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From Tetris to Metroid: The ‘Hip’ Tanaka Mixtape
Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka’s music is infectious. It gets in your blood. Metroid, Tetris, Kid Icarus: if you own a Gameboy, or a Nintendo you’ve had one of his songs stuck in your head. Possibly for a week. This week on the Kotaku Mixtape, we take a look at one of the great composers of all…
By Chris Person -
Want to Be On Kotaku’s Newest Video Segment? Here’s How
Ever wish you (yes, you!) could be featured on Kotaku? Well do I have good news for you! We want to meet you, the best reader in the world, and hear what you have to say. In real life. On camera. Here’s how it works: If you’re free from Noon to Two this Thursday, in…
By Chris Person -
ReviewsDyad: The Kotaku Review
To say that Shawn McGrath’s Dyad is intense is an understatement. The game may technically count as a mind-altering drug, and believe me, that’s a good thing. In my video review, above, I break down not only the experience of playing Dyad but also where it’s roots lay and why it goes above and beyond…
By Chris Person -
Latin and Vincent Gallo: The Panzer Dragoon/Phantom Dust Mixtape
We all have cynical days: days when every single game looks bland and you resist the urge to push yourself away from your desk in disgust and shout “If I don’t see something something cool in the next ten minutes, I’m done with gaming!”. And just as you’re about to call the whole hobby off,…
By Chris Person -
The Secret To A Successful Game Trailer: Endings With Roars
It’s an ancient Mazatec secret passed down verbally from video editor to video editor: If you want your game to be a smash hit, end your trailer with something roaring. It can be an alien, a dragon, a balrog, a T-Rex, whatever; as long as it’s roaring, you’ll move a minimum of 20 million units,…
By Chris Person -
From Kingdom Hearts to Super Mario RPG: The Yoko Shimomura Mixtape
One of the best parts about doing a weekly mixtape is hearing suggestions from readers on which composer to cover next (PS: keep ’em coming). Out of all the suggestions, nobody has been more requested than Yoko Shimomura. So this week on the Kotaku Mix Tape, we celebrate one of gaming’s most moving composers. Even…
By Chris Person -
Here’s How You Can Play Roger Ebert’s Favorite Video Game
A few days back, I posted a video essay asserting the merits of an obscure adventure game called Cosmology of Kyoto, a game that film critic Roger Ebert reviewed for Wired in 1994. See, the old Mac version is busted, and even the Windows version can be a pain to get to run, mainly because…
By Chris Person -
From Chrono Trigger to Xenogears: The Yasunori Mitsuda Mixtape
Are you like me? Do you get a little misty eyed when you hear Schala’s theme? A swell of nostalgia when the violin from Chrono Cross swells? Well boy howdy, this is the mixtape for you! Yasunori Mitsuda’s music set the tone for so much of gaming in my youth: Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Chrono Cross.…
By Chris Person -
I’m a Video Editor, And Valve’s New Film-Making Software Could Change Everything
I make movies for a living. I shoot, I edit, I transcode, I color correct. J, K and L are as intuitive to me as WASD is to you. I went to school for it. So when I saw that Valve was releasing Source Filmmaker, their internal video editor slash 3D modeler to the public,…
By Chris Person -
The Video Game Roger Ebert Loved
Ever since he typed the words “Games are not art”, Roger Ebert has been vilified by the video game community. But here’s something you might not know about him: He once reviewed a video game and loved it. In the video above, I break down The Cosmology of Kyoto, one of two games that gaming’s…
By Chris Person -
From Dark Souls to Valkyrie Profile: The Motoi Sakuraba Mixtape
Some game composers are absolute workhorses. They’ll be so prolific in such a short span of time, that you’ll almost forget that they did entire soundtracks. Motoi Sakuraba is just such a composer. The Valkyrie Profile Series, Dark Souls, the Baten Kaitos Games, the Star Ocean Games and every freakin’ Tales Game: That’s a pretty…
By Chris Person -
Three Theories About Video Gaming in the Year 2032
If you were watching the Spike livestream of E3, you may have noticed that Kotaku had some spiffy little videos to promote our coverage of the show. For those who missed out, here they are! The videos, titled simply “Gaming in 20 Years,” explore the possibilities of the medium. We went around and asked different…
By Chris Person -
The Kotaku Mixtape Vol. 10 – Westerns
Everybody loves cowboys. They’re as American as apple pie, they’re hard boiled gunslingers and most importantly they have some of the best theme songs of any hero you’ll meet, hands down. Today on the Kotaku Mixtape, we’re looking at the best music to appear in Wild West video games. From that wackyness of Zan: The…
By Chris Person -
Watch GOG.com’s Slowjamin’ Love Letter to Game Developers
It’s a tough world out there for game developers; There’s rampant piracy, an unstable economy and all sorts of things that can go wrong at a moment’s notice. Sometimes you need someone to snuggle up to you and tell you everything is gonna be all right. Shhhhhhhh…don’t worry baby. GOG.com is here for some sweet,…
By Chris Person -
The Kotaku Mixtape Vol 9: Tommy Tallarico
Growing up, there were certain game composers I was aware of. Uematsu? Check. Koshiro? Check. But Tommy Tallarico wasn’t one of them. A lot of that is because he was a sound designer first, dipping his hands in everything from Prince of Persia to the best of Shiny Entertainment. He also co-founded Videogames Live, which…
By Chris Person -
I’ve Gone And Injected Wub Into All This Beautiful Video Game Music. Sorry.
Usually, around this time each week, I throw a video playlist together for the Kotaku Mix Tape, but this week I was a little distracted by The Wub Machine The Wub Machine is an online app that will automatically generate a Dubstep, Electro or Drum & Bass remix for any MP3 that you throw into…
By Chris Person -
The Kotaku Mixtape Vol 8: Metal
If the goal of your game is to make your player feel like a badass, you can’t really go wrong with good old-fashioned metal. Nothing beats it. Don’t get me wrong, you can still screw it up, but If I had my way, there’d be far fewer sweeping orchestras and more Slayer in games. Because,…
By Chris Person -
Datura: The Kotaku Review
Let me tell you about a dream I had. I was walking through a forest filled with butterflies and horseflies. Before me was a tree with the face of a man. I tore away at the bark, to find a pick-axe. Suddenly I was on a frozen lake. I looked down, wiped away an inch…
By Chris Person -
The Kotaku Mixtape Vol 7: The Golden Age of Lucasarts
There was a time, years ago, when LucasArts could do no wrong. They were unstoppable. Every time I got their catalogue, The Adventurer, in the mail I would instantly pour over every page and start saving my allowance. It was a magical time to be a gamer. On Today’s Kotaku Mix Tape, we’re listening to…
By Chris Person -
The Toxic, Psychedelic Drug Behind Sony’s Newest PlayStation 3 Game
People do recreational drugs for a lot of reasons: addiction, boredom, energy, depression, relaxation. But there are just some drugs that no person would ever want to do, drugs that are outright unpleasant and dangerous. Datura is one of those drugs. It is also the name of Sony’s latest Playstation Move title. What Datura Is…
By Chris Person
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