Kirk Hamilton

Sony To Kill Multiplayer For SOCOM 4, MAG In Early 2014

Womp, womp: Sony has announced that SOCOM 4 and MAG, the two military shooters that never quite managed to become as successful as they would’ve liked, will be losing online multiplayer support early next year. Hey, at least they’re giving half a year’s advance notice! The news comes a bit more than a year after…

An Easy Fix For Man of Steel’s Ridiculously Destructive Throwdown

It just wasn’t a very “Superman” thing to do, was it? Superman might be the easiest superhero to nitpick, because the dude is Superman. He can do almost anything. Why did they go with… that? That sort of nitpicking is on fine display here, as the folks from How It Should Have Ended have a…

SimCity Devs Form Indie Studio, Announce Primordial Simulation Game

SimCity creative director Ocean Quigley announced today on Twitter that he’s leaving Maxis to found an indie studio called “Jellygrade” alongside two other Maxis designers Their first game will start out on iPad and according to Quigley will be “A simulation about the dawn of life on earth; about lava, water, rock and the emergence…

How To Survive A Bear Attack, If You’re A Total Spaz

You’re alone in the woods, and you find yourself face-to-face with a bear. He looks pissed! What do you do? According to one reporter, you spaz right the hell on out out. Here’s Rhode Island reporter Julie Trammel demonstrating some excellent tips for surviving a bear encounter. Apparently the answer is, “Put your hands in…

Far Cry 4 Is Coming. What Do You Want Them To Change?

Surprising absolutely no one, on Friday Ubisoft’s Tony Key told Gamespotthat the successful, critically acclaimed open-world shooter Far Cry 3 is definitely getting a full-fledged follow-up. Which, naturally, raises all sorts of questions. Ubi’s not sharing details—we don’t even know for sure that it’ll be called Far Cry 4—they just say a new game is…

Happy Birthday, KotOR! Thanks For Having Such Great Star Wars.

Today is the 10th anniversary of BioWare’s classic Star Wars role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic. Happy birthday, KotOR! Thanks for having such great Star Wars. Let me back up and explain what I mean by that. Last winter I was in New York talking with my boss Stephen about the animated Star Wars…

A Dance Tune Starring Grand Theft Auto‘s Most Annoying Cousin

Hey Niko, want to go bowling? Hey Niko, want to go to a show? Hey Niko, let’s go to a strip club! GO AWAY, ROMAN. This new musical tribute from Miracle of Sound (better known as the outfit behind “Commander Shepard,” aka easily one of the best musical tributes to Mass Effect) is outstanding. It’s…

20 Gruesome Ways To Die In The Last of Us

I hate dying in The Last of Us. But I also like dying in The Last of Us. It’s complicated. I like it because I like the brisk, matter-of-factness of the death screen. A clicker grabs Joel, things get ugly, and the game immediately cuts to black. But I hate it because I love the…

Pacific Rim’s Most Emotional Line Was Left Untranslated

One of my favorite scenes in Pacific Rim didn’t involve robots or monsters. It involved a brief exchange in Japanese. Spoilers follow for Pacific Rim I saw Pacific Rim for a second time last weekend. I’d worked my way into an advance press screening a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to come back…

Not only is this NPR interview with The Last of Us composer Gustavo Santaolalla interesting and informative, right off the bat NPR’s Emily Reese demonstrates how to pronounce “Santaolalla.” Listen in to learn all about the strange stringed instruments and uncommon orchestrations he used to make one of the best, most distinctive video game soundtracks…

Microsoft Might Bring Back Cut Xbox One Features That People Liked

When Microsoft pulled their Xbox One DRM-reversal, lots of people were happy. Others, not so much, and with fair cause: Microsoft didn’t just remove the console’s onerous internet and used game requirements, they removed some cool-sounding features people that were looking forward to. In a new interview at IGN, Microsoft’s Marc Whitten says that the…

Here’s the full E3 demo of Airtight’s Murdered: Soul Suspect, an action/adventure game with a cool premise. Well, okay, it’s basically the same premise as the 1990 Patrick Swayze/Righteous Brothers vehicle Ghost, but hey, that could make for an interesting game.

Best Buy Gets Assassin’s Creed IV Box Art Slightly Wrong

Hey, that’s not what the main character of Assassin’s Creed IV looks like! And yet there it is, right on Best Buy’s Canadian pre-order page for the game: That sure looks like a rough photoshop job of (who else!) former Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins. For the record, this is what the actual boxart looks…

Watch This Wicked-Fast Watch Dogs Rap

Dan Bull, almost undoubtedly the most motormouthed human currently rapping about video games, has released a new track. It miiiiight be the fastest thing he’s recorded yet. The speed-spitting brit has done a tribute to Watch Dogs, and it’s really quite a thing. Give it a listen.

The (Many) Things The Godzilla Remake Got Wrong

It’s certainly no coincidence that on the week Pacific Rim comes out, Cinema Sins chose to turn their Spotlight of Pedantry upon Godzilla, Roland Emmerich’s 1998 remake of the classic Japanese monster movie. I haven’t seen this movie since it came out in ’98, but man, I remember disliking it even then. Now I’m asking…

Amazing Human Slingshot ‘Game’ Will Help You Injure Your Friends, Puke

I don’t even know where to begin. Here’s “The Human Slingshot,” a game from Vat19 that looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Or at least, a chipped tooth or twelve. It involves standing inside a giant rubber band with your friends, then hurling yourselves past one another. That’s it! That’s the game! I’ll stick…

This great article over at Tested goes on an epic journey to find the best CRT monitor for playing retro games.

The Galaxy Is Saved! Now Clean Up All The Leftover Gore.

If you’ve played a “gritty” or “mature” video game over the last ten years, chance are you’ve splattered some blood and viscera all over the insides of a spaceship or two. In the words of your mom: Who is going to clean this mess up? You are, as it turns out. In the newly released…

Does Animal Crossing ‘Promote Otaku Citizenship?’

That’s the question explored in this week’s PBS Idea Channel video. Now, I’ve been writing on the internet long enough to know that otaku is Internet Dynamite. Like “dubstep” and “roguelike,” it’s a word that you can’t even say without making hundreds of people break their keyboards typing apoplectic comments. That said, I thought this…

By the way! I still haven’t unlocked the QR reader in the game (I can sense I’m almost there; they’re being very friendly to me in the pattern shop), but if you have, here’s a QR code for the Kotaku logo. Which I fully plan to make my town flag, or at least to hang…