Kirk Hamilton

The All-Singing, All-Dancing Meat Of The World. Or, something like that. Here’s They Might Be Giants’ new video for their song “You’re On Fire.” It features Lauren Lapkus, who you might recognize as the kindly prison guard from Orange is the New Black. It’s a weird video! I like it. Related: It reminds me of…

The Moment You Stopped Playing A Game Forever

In my review of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, I had a lot of fun identifying the game’s many Nope Moments—the times when a half-open door or a darkened hallway were almost too foreboding. But of course, lots of games have lots of different Nope Moments, and we don’t always overcome them. I thought I’d…

Fan-Made Last of Us Plushie Is Totally The Best

Say you really like a game, and in that game, your character comes across a cool, cute stuffed animal. Makes sense that you’d want to re-create it in real life and give it to the people who made the game, right? SPOILERS: This plushie is itself a sort of Last of Us spoiler. I know…

Breaking Bad Has Officially Gone Bananas. Time For Some Predictions.

And with that, Breaking Bad entered its endgame, and everything went completely bonkers. What’s going to happen in the end? Hell, what’s going to happen in the next 30 seconds? Breaking Bad spoilers follow. You’ve been warned. This past Sunday’s episode ended with what might be the most infuriating (but also kinda funny) cut-to-black I’ve…

Time to update your backlog: After smoothing out some unexpected technical wrinkles, we’re back and updating our überlist of The Classic PC Games You Must Play. I’ve added nearly 300 of your suggested games to the master directory, and will do at least one more major update this week. If you don’t see your favorite…

Oh My God It’s A Dog Taking Down A Helicopter

“We’re adding a dog to Call of Duty,” they said. “It’ll be really cool.” And we assumed they meant it; we assumed the dog would be cool. Little did we know the dog would be this cool. The latest trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts features some neat stuff, and some dumb stuff. It’s got…

Wild Theory: Maybe Horror Games Are Scarier If You Can Fight Back

Among the defining characteristics of the often-terrifying Amnesia games—as well as similar games like Slender and Outlast—is the fact that players are given no weapons. There’s no way to defend yourself, no way to fight off the beasts that hunt you. That makes the game scarier, right? That’s obvious… right? Hmm. Over at Talk Amongst…

A Closer Look At Child of Light, Ubisoft’s Lovely New JRPG

If you’re anything like me—If you have a beating heart and like video games—you probably watched the debut trailer for Child of Lightand thought, “I want to play this.” But what’s the game itself all about; how does it work? I had a chance to play through an opening chapter last week at Ubisoft’s press…

EndWar Returns As A Surprisingly Fun Tower-Defense Game

Of the following facts, I’m not sure what’s more surprising: Tom Clancy’s EndWar, the decidedly odd, voice-controlled console real-time strategy game, is making a return. It’s coming back as a free-to-play tower defense game. And what do you know, it’s pretty fun. Last week at Ubisoft’s Digital Day press expo, I was surprised to see…

It’s Easy To Fall In Love With This Wistful WWI Adventure Game

Everyone, meet Valiant Hearts. Valiant Hearts, meet everyone. I think you guys are gonna get along pretty well. Of all the games that Ubisoft had on display at last week’s “Digital Day” event, Valiant Hearts: The Great War was the most welcome surprise. Out of nowhere comes a gorgeous, hand-illustrated tale of lost souls finding…

The Far Cry 3 Guys Are Making A JRPG, And It’s Gorgeous

Behold Child of Light, an upcoming JRPG from the creative minds behind Far Cry 3. It looks just lovely And… wait… did I just type “JRPG” and “Far Cry 3″ in the same sentence? Yep, I did. This game is the work of Far Cry 3 creative director Patrick Plourde and lead writer Jeffrey Yohalem,…

Is That A Cutlass In Your Pocket, Or Is It Assassin’s Creed: Pirates

Alongside the playable demos at last week’s Ubisoft press day stood a lone television looping a trailer for something called Assassin’s Creed: Pirates. It’s a new Assassin’s Creed game for mobile devices, and what do you know? It features pirates. According to press materials, the game will cast you as Alonzo Batilla, a pirate (drink!)…

A Revamped Assassin’s Creed: Liberation Is Coming To Consoles

I really did want to play Assassin’s Creed: Liberation. New Orleans! Creole accents! Bayous! A badass black lady protagonist! And yet… I never did. Finally, it looks like that’s going to change. At Ubisoft’s “Digital Day” event last week, I had a chance to check out a bunch of Ubisoft’s upcoming download-only games. The first…

Watch Out Spotify: Xbox Music Is Finally Coming To iOS & Android

These days, all-access streaming music services no longer feel like unlikely magic tricks—they’re a convenient, widely adopted way to listen to music. There’s clearly a lot of money to be made in streaming music, and big technology companies aren’t going to sit idly by and let upstarts like Rdio and Spotify corner the market. Enter…

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs: The Kotaku Review

Some games are defined by a single place; others by a single character. Still other games are defined by action, by something you can do in the game itself. In its early goings, the horror game Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is defined by a single word: Nope. Near to the start of the game,…

The Classic PC Games You Must Play

There are many reasons one could argue that the PC is the best way to play video games: Better visuals, cheaper and more interesting games, a wide-open platform, and so on. But one of the best arguments for PC gaming is simple: The massive back-catalogue. No other gaming platform can field a game library that…

Oh, The Many Ways You’ll Kill Zombies On Xbox One

Dead Rising 3 is one of the Xbox One’s best-looking launch games, but most of what I’d seen of it so far looked far too drab and “serious” for a series as delightfully weird as Dead Rising. That said, this new gameplay trailer has me much more interested. In two minutes, we get to watch…

The Jeff Lebowski Theory Of Burrito Consistency

At a crucial moment in The Big Lebowski, a guy pees on Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski’s rug. This is a great tragedy, an aggression that will not stand. Why? Because that rug really tied the room together Long have I been fond of the concept of The Dude’s Rug. It’s useful for me as a…

Emojis: The New Best Way To Review Video Games

Sometimes limitations lead to good things. Sometimes we’re at our most expressive when we have to choose our words most carefully. Sometimes it’s a good idea to review games using only emojis. Emojis, the mostly-Apple-only emoticon collection now popular on iDevices and Mac OS, can be a goofy good time. There may be a limited…

Pour some coffee, Zach: Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut will arrive on Steam on October 31st, according to the game’s Steam listing. Just in time to perfect your Agent York costume for Halloween! (Via Eurogamer)