Phil Owen

What E3 Exaggerations Are You Most Excited For?

Hi! I’m Phil Owen, and I’ll be your Kotaku guest editor for Memorial Day while everyone else is enjoying the day off with possibly barbecue and maybe also sunshine. But who needs all that when we’re going to have a scintillating day just chock full of internet goodness? To get us started today, I wanna…

The State of Star Wars: The Old Republic, Three Years In

Star Wars: The Old Republic has never been exactly what we want it to be. Though some of us have stuck with it since its launch in December 2011, we know it’s still not ideal in 2014. And so does BioWare. “We used to talk about this as KOTORs 3-through-10,” the game’s executive producer, Jeff…

I Don’t Want To Walk To Everything I Can See In A Game

There’s this thing that developers of open world games have been fond of saying a lot lately: If you can see it, you can travel to it. It’s meant to be an awe-inspiring statement about how rich and full the world is, but every time I hear it I roll my eyes. See, not only…

The Majora’s Mask Fan Remake Is Still Moving Forward

Everybody wants Nintendo to remake or remaster classic Zelda-er Majora’s Mask, and maybe that is going to happen someday. In the meantime, some fans have been taking this matter into their own hands for a couple years now, as you can see above. That video update for what appears to be a Majora’s Mask remake…

This Is The Zelda Monopoly Game Board, Out Next Month

Announced back in April with few deets, finally we now know what the Legend of Zelda version of the popular-amongst-old-people board game Monopoly looks like. Don’t be too alarmed by that “GAMESTOP EXCLUSIVE” tag there; as with new video games, GameStop just has a couple extra perks in its box, and all these pictures came…

Maybe This Hand-Drawn Mass Effect 3 Box Art Is The Best One

It’s always a bit difficult to gauge the legitimacy of such things, e.g. whether a store employee stuck this on this GameStop shelf just long enough to take a picture or whatever. Either way I’m amused by this ugliness, as a Mass Effect guy. Would I use this over the FemShep one, though? Eh. via…

Watch This Couple Get Engaged While Wearing Ninja Turtles Costumes

Last night was “TMNT Night” at the Fresno Grizzlies minor league baseball game. It’s only natural, then, that a dude dressed as one of the Turtles would propose marriage on the field during warmups to his girlfriend who was also dressed as a Turtle, as you can see in the video. This is just heartwarming…

You Can Be A Hyrule Tourism Billboard With This T-Shirt

I’m not really a video game t-shirt guy, nor am I a Zelda guy. But I do think this shirt is pretty good because it’s slightly obtuse. Obviously we know what it means to visit Hyrule is but not everybody who might see you walking around with this design on your chest or the back…

No Man’s Sky Will Hit PC, But Only After PS4

It’s been a tough few months for some members of the #PCMasterRace what with the hotly anticipated universe exploration simulator No Man’s Sky being treated as a PS4 exclusive. But it turns out Hello Games’ little project will also get a PC release. Eventually. In the newest issue of Edge—via Gamespot—the team confirmed that No…

Syfy Now and USA Now TV apps are now available on Xbox One. So you can watch Syfy and USA Network shows on demand if you’ve got an authenticated cable login with a partner provider. These apps were already available on Xbox 360.

Maybe Link’s Favorite Shop Is In An Oklahoma Mall

I’d get candy there. as seen on r/gaming

Dead Island Movie Back On Track

Deep Silver sold the film rights for the Dead Island franchise to Lions Gate in 2011, but then nothing happened and the rights reverted to the mothership. Now, Deep Silver is partnering with indie production house Occupant Entertainment to put the film adaptation on the fast track. First reported by Deadline, there’s no set concept…

Bridesmaids Director In Talks For Female-Led Ghostbusters Reboot

Though all the chatter lately has been about the status of Ghostbusters 3, Variety is reporting that Paul Feig, who helmed lady-led comedies The Heat and Bridesmaids, is being courted by Sony to produce a Ghostbusters reboot with female leads. Variety says there has been “conversation” but not negotiations, per se. The trade also says…

Why Failing In Gods Will Be Watching Is As Good As Winning

There’s a new indie point-and-click game called Gods Will Be Watching out now. The Steam reviews are pretty down on it, and the critics’ reviews aren’t so hot either. But I love it for the same reasons others hate it: it’s a cruel game that dares to make you fail through no fault of your…

A Cat Rendered On A Game Boy, And Other Sweet Demakes You Can Do

Demakes, where somebody creates a mockup of a recent game that makes it look like it was built for some old, crappier system than what we have now, have been a Cool Thing To Do lately, and now there’s an app for that. Retrospecs, a recent iOS photo app, will take your pictures and make…

Potato Salad Kickstarter Finally Concludes at $55k

The infamous Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of a bowl of potato salad wrapped up this morning with $55,492 raised from 6,911 backers for that purpose. And with that money, campaign architect Zach Danger Brown plans to hold a music festival. Brown said in a campaign update this weekthat “PotatoStock 2014” will be held…

Study: Some Gamers Hallucinate Game Sounds After Playing

A new study from researchers at Nottingham Trent University says that playing games in long sessions may have some surprising side effects, like causing you to hallucinate sounds from that game you played even when you’re doing other, non-gaming stuff. The researchers were looking into “game transfer phenomena” which includes “perceptions, cognitions and behaviours influenced…

Infinity Ward Picks Up Two Naughty Dog Veterans For Key Spots

Two more important cogs in the machine at The Last Of Us developer Naughty Dog have exited the studio, with two leads making the move to Call of Duty studio Infinity Ward this week. Naughty Dog is losing lead game designer Jacob Minkoff and narrative design lead Taylor Kurosaki, who will be taking on the…

Gamescom Call of Duty Multiplayer Reveal To Be Streamed On Xbox Live

Activision allots the first half of of the hype cycle for each year’s Call of Duty to its solo campaign, but when we arrive at Gamescom in just two weeks, the multiplayer half of the super hypeness for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will begin. And you’ll be able to watch this big event from…

Welcome To This Philtaku Weekend

Hello! While Mike is hanging out at Bronycon, you get a weekend of me. You ought to know me by now, but if you don’t: I’m Phil, and Idon’t like my games to run at a high framerate That said, if you like playing Wolfenstein at 120hz, more power to you and your PC. I…