Mike Rougeau

When Video Game Trolling Is A Good Thing

The timer ticks down toward zero. We tear across the Boneyard, one of Halo: Reach’s best multiplayer maps, my good friend Rus driving with me sitting shotgun. I’m clutching the blue flag in hands that would be sweating if they were real. We shed our red teammates like skin; they race past us going the…

Hosts’ Reactions Are The Highlight Of Japanese ‘Face Hacking’ Video

My weekend shift is over, Kotaku, so I’ll leave you with this video of Tokyo artist and producer Nobumichi Asai’s impressive and slightly disturbing “face hacking” that I saw on Geekologie The effect — which we’ve seen previously — is achieved using face-tracking, projectors and 3D animations, according to Blastr, and is shown here being…

Smash Bros. Lore Theory May Make You Regret Beating Up On Master Hand

Is it possible that the big bosses featured in every Super Smash Bros. game—Master Hand, Crazy Hand, Tabuu, and Master Core—really represent different aspects of series creator Masahiro Sakurai? It sounds crazy (hand), but this video from The Game Theorists might actually convince you that it’s at least possible. Even if the video has some…

More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About The Sega Dreamcast

The latest from the video game trivia masters at Did You Know Gaming? tackles Sega’s ill-fated but fondly remembered Dreamcast—from inception to downfall. (Is it just me or is the rapid-fire pacing of this channel’s video releases starting to get a little crazy?) Anyway, the Dreamcast was not a bad system, but a perfect storm…

Half-Life 2 Characters Fit Perfectly In Artist Pogo’s Neighborhood

Artist Nick Bertke, AKA Pogo, made this video compositing elements from Half-Life 2 into footage of his real-life neighborhood and what looks like his home. And it looks astounding. Before I read the video’s description on YouTube I was slightly confused about what was real and what was CG, which is a testament both to…

Microsoft has updated its rules regarding videos that include footage from its games to allow creators to make money from ads—as long as they don’t use the game’s title in their video titles or include anything the company considers “objectionable” (does that mean no Spartan poop stance clips?). [via Windows Central]

The Next Penelope Looks Like F-Zero With Boss Battles

I hadn’t heard of The Next Penelope before the game’s marketer, Indie Fund scout John Polson, reached out to tell me about it, but I’m sold on the premise and look of this game. It has elements of F-Zero, as well as the under-appreciated classic Micro Machines (which was more or less remade as Toybox…

Taking The Minecraft Vegetarian Challenge

Minecraft is a lot of different things to a lot of different people; a place to build a word processor, recreate Westeros or trap incredible monsters. For many players it’s simply about survival, which means making sure you have shelter at night, forging armor and weapons with which you can fend off attackers, and somehow…

Publishers Wanted To Change Life Is Strange‘s Protagonists Into Men

Dontnod Entertainment and Square Enix’s Life Is Strange looks really interesting, but it was almost a very different game, according to a developer diary video posted this week. Apparently Dontnod shopped the game around to a number of different publishers before going with Square Enix, and it turns out most of them wanted to change…

Awesome Games Done Quick‘s latest speedrunning-for-charity marathon has concluded with over $1.1 million raised (and donations still being accepted) for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. You can check out the highlights, browse through every run or simply watch that marriage proposal over and over.

A Major Game of Thrones Question May Have Been Answered At The Library

A popular fan theory on the identity of one of George R.R. Martin’s most mysterious A Song of Ice and Fire characters may have just been debunked—and by a simple trip to the library. Spoilers for the series, including possibly for unpublished material here! Redditor _honeybird this week documented a trip to Texas A&M University’s…

Is anyone else totally into Outlander? It’s a bit sappy, but it also has time travel, and historical accuracy, and beautiful women and men, and great writing and cinematography and music (by Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary!). Watch the new trailer here.

Ten Times One Player Beat Two in Professional Smash Bros.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with the new Super Smash Bros. games on Wii U and 3DS lately, but actually playing doesn’t get me nearly as hyped as this compilation of pros succeeding against the odds. EvenMatchupGaming‘s first Super Smash Bros. “2v1 comebacks” video features ten clips of players whose partners have died…

Let’s Survive Together With The Walking Dead‘s Season 5(b) Trailer

The first half of The Walking Dead‘s fifth season introduced some fascinating new villains, killed a whole bunch of characters and in general got darker than ever. Now the show is poised to return on Feb. 8, and the latest trailer reveals the group will be focused on “surviving together.” Which apparently means killing things—lots…

​How Destiny Players Fixed One Of The Game’s Biggest Problems

As much as I love it, Destiny is riddled with flaws, many of which Bungie doesn’t seem all that interested in addressing. Most of them—like how you still lose ammo when you die—are things players can’t do anything about. But the game’s lack of matchmaking for its most challenging missions—one of its most glaring problems,…

Nintendo Will No Longer Sell Consoles or Games in Brazil

Nintendo is pulling out of Brazil. The company announced yesterday that it will no longer distribute products there due to the country’s high tariffs on electronics, despite its “many passionate fans” that live there. Nintendo officially blames “challenges in the local business environment,” including “high import duties…and our decision not to have a local manufacturing…

Spartan Crabwalks in Halo 5 Beta Glitch

Players have discovered plenty of interesting issues in the ongoing Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta, but this is probably the funniest. “Not sure if anyone has shared this before, but this is what happens when you crouch in midair and sprint upon landing at the beginning of a breakout game,” wrote Redditor coked_up_tourist. Other users…

How I Realized My Dragon Age: Inquisition Character is Gay

Some hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition, long after I’d made it out of the Hinterlands, I realized something that really surprised me. My character had taken on a life of his own, and it turns out he’s gay. Character creation in role-playing games like Inquisition seems to get more detailed all the time—just look at…

Charity Speedrunner Has Mastered One of My Favorite Games Ever

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars was the first role-playing game I ever played, and it took me years to beat it when I was a kid. Then this guy did it in under three hours. This week’s Awesome Games Done Quick 2015 charity speedrunning marathon has featured some really cool runs, including…

Playing Vanquish One-Handed Has Never Looked So Easy

One of the most impressive things I’ve seen yet during Awesome Games Done Quick 2015, the speedrunning marathon for charity, is disabled gamer “halfcoordinated” demolishing Platinum Games’ Vanquish with only one hand. He prefaced his run by explaining that one-handed is his normal way of playing. He suffers from Hemiparesis, which causes weakness on the…