playing Super Mario Bros 3. Now imagine that instead of Mario, you are a Mexican jumping bean. With a tiny little sombrero. And you have a quest. Bean’s Quest, in fact. This determined little bean was not always a legume. He once was a man, on a picnic with his girlfriend,…
By Kate Cox
Kate Cox
Kate Cox's posts