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Alpha Protocol Is The Great RPG Of Last Gen
In the “objective video game review” sense, Alpha Protocol is pretty much the worst. It’s super irritating to play, and every time I speak with somebody from Obsidian, the studio that made it, they just shake their head. But on the Phil Owen “Was This A Big Waste Of Time?” Scale, however, Alpha Protocol comes…
By Phil Owen -
Welcome To The Philtaku Weekend of Positivity
Hi, it’s me, Phil Owen. The mean guy. I’m going to be hanging out here on this cool web site all weekend, and I’m going to try something new. As many of you know, I’m kinda a negative person. After my last stint here as guest editor, dear leader Stephen Totilo made a profound suggestion…
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The Next SWTOR Expansion Looks Like The Same Old Thing
At E3, Bioware announced a new expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic, dubbed Knights of the Fallen Empire. At its start, players will be frozen in carbonite for five years and when they’re thawed out will find that something called the Eternal Empire came out of nowhere to smash both the Republic and Sith…
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Finally: Zero Escape Volume 3 Is Officially Official
Zero Escape Volume 3 was announced today at the Aksys Games Panel at Anime Expo in LA. They’re aiming for a summer 2016 release on 3DS and Vita, and Western localizations are being produced simultaneously with the Japanese version. This, by the way, is something I’m excited about. Like, sincerely. No joke! The announcement was…
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Shenmue III‘s Placeholder Box Art Is Hilarious
I don’t particularly care about the Shenmue III Kickstarter because I don’t fund other people’s creative endeavors and I can’t bring myself to have feelings about anything happening in 2017 right now. But if I did donate to kickstarters or had meaningful early-stage interest in a Shenmue threequel, the placeholder box are for the newly…
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The PlayStation Network is down. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but it’s a holiday in the US and most online-related PlayStation functions are, well, not functioning. The PSN status page details the mess. It only mentions PS3 and PS4 not working but my Vita also can’t get online.
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Some Games Should Have Fewer Features
While reading Nathan Grayson’s assertion that Batman: Arkham Knight should have borrowed Shadow of Mordor’s “nemesis” system to use with the various street toughs Batman fights throughout that game, I had a horrifying vision, one I don’t believe he intended to elicit. I imagined this gameplay system being piled on top of everything already present…
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David Cross Says He Wrote Jokes For Destiny That Bungie Didn’t Use
Destiny has been accused of many things, but “having personality” is probably not one of them. It came out of the womb last September totally deadpan and remarkably serious, but apparently it wasn’t always going to be that way. Indeed, noted joke person David Cross told IGN this week that Bungie flew him and fellow…
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Every Video Game Buzzword, In One New Game Announcement
EuroRPG developer Piranha Bytes announced its new game, to be published by Nordic Games, in utterly unremarkable fashion: via press release, with no meaningful details or a trailer or even actual game art. Just the image above, posted on Facebook, and a parade of buzzwords that would make any E3 press conference presenter blush. The…
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Batman: Arkham Knight’s first post-release DLC, which will see you play as Batgirl, will drop on July 14 for season pass holders and July 21 if you would rather buy it separately. The announcement via European press release listing a price of £5.79, so it’ll probably be around $7-8 stateside.
By Phil Owen -
Happy Philipendence Day From Guest Editor Phil Owen
No, today is not actually Independence Day (that’s tomorrow), but it is the US federal holiday marking the occasion. So I’m filling in for the folks who get to take the day off. What can you expect from me today? As always, I have some beeves to hash out, this time with Star Wars and…
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I Care About Star Wars Because It Introduced Me To ‘Lore’
Today, May 25, is Star Wars Day—not the weird pun nonsense earlier this month that people love to call “Star Wars Day”, but the anniversary of the release of the original film in 1977. And today here on Kotaku we’re going to celebrate an oft-mocked part of Star Wars: the Expanded Universe. Today, nerds (this…
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An Etsy Shop For Crystal Poké Balls
If you know where to look, you can buy anything on Etsy. And, yes, “anything” apparently sometimes includes Poke Balls made of crystal with pokemon laser-carved into them. First things first. They’ve sold out of the Poke Balls but are trying to make some more, and in the meantime the listed price of $99,999.99 is…
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The Longer The Witcher 3 Goes, The Faster I Move Through It
If you write about games professionally for a while, and get suckered into writing game reviews freelance, a couple things happen. First, you play way too many games. Second, you play all those games very quickly. The latter has led me to take on some habits that I find troublesome. I usually try to avoid…
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Blizzard Removed Tychus’ Cigar To Meet Ratings Requirements
We discovered last week that Tychus’ trademark cigar was missing from the open beta version of Heroes of the Storm, and some people were rather upset about it—bro is always chewing on that thing, after all. And Blizzard artist Phill Gonzalez hopped on reddit to explain what the deal with that was. As some had…
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On PC, The Witcher 3 now has more graphics than ever, as CD Projekt RED has just dropped a second patch which increases the quality of textures on high and ultra settings. Also, you can rebind keys now! Patch notes: Rebinding of all keys is now available after switching on the ‘Unlock Bindings’ option in…
By Phil Owen
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