Kirk Hamilton

Mass Effect 3: Citadel: The Kotaku Review

Let’s get this out of the way up front: Mass Effect 3‘s latest—and last—downloadable add-on, titled Citadel, is terrific. In fact, if you’re a fan of the Mass Effect series, particularly one who’s been there from the start, it was more or less made for you. Citadel is fan-service of the highest order. That term…

A Quick Fix For Tomb Raider‘s Crash-Happy PC Version

I’ve been looking forward to playing Tomb Raider on PC for the last week, ever since Evan’s review made me think, “Okay, yep, sounds like this is indeed my kinda game.” I booted it up, played through the opening bit that I’d played at press events, and upon making my way past the dangling LOST-airplane……

An Amazing Guitar Solo I Bet You Haven’t Heard

It’s been a while since I just posted a random piece of amazing music in here for you guys, so here goes: This tune, “Whippersnapper,” is the opener from guitarist Wayne Krantz’s 1995 live album 2 Drink Minimum, recorded at the 55 Bar in New York. He’s joined by Lincoln Goines on bass and the…

An NES, SNES, Genesis and GBA, All In One Voltron Console

With a new generation of game consoles on the horizon, people have had backwards compatibility on the mind. For those who want to play old games without keeping a ton of old consoles around, there’s the Hyperkin Retron 3, which can play NES, SNES and Sega Genesis carts all in a single unit. This week,…

How To Start Mass Effect 3‘s Citadel DLC

If you’re starting Mass Effect 3‘s new Citadel DLC, you’ll have to follow a few steps to get going. It’s a two-part download, the first part is the one you pay for, but you’ll have to manually search for the second part. (I found it on the XBLA page with minimal hassle.) Once you’ve downloaded…

What I’d Like To See In The Witcher 3

I liked The Witcher 2. Mike liked The Witcher 2. And if you had a taste for lustiness and swordplay (and could put up with some rough edges), you probably liked The Witcher 2 as well. But what of The Witcher 3? The game, recently announced for the PC, PlayStation 4 and presumably the next…

If at some point you get stuck on one of Tomb Raider‘s side-tomb puzzles, GameFront has got you covered.

Here’s the launch-trailer for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate: The Reckoning: Rising, which Jason liked

It’s Happened: Snoop Dogg Is Making A Video Game.

Disclaimer: Considering that the game is called Way of the Dogg, I’m gonna go ahead and call the rapper in question Snoop Dogg instead of Snoop Lion. Anyway, the man himself has gone ahead and made a video game, or at least lent his likeness and music to one. While it may lack the production…

The World Deserves A Great Calvin & Hobbes Documentary. Maybe This One.

If you’ve got a heart beating somewhere in that bruised, battered chest of yours, you probably love Calvin & Hobbes. A couple of weeks ago while perusing a bookstore, I walked past the new complete collection of Bill Watterson’s famous comics. I saw Calvin on the cover, balancing on a fallen tree alongside his faithful…

Scientific American has taken a look at the science of time-travel in Ocarina of Time

The Dramatic Palm-Slice: A Fantasy Trope I’ve Never Understood

We all know the scene: It starts when a character in a fantasy story swears an oath. An oath… in blood. He dramatically unsheathes a knife, places it across his palm, and makes a fist before running the blade through his hand. Yowch. If you’re anything like me, that’s probably your first thought every time…

This Assassin’s Creed IV Rap Drops Rhymes From Kingston To Bristol

If you follow video games, you’re probably aware of Dan Bull, the Brit rapper who drops sick rhymes about the hottest new video games. Or, you know, “sick,” if you’re not that into this sort of kitschy thing. But I gotta say his latest for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag has got some good stuff…

The Madworld-meets-Shank-style beat ’em up Aztez has a new teaser trailer. Punch! Kick! Slam!

The Journey Composer Walks You Through His Entire Soundtrack

Journey wasn’t just one of the best games of 2012, it also had easily one of the best soundtracks. Composer Austin Wintory assembled a remarkable collection of instruments and tonalities, the sort of holistic musical concoction we rarely get in games. With this new video, you can listen to the entire Grammy-nominated soundtrack and follow…

Blonde Twins Playing Iron Maiden On Harps While Standing In A Ruined Brick Building

This performance of “Fear of the Dark” brought to you by Camille and Kennerly, the magnificent harp-handlers behind such classics as Blonde Twins Playing The Elder Scrolls Theme On Harps While Standing In A Forest, Blonde Twins Playing A Metallica Cover On Harps While Standing In The Desert, Blonde Twins Playing Final Fantasy Music On…

The new They Might Be Giants album Nanobots is a lot of fun. It’ll be out next week, but you can stream it here

Check out this cool essay about games, free jazz, and learning to improvise.

This Real-Life Version Of Black Ops 2 Reminds Me How Violent Black Ops 2 Is

It can be easy to become desensitized to Call of Duty‘s brand of realistic-yet-cartoonish violence. As motion-captured video-game dudes blow each other away over and over again, whatever I’d normally feel at watching that kind of carnage melts away. I see the game for what it is, and it stops having an impact. Videos like…

Crytek Head: So Far, Crysis 3 Is Our Masterpiece

Crytek head Cevat Yerli has come out in defense of his studio’s latest game, Crysis 3. In an interview with Gamasutra, Yerli says that the game is “so far, our masterpiece,” and that he feels it’s better than both Crysis 2 and the original Crysis in all aspects. He blames the game’s tepid reception on…