Culture

Finding Self-Love Through Queer Romance and Video Games

That night was my turn to host. We hiked all over, taking in the island’s natural beauty and snacking on peaches. We visited Lucky’s house, chatting with my doggy neighbor and rolling around in his log bed. We even managed to get into a K.K. Slider show, for which I’d bought us matching Able Sisters-brand…

Twitch Bans Dr Disrespect

Today, out of the blue, Twitch suspended massively popular streamer Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm, a ban that multiple sources tell Kotaku is permanent. Initially, people suspected that he’d tripped a wire in Twitch’s increasingly aggressive DMCA detection system, but that does not appear to be the case. Industry insider and journalist Rod “Slasher” Breslau said…

The Man Who Invented Karaoke Is 95 And His Machine Still Works

Karaoke is one of Japan’s most ubiquitous worldwide exports. But who invented the first machine that let you sing along to backing tracks of popular hits? As author Matt Alt writes in his new book Pure Invention, karaoke was independently invented at least five different times in Japan. A musician-businessman named Daisuke Inoue has often…

I Turned My Steam Profile Into A GeoCities Disaster

A new Steam rewards program that just launched lets players obtain Steam profile items and backgrounds using points earned by purchasing games. Some of these can turn your profile into an ugly mess. I decided to see just how ugly. As Jurassic Park’s Ian Malcolm might say, I was so preoccupied with whether or not…

Twitch Finally Starts Banning Streamers Accused Of Sexual Abuse

Over the weekend, over 50 people, mostly women, in and around the world of Twitch came forward to accuse streamers and other industry figures, mostly men, of sexual abuse. As the week has progressed, that number has swelled to nearly 100. After the initial wave of accusations, Twitch promised to investigate and potentially take action.…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for probably getting to the work I didn’t get to during the week, goddammit. But some of that work is video games, so that’s something. This week’s Cyberpunk 2077 previews got me itching to play some cyberpunk games while I wait. I never actually completed my no kill/no detection run of Deus…

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Will Have A Free-To-Play Version

Today in a new trailer Square Enix announced Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition Lite, which will be free-to-play for the first three dungeons. Lite version will play just like the paid one except players will be locked out of the game’s remaining 10 dungeons unless they purchase the whole thing. Square Enix is calling…

Tales Of Arise Delayed To TBA

Last fall, at the Tokyo Game Show, I asked producer Yusuke Tomizawa why there had been such a long gap between the upcoming Tales of Arise and previous Tales games. “We’ve switched to Unreal Engine 4,” he said at the time. “We want to bring in new players. That’s where we are starting from and…

Lady Of The Red Lions

Giulia Carli is a concept artist and character designer from Italy. You can see more of Carli’s stuff at her ArtStation page

Famous Game Logos In Arabic

A few years ago we featured the work of Egyptian graphic designer Ibrahim Hamdi, who took a bunch of big game logos and translated them into Arabic. He’s now back with more, and these are even better. Volume 2 of Hamdi’s GLAM (Games Logo’s Arabic Matchmaking)features games like Fallout 76, Doom, Grand Theft Auto V,…

Let’s Celebrate Vince Carter, The Last Active NBA Player To Appear On The Nintendo 64

The NBA’s decision to resume inside a “bubble” in Orlandomeans that the season is now officially over for some of the league’s worst teams, who weren’t invited to take part. That includes the Atlanta Hawks, bringing a bizarre end to the career of veteran star Vince Carter, who was the last active player to have…

An Excerpt From Glengarry Glen Nook

“Let me have your attention for a moment. I wanna talk about something important. Put that lily-of-the-valley down. Lilies-of-the-valley are for checkers only. Do you think I’m Flip-ping with you? I am not Flip-ping with you. I’m here from Nook Inc. I’m here from Timmy and Tommy. And I’m here on a mission of mercy.…

Red Dead Redemption‘s Untamable Frontier Makes It The Ultimate Open-World Game

What kind of game is Red Dead? You wouldn’t be wrong if you said it’s a video game that plays like every other big-budget, single-player game that has hit the market in the last ten years. Like Breath of the Wild, the Arkham games, Shadow of Mordor, The Witcher 3, the Tomb Raider reboots, the…

Last Of Us Part 2 Players Seem Unable To Stop Covering Johnny Cash’s ‘Hurt’

For a long time now, people have joked about dudes who bring their guitars to parties and play “Wonderwall” over and over. It now seems the virtual equivalent of this meme is folks playing Hurt in The Last Of Us Part II The Last Of Us Part II is filled with violence, darkness, and a…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Help, Awful Sex Is Ruining My Relationship

Hello, all you electric love swarms, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only advice column that helps eliminate the need for crunch time to help your love life go gold. This week, we’re taking a dive into love in the time of COVID-19 — both how to find it and how to help it…

Here’s July 2020’s Xbox Live Games With Gold

July’s Xbox Live Games with Gold has cars, basketball, and a Saints Row game that existed before Saints Row IV, the best one. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. July’s Games with Gold are: Xbox One WRC 8 FIA World Rally Championship (July 1-31) Dunk…

How’s It Going?: Guitar Edition

What do you know, it’s Thursday. Welcome back to our daily open thread. Sorry my topics are getting so specific these days. Life has gotten very small in a lot of ways, despite my city continuing to open up. (Also, re yesterday’s topic: lettuce soup=disgusting, please avoid, I am full of regrets.) A few weekends…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Summer Update Will Let You Go Swimming

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting a free summer update on July 3 that will add swimming, diving, and a bunch of new furniture to transform your house into a mermaid grotto. Nintendo revealed the update in a trailer this morning that shows the player diving for treasure and chatting with another villager they find…

Sony Paying Up To $50,000 To Anyone Who Reports PS4 Security Flaws

Sony rolled out a new bug bounty program yesterday that will pay up to $50,000 to any hackers who help expose a major vulnerability in the PS4. Announced over on the PlayStation Blog yesterday, the program is being run in partnership with HackerOne, which works with amateur hackers and security researchers to help make companies…

Track: Carousels | Artist: Doves | Album: Carousels (single)