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David Hasselhoff Takes On an Ice Cream Truck in the Latest Burnout: Crash Trailer
If there’s one thing that video game trailers could use more of, it’s David Hasselhoff. So thank goodness for Criterion and EA, who conscripted the ‘Hoff to appear in the latest trailer for the just-released downloadable Xbox Kinect game Burnout: Crash. In the trailer, a swingin’ party is underway, and in its midst a dude…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 21, 2011 -
The World’s Average Download Speed is 580KBps
That figure comes courtesy of a Global Download Report published by the global game-delivery company Pando Networks. The study, which was conducted from January 1 through June 30th, 2011, tracked the download speeds of 21 million gamers around the world. Most of the gamers Pando works with are in the MMO/Free-To-Play realm, playing games like…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 21, 2011 -
Steam Gets The “WiiWare Where People Can Find It” Bundle
The “Indie 2D Bundle” has gone on a super-Steam-sale: you can grab Bit.Trip Runner, NightSky, NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits, Swords and Soldiers HD, and World of Goo for just $9.99 total. Each game normally costs $9.99 (discounted to $39.99 for all five), so it’s basically five for the price of one. When Kotaku chatted with NightSky…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 20, 2011 -
Gears of War 3: The Kotaku Review
Gears of War has always felt as though it was built with metaphor in mind. The slam of a clip locking into place; the thudding, oversized boots of a COG soldier. The pinwheeling spokes of combat, lines of engagement moving in two opposing semicircles; the rev of a chainsaw’s motor. These are games filled with…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 20, 2011 -
Forget Unreal: I’m All About Twisted Pixel’s “Beard” Engine
Like many folks, I’ve got a complicated relationship with pre-game splash screens. On the one hand, I like that series of middleware introductions, publisher logos, and various other graphical preamble that flash across my screen, largely because of how I savor them the first time I’m playing a game that I’m excited about. I watch…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 19, 2011 -
Those Horribad Deus Ex: Human Revolution Boss Battles Were Outsourced
A month after release, popular opinion holds firm that Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a well-made game. And yet one niggling flaw stands out, an issue that has been highlighted in countless blog posts, tweets, and video game forums. Those accursed boss battles. They were, in a word, bad. As I played the game for…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 19, 2011 -
Decisions, Design, and J.C. Denton: The Deus Ex Letters Conclude
Our retrospective letter series concludes with part four. An index of all letters can be found here — From: Kirk Hamilton To: Leigh Alexander Subject: Augmented Reality Leigh, Hello! After a couple weeks’ delay, I’m finally back to write the fourth and final letter in this series. Sorry for the setback—we’ve both been caught up…
Kirk Hamilton & Leigh Alexander Published September 19, 2011 -
Shadow Complex 2 Has Been Designed. Can We Just Play It Already?
Man, I still don’t quite know what it was about Shadow Complex. I loved that game so much. So when Cliff Bleszinski told me that its sequel has already been designed, it just about made my day. Shadow Complex came out of nowhere for me—it was 2009, and I was totally wrapped up in Batman:…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 16, 2011 -
The PC and Xbox 360 Battlefield 3 Trailers, Head-to-Head
We’ve recently seen two trailers for Battlefield 3, one with footage from the Xbox 360 version, one from the PC version, both showing gameplay from “Operation Guillotine.” While watching the recently released 360 trailer, I was struck by how much better the PC version looked, despite the fact that the clips in the 360 version…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 16, 2011 -
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition is Fun For One but Built For Four
At the end of my visit with Nintendo this week, we were given some DSiXLs and set loose on The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition. (Good god, that title is a mouthful.) For those who haven’t heard, it’s an upgraded take on the classic GBA game, which was itself a portable version of…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 16, 2011 -
OverClocked ReMix’s Mega Man 9 Album Goes From Metal to Baroque and Back
The video game-music collective OverClock ReMix has released another complete set of reimagined songs, this time for Mega Man 9. (I bet you thought I was going to put a “Goes for Baroque” joke in the title, didn’t you? Well… actually, it’s not even baroque music, it’s more like flamenco, so… yeah.) The full album…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 15, 2011 -
Six Minutes of Gears of War 3‘s Campaign (and the Ladies Who Make It Better)
Epic’s Gears of War 3 offers a deep, feature-rich package—between its copious multiplayer modes, lengthy campaign, and flexible co-op modes, it’s easily the deepest Gears game yet made. Epic has already detailed the various multiplayer modes, as well as the redesigned horde mode, so in this video, we’ll walk through some general impressions of the…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 15, 2011 -
The Best Ke$ha-Themed Minecraft Tribute Ever Performed by an 11-Year-Old
Look, I don’t really like Ke$ha either. But I totally love this video, made by 11-year-old YouTube user xNoizeBeatx, which features an ingame tribute to Minecraft sung to the beat of Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok.” (Note how I did not say “sung to the tune of Ke$sha’s ‘Tik Tok.'”) If any of its elements had been…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 14, 2011 -
Bounding, Gliding, and Rolling Along: Hands-On With Super Mario 3D Land
Yesterday, I had a chance to play through several levels of Super Mario 3D Land. I came away impressed by the way that the game successfully combines elements of 2D and 3D Mario games into a fun, playable package. Is it enough to pull pull the 3DS out of its current tailspin? No. Is that…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 14, 2011 -
How To Get the Anti-iPhone Game (Hint: Get a Droid)
Molleindustria’s anti-smartphone game Phone Story caused quite a stir yesterday when it was pulled from the Apple app store. The game, which presented a dark look at the costs of smartphone production, was only playable by the few who managed to snag a copy during the few hours that it was on the store. Though…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 14, 2011 -
See The Anti-iPhone Game That Apple Doesn’t Want You To Play
Earlier today, we reported that Apple had pulled Molleindustria’s iPhone game Phone Story from the app store. The game depicts four stages of the production of a smartphone, exposing the ugly truths of smartphone development with a frankness that is designed to make users uncomfortable. A friend of mine managed to snag a copy of…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 13, 2011 -
There Was an iPhone Game About Foxconn Until Apple Killed It
The new iPhone game Phone Story hits awfully close to home—the game concerns itself with the real-world costs of creating a smartphone. A few hours after launch, Apple removed it from the App Store. Phone Story charts a course from Coltan mining in the Congo to the horrendous manufacturing workers’ conditions that led to the…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 13, 2011 -
Modders Unite to Fix the PC Version of Dead Island
The PC Version of Dead Island has had a pretty rough launch. First, the developers’ code was accidentally released in place of the retail version on Steam. Even after that problem was remedied, the final code on PC was buggy and the multiplayer servers were problematic. Fortunately, a group of modders have been hard at…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 12, 2011 -
A Voyage of Discovery Into the Epic Edition of Gears of War 3
Late last week, Microsoft was kind enough to send along a massive box containing the Epic Edition of Gears of War 3. I thought it would be fun to walk you through the various things you can do with this huge, sexy box and its contents. Let’s dig in! Observe the box. That is one…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 12, 2011 -
Selling the Zombie Apocalypse the Don Draper Way
The reviews are in for Techland’s open-world zombie role-playing game Dead Island. Reviewers are talking about immersion and HUDs, PC bugs and control issues, and whether it is possible to love a game for the cool moments it provides while accepting that it has significant flaws. But from review to review, there is one constant:…
By Kirk Hamilton Published September 12, 2011
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