Kirk Hamilton

Guy Builds Bilbo Baggins’ House Out Of Balloons

Sometimes that’s really all you have to say: Guy builds Bilbo Baggins’ house out of balloons. And there you have it. The guy in question here is BallonGuyEnt, who makes Bag End out of balloons. At least when Gandalf hits his head in here, it won’t hurt as much. How’s everyone doing? Have a good…

Halo 4‘s Remote Detonator Has Already Reached Its Logical Conclusion

It stands to reason that most people who picked up the remote detonator in Halo 4 thought to use it in this way; but it was TheM0M0show who first documented the technique and put it on YouTube. Next time you see a mongoose cruising towards you, watch out. It may explode in your face.

I’m Glad I Know The Lyrics To This Killer Persona 4 Song

Oh, how I love sunny days in Inaba. I know that Yukiko will be out on the street, or maybe Rise, waiting to hang out. My scooter awaits, and if I want, I can go to the beach. And best of all, every time it’s sunny, this song by Persona maestro Shoji Meguro, will be…

The Fascinating True Story Of Monopoly

It’s one of the most-played board games in the entire world, a game so well-known that its rules have become household shorthand and slang. And yet, the full story of Monopoly is a good deal deeper, more interesting, and more tragic than you may have thought. Harper’s has taken a fascinating, lengthy look back at…

Return To New Vegas: Kleptomaniacal Ethics On The Wasteland

When I play Bethesda’s open-world role-playing games, I steal. A lot. I know I’m not alone in this—in fact, I’d wager that almost every single human who has played Fallout 3 or Morrowind or Skyrim has stolen something or other. After playing so many hours of Skyrim over the past year, I’ve noticed something odd…

The Craziest Feats Of Halo 4 Multiplayer Get Mythbusted

Do you ever wonder about really specific theoretical feats in Halo 4‘s multiplayer? Like, say, whether or not you can deflect an oddball with a gravity hammer, or trick an auto-sentry with a hologram? Wonder no longer: The folks at Defendthehouse have got you covered with the first episode of Halo 4 Mythbusters This must’ve…

Assassin’s Creed III Is A Bummer! No, It’s Not! Let’s Talk This Out.

Last week, I wrote a lengthy article about Assassin’s Creed III and the many ways it’s disappointed me. My take on the game stands in contrast to Stephen’s—he liked the game fine. Clearly, there’s more to talk about here. Here’s Stephen: It is one of the best video games of the year, one of the…

Get Hot, Bothered and Hungry With Fifty Shades Of Chicken

I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey. I kept hearing about it, and seeing people reading it on the bus, but I wasn’t sure what it was until I finally got curious and looked into it. Okay, so it’s a book about kinky bondage sex-play. And I don’t believe I’m in its target demographic. I…

I (Kirk) went on the radio to talk about XCOM, PC modding, and Slender. Check it out, we talk games at 27:00

The Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter Now Actually Shows A Little Bit More Elite: Dangerous

You could be forgiven for seeing the initial launch of David Braben and Frontier Developments’ ambitious Kickstarter campaign for a new Elite game and thinking, “Okay, but where’s the game?” Most Kickstarter pitches these days at least show some hint of what the finished project will look like, but the Elite Kickstarter Page, upon first…

Hunt (And Be Hunted By) Xenomorphs In The Freaky-Looking Aliens vs. Marine

It’s a longstanding, somewhat sick desire of many of us who play games to stand, back against the wall, in the dark, waiting for the aliens to come. Why? I guess we all just really liked Aliens? But it’s what so many of us want. Aliens vs. Marine, an in-progress game/mod by YouTuber Dave P,…

Quite Possibly The World’s Tiniest Terrier

It’s been a long day here in my corner of Kotaku, so let’s wind things down with this video of Meysi, a teeny tiny polish terrier that may well be the world’s smallest dog. If Tina gets to post her cat videos, I get to post my dogs from time to time. Man, I would…

The Biggest Change To Grand Theft Auto V May Well Be Musical

Grand Theft Auto has always been a singularly musical series. From classic rock blaring over a helicopter sunset to cool jazz simmering on a rainy city night, GTA‘s many in-game radio stations, coupled with Rockstar’s seemingly infallible song-selection, makes each game’s soundtrack as good as the last one. With the recent info-drop on Grand Theft…

Double Fine’s Superheroic Smartphone Game Has Its Own Origin Story

It’s been a little while since we last saw or heard anything about Middle Manager of Justice, Double Fine’s foray into free-to-play smartphone gaming. I gave the game a go back when Double Fine first announced it, and it looks like a fun, suitably goofy take on the whole smartphone time-management sim deal. After accidentally…

How Has Assassin’s Creed III Disappointed Me? Let Me Count The Ways.

I thought I was going to love Assassin’s Creed III. From everything I’d seen, it seemed like Ubisoft was doing everything in their not-inconsiderable power to push their flagship series into brave new territory. Except… well, they didn’t manage to pull it off. Rather than taking the Assassin’s Creed series forward in some bold new…

Apparently Megan Fox Is At Her Coolest When Shilling For Laptop Companies

Oh, Megan Fox. You’re often annoying. You’re hot. You’re in bad movies. It’s unclear whether or not you take acting, or yourself, seriously. I’ve always sort of gotten the sense that you’re pretty cool, but that somehow it’s not coming across. But my mixed feelings aside, this Acer laptop ad from last week where Ms.…

The Last ‘Good’ Console War, Re-imagined As A Giant Robot Battle

Embattled gamers have weathered many a console war over the past thirty years. But above the Xboxes and Gamecubes, the PlayStations and the Dreamcasts, one war stands apart: Super Nintendo vs. the Sega Genesis, the World War II of the console wars. This illustration by Daniel Dussault, titled “Za Konsoru Uozu 199X,” takes a fresh,…

What Do You Know, All This Time And We’ve Got ‘QTE’ Wrong

Yesterday, I ran an article looking for your favorite Quicktime Events. The quicktime event, commonly just called a “QTE,” is a long-derided trend in video games where players are forced to quickly match button presses to on-screen cues, usually during otherwise noninteractive cutscenes. QTEs are sort of a shortcut to shoehorn bullshitty interaction into cutscenes,…

It’s Hide ‘n Seek Multiplayer With The Wii U’s First Indie Game

Nintendo’s new Wii U console isn’t even out yet, but there’s already a group of funky game designers putting together a cool, arty game for it. The game in question is Chasing Aurora, a simple, papercraft-style flying game in which you take control of one of few sky-rats, more commonly known as “birds.” The game…

How To Prepare Dishonored‘s Only Appetizing Dish

I loved Dishonored‘s dank, diseased city of Dunwall. It felt so fully realized, and had so much character. A lot of that came from the food. Like Bioshock before it, most of Dishonored‘s characters leave food lying around. As the protagonist Corvo meanders from room to room, he’ll often take stabbing-breaks to eat everything that’s…