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Kotaku EastJapanPro And Amateur FPS Players See Differently, According To Comparison
Have you ever wondered why some people are better at first-person shooters than others? One important difference might be how people see while playing. Nikkei recently posted a clip tracking a professional FPS player’s vision while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and compared the data to the vision of an amateur player. Both players…
By Brian Ashcraft Published November 27, 2019 -
CultureCosplayGalleryOur Favorite Cosplay From BlizzCon 2019
BlizzCon 2019 had a different feel to previous years, as big game announcements shared the weekend with protests against the company’s political actions. One thing that remained constant, though, was the quality of cosplay that fans brought to the show. Maybe it’s the focused nature of the con, maybe it’s just the fact that Blizzard’s…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 27, 2019 -
CultureLook At This Beautiful Game Of Pathfinder
A group of Australian friends just wound up an epic game of tabletop RPG Pathfinder, and I mean, I already said this in the headline, but just look at the thing. Overseen by DM Paul Houlihan, who also did all the painting (the terrain is a mix of stuff, most of it from Dwarven Forge),…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallThere Was An F-Zero Novel, And Its Art Sure Was Something
In January of 1992, a novel—not a manga, a novel—was released in Japan based on F-Zero. And anyone used to how the series looked and felt on a console will notice it’s quite…different. With a title roughly translated to F-Zero: And Then, To The Gods Of Speed, these scans and info were all uploaded by…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureValve Is Not Making Any More Steam Controllers
We are gathered here today to bid farewell to the Steam Controller, the little gamepad that could in some cases, but couldn’t in others, because it made people’s hands hurt. Its haptic pads are tickling the fingers of angels now. Currently, Valve’s maiden foray into the world of long-distance game manipulation is on sale for…
By Nathan Grayson Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureTwitchTwitch Loophole Is Still Inflating Views
Saqib “Lirik” Zahid, who has 2.5 million followers on Twitch, is the last streamer to need a viewbot. Nevertheless, over the last couple of days, his fans and followers wondered whether he’d somehow succumbed—this week, his average 27,000 viewer count for November shot up to a huge 76,000 for no discernable reason. Zahid felt the…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureDota 2 Gets Total Overhaul
I’ve spent over 1,000 hours playing Dota 2 and reading through the game’s latest set of patch notes is breaking my brain. The game’s Outlander’s update went live today, adding not just two more heroes but upending massive aspects of the game, including item delivery, teleportation, late game advantages, and item progressions. The base game…
By Ethan Gach Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureValve Removes 1,000 Games From Steam As Punishment For Abusing Tools
There are more than 30,000 games on Steam. When Valve removes the odd offender for breaking the rules by, say, being a low-effort meme masquerading as a low-effort game or by being low-effort porn masquerading as a low-effort game, it’s like siphoning a drop from a bucket. Yesterday, Valve removed over 1,000 games from Steam.…
By Nathan Grayson Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureExperts Say Geese Aren’t Actually As Bad As Untitled Goose Game Suggests
I love being a goose in Untitled Goose Game. I love to waddle, honk, and flap at people. But how much of what you do in Untitled Goose Game is true to goose life? I spoke to some waterfowl experts to get a read on how true to life Untitled Goose Game actually is. Isabella…
By Gita Jackson Published November 26, 2019 -
UncategorizedI’m playing Donkey Kong Country over on our Twitch channel. The game’s 25th anniversary was a couple days ago! In memory of the long-ago Thanksgiving Day on which I played through this whole game, I waited until today to stream it. Get Funky in the chat!
By Tim Rogers Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureSome Call Of Duty Players Find Themselves Spawning In Mid-Air
Call of Duty matches can be fast-paced slaughterhouses, which is why the game usually respawns you away from other players and, uh, on the ground. Recently, players have been noticing that’s not always the case. “Incredible, just incredible,” Reddit user McNugg2710 said in a November 22 post of a video showing them respawning out in…
By Ethan Gach Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureHow Fighting Game Developers Can Improve Online Play
Netcode, the set of technical protocols that determine online play in video games, is especially important in fighting games. Decisions are often split-second, with just a few frames determining whether or not a punish lands or a combo finishes the job. Netcode is often the main concern of competitive players looking for their next game.…
By Ian Walker Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryThis Is What Happens When I Explore Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order‘s Amazing World
Oh, cool. I found a secret area in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, everyone. I wonder what kind of reward I’ll find here. This place is way off the grid, so there’s got to be something incredible hidden in these chambers. I discovered this place because I spotted a little green icon on my map,…
By Stephen Totilo Published November 26, 2019 -
UncategorizedThe Elder Scrolls: Blades, the series’ free-to-play mobile spin-off, won’t come to Switch until next year, Bethesda announced today. The port was originally supposed to launch this fall, but the company said that it needed to be delayed due to work on improving the game, including an overhaul of how loot works.
By Ethan Gach Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureLooking Back On The Hypnotic Charm Of Breakout
Pilgrim In The Microworld, a 1983 book by professor, sociologist, and musician David Sudnow, was far ahead of its time. As a book-length digression on a single video game—Breakout for the Atari 2600—it took the emerging medium seriously at a time when it was largely dismissed as a mere fad on the verge of dying.…
David Sudnow Published November 26, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsI Never Knew Dying In Borderlands 3 Could Feel So Brutal
Sometimes you really need to kill a dude, and you just can’t, and it sucks. Borderlands 3 is not a heavy game. It’s full of bright colors, fun sounds, and jokes (even if most of them aren’t very funny). I would no more liken it to a Dark Souls game as put orange juice in…
By Ethan Gach Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureSome Of Pokémon Sun and Moon’s Online Features Are Shutting Down In February
The Pokémon company announced overnight that its Global Link Service, which supports certain parts of online play in Pokémon Sun and Moon and their Ultra editions, will be going away on February 24, 2020. While Pokémon Sun and Moon players will still be able to trade and battle directly with one another, features related to…
By Ethan Gach Published November 26, 2019
