Kirk Hamilton

How To Change Outfit Colors In Arms, And Other Tips

Did you know there’s a secret way to change outfit colors in the upcoming Switch fighting game Arms? Because there totally is. If you’re getting ready to play in one of the betas this weekend, you should definitely take the time to look your best. To that end, if you read through the game’s help…

Those Prey Tracking Bracelets Were Junk All Along

Prey is filled with mysteries. What’s going on aboard Talos-1? Who is Morgan Yu, and how did she get into this mess? And most importantly, should I hold on to this tracking bracelet I’ve been carrying around for the past six hours? That third mystery has been solved, at long last. The patch notes for…

Arms Players: Motion Controls Or Standard Controls?

Over the weekend a bunch of people had their first chance to play Arms, Nintendo’s upcoming rubber-band boxing game. If you played one of the hour-long “testpunch” betas, I have one question for you: motion controls, or nah? Arms can be played by detaching the Switch Joy-Con and moving them through the air: push them…

Bungie Explains How They’re Improving Destiny 2 Servers

If you’ve played a lot of Destiny, you know that connectivity issues can be a real bummer. Many of the worst issues are thought to arise from Destiny’s decentralized server arrangement, which leapfrogs partial hosting duties between different players’ consoles. For Destiny 2, Bungie says they’re changing things up. As it stands, if one Destiny…

Sam Fisher Would Not Approve Of Ghost Recon’s Night Vision Goggles

Last night I decided to purchase a custom Splinter Cell outfit for Ghost Recon: Wildlands. I mostly bought it because of the cool night vision goggles. As you make your way through Wildlands’ Bolivian countryside, you can choose to switch on night vision. Of course you can; it’s a Tom Clancy game. With the press…

Divinity: Original Sin 2 will get a full release on September 14. I played a ton of the first game in early access and wound up not finishing the final version. This time around, I’m waiting. Hope it’s as good as it looks!

Destiny 2 Shows Bungie Is Listening To Fans, In Its Own Way

Bungie is constantly changing and improving Destiny, though rarely in the precise ways players have requested. That seems like it will hold true for Destiny 2 At last week’sbig Destiny 2 blowout event in Los Angeles, the differences between the new game and the old one were not always apparent. I saw the same guns,…

Hands On With Destiny 2 On PC

If you were hoping for something dramatically different from Bungie’s much ballyhooed Destiny sequel, I regret to inform you that Destiny 2 is still Destiny. If you really like Destiny, of course, that’s not such terrible news. This morning I headed over to the Jet Center in Los Angeles to attend Bungie and Activision’s big…

The very fine rhythm game Thumper hits Nintendo Switch today. I’ve been playing the Switch version over the last couple days, and it’s a good port. Looks nice, runs at 60fps, and feels good too, thanks to the Switch’s handcrafted artisan controller rumble.

It’s Ridiculous That Nier: Automata Still Hasn’t Been Patched On PC

Nier: Automata came out two months ago on PC. It’s a really good game, and a clear standout during an unusually strong spring. So why the heck is the PC version still loaded with basic bugs and other problems that haven’t been patched? I spent last weekend blasting through Nier: Automata on PC. I got…

Here Is A Fun Thing To Do If You’ve Finished Persona 5

Say you just spent 100 hours finishing Persona 5. You feel exhausted, satisfied, probably a little sad. Here’s something fun you can now do. WARNING!!! SPOILERS FOR PERSONA 5 OMG !!! Now that you’re done, think back to a million years ago when you first started the game. You played through the first half hour, named…

The Expanse Season 2: Entertaining if uneven, reaching ever closer to greatness. What it is: The second season of SyFy’s increasingly popular sci-fi political thriller. The show is based on books by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who collectively write under the pen name James S.A. Corey. What I’ve watched: Took my time with season…

World War Z (the book): A meticulous, global history of the zombie apocalypse.  What it is: Max Brooks’ 2006 novel stitching together dozens of fictional accounts of a zombie uprising that almost killed off humanity. Adapted in 2013 into a film that threw out book’s entire concept and kept only the name. What I’ve read:…

What We Liked (And Didn’t Like) About Breath Of The Wild’s Final Boss

On this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason and I were joined by our boss Stephen Totilo to talk about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with full spoilers. We started with the final boss fight. You can listen to our discussion starting at 22:56, and the full Zelda conversation actually goes on quite a…

Minecraft Feels Right At Home On The Nintendo Switch

Good news! The Nintendo Switch gets its own version of Minecraft today, and it’s good. In fact, it’s made me want to play Minecraft more than I have in a long time. Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition comes out this afternoon on the Nintendo eShop, with a physical version coming “at a later date.” Nintendo sent…

Prey isn’t afraid to ask the big questions, like what happens if you fire a Nerf crossbow into the side of a space station in zero-g?

We Should Probably Talk About Edith Finch‘s Ending

The new PS4/PC game What Remains of Edith Finch tells the tale of a doomed family living in a mansion off the coast of Washington state. It’s a cool story, but what does it all mean? Let’s discuss. My colleague Gita Jackson and I decided to get together and chat about Giant Sparrow’s ambitious new…

Both Zelda And Prey Make Climbing (And Falling) Fun

On the surface, Zelda: Breath of the Wild doesn’t have much in common with the new sci-fi thriller Prey. While the games are different in a lot of ways, both are well-made simulations that reward experimentation and exploration. And both give you fun ways to climb around. Navigation and traversal are fundamental aspects of any…

What We Loved (And Didn’t Love) About Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2

There’s a new Guardians of the Galaxy movie! Let’s talk about it. Mike Fahey and I are both avowed fans of James Gunn’s original Guardians of the Galaxy film, and both of us headed to the theater over the weekend to see his follow-up. Did the second outing capture the unlikely charm of the first…

Prey’s Mouse And Keyboard Controls Are Really Good

Most big video games these days seem designed to work best with a controller. PC mouse and keyboard controls are often an afterthought. Prey is the unusual, welcome exception. Since Prey is also on consoles, I assumed it’d work fine with a controller. I figured it’d have a four-way hotbar tied to the D-Pad, combat…