- Culture
Sunday Comics: Did We Miss Anything?
Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published June 18. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published June 13. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…
By Mike Fahey Published June 19, 2016 - Uncategorized
Neverwinter Nights Made Me Love Games
I was a little kid whose favorite game for a solid eleven years was “pretend.” Neverwinter Nights was an early RPG that gave your character absolutely no backstory and encouraged you to fill in the gaps. Clearly, a match made in heaven. Last year, I flew to Atlanta to attend DragonCon. On the first of…
By Mary Kenney Published June 18, 2016 -
UncategorizedWhen Jeff Goldblum Told Us To Stop Playing And Enjoy Life
Or at least those of us who gathered every DNA sample in 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park video game. We scored a very special message from Mr. Goldblum, urging us to “call a member of the opposite sex” and “Get the stink off.” I was watching Jeff Goldblum on a post-Orphan Black episode of…
By Mike Fahey Published June 18, 2016 - Culture
Who Stole The Breeches? And More Tabletop Stories
Remember a couple of weeks ago, when I asked you for your favorite tabletop memories? Just as I predicted, one post wasn’t enough to list all of my favorites, so I wrote another. Again, I picked these because they made me laugh, wince or want to steal the idea for the campaign I’m running. There…
By Mary Kenney Published June 18, 2016 - Culture
The Incredibly Limited Adventures Of Game Developer Barbie
Now available in stores across the country, Game Developer Barbie is here to prove that anyone has the power to create crappy match-three games, even if they only have five points of articulation. Announced back in January, Game Developer Barbie takes long strides towards making up for the horrific “I Can Be A Computer Engineer”…
By Mike Fahey Published June 18, 2016 - Uncategorized
Final Fantasy XV‘s Director Says He Found Out About Scorpio At Microsoft’s Conference
The director of Final Fantasy XV says they haven’t worked with the new consoles from Microsoft or Sony yet. In fact, he says he found out about the upcoming Project Scorpio while sitting in Microsoft’s green room. During an interview at E3 earlier this week, FFXV director Hajime Tabata told me he got to find…
By Jason Schreier Published June 18, 2016 - Uncategorized
We’re Getting A Spyro The Dragon Cartoon, Sort Of
Poor Spyro might have gotten a little lost in the crowd in the Skylanders video game series, but he’ll be at the head of his class in Skylanders Academy, a new animated series coming to Netflix this fall. Look how happy he is! As upset as hardcore Spyro the Dragon fans (I just typed that)…
By Mike Fahey Published June 18, 2016 - Uncategorized
“Yay! We finally settled with Sky (they own the word “Sky”). We can call our game No Man’s Sky. 3 years of secret stupid legal nonsense over.” Hello Games’ Sean Murray via Twitter yesterday, celebrating not having to change his game’s name to No Man’s One or something.
By Mike Fahey Published June 18, 2016 - Culture
This Week in the Business: Expectations Manager 2016
QUOTE | “Me and my son have an Xbox One, and we wanted to play Battlefield 1 or Titanfall 2, and we didn’t get that opportunity. I was like, c’mon man, I didn’t come here to buy stuff. I came here to enjoy games.” – A father discusses the “really disappointing” open-to-the-public E3 Live show…
Brendan Sinclair Published June 18, 2016 - Culture
Microsoft’s Phil Spencer: ‘We Will Ship Games On Steam Again’
If you’re a PC gamer, the big news out of E3 this year was Microsoft’s decision to (finally) re-embrace PC as a gaming platform. If you buy their games on Xbox One, you’ll get them on PC as well (and vice versa). For big games, however, Microsoft’s been awfully Microsoft in recent times. Their store…
By Nathan Grayson Published June 17, 2016 - Culture
What Are You Playing This Weekend?
E3 has come and gone, and we can groggily get back to talking about video games that are actually out. To that end: What are you playing this weekend? I’ll go first: I’m planning to play some more Overwatch, since a lot of the people I play with were in LA last week. I saw…
By Kirk Hamilton Published June 17, 2016 -
UncategorizedStreet Fighter Mod Lets You Play As Tracer From Overwatch
PC gaming continues to bring us ridiculous crossovers, this time mixing a little Street Fighter V with Overwatch. As showcased by PC Best Mods, you’ll note that this version of Tracer drops her guns in favor of hand-to-hand combat. Really, the Tracer model is just skin over Cammy, so she can’t do any of her…
By Patricia Hernandez Published June 17, 2016 - Uncategorized
Finally, A Batman Game With A Lot Of Bruce Wayne In It
“We believe Bruce Wayne is just as important as the Batman,” a Telltale rep said at E3 this week as he began playing through a demo of his company’s new Batman game. What followed was proof that Batman The Telltale Series may have more Bruce Wayne in it than any prior interactive Dark Knight adventure.…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 17, 2016 -
UncategorizedOverwatch’s Competitive Mode Will Let You Earn Golden Guns, Other Special Rewards
Overwatch’s ranked mode will hit sometime later this summer, and it will be pretty different from what was in the beta. Here’s what you can expect. In a developer update, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan talks about some of the changes players can expect in the new, reworked version of competitive play: Some highlights: The…
By Patricia Hernandez Published June 17, 2016 - Uncategorized
Horizon Zero Dawn Has A Smart Solution To A Common Video Game Problem
Whenever I see a new trailer for Horizon Zero Dawn, I mutter to myself: “please don’t suck.” Based on the 30 minutes I played this week, things are looking promising, and it’s not just the big stuff: it’s the game’s smaller details, too. My favorite a-ha moment happened when the developers were guiding us through…
By Patrick Klepek Published June 17, 2016 - Uncategorized
Why Dragon Quest VII 3DS Took So Long To Come West
Dragon Quest VII was one of the biggest games of its time, a significant leap over its predecessors in terms of raw size. So when the developers at Square decided to remake it for 3DS, they ran into some issues. For example, as Dragon Quest VII 3DS producer Noriyoshi Fujimoto explained to me during an…
By Jason Schreier Published June 17, 2016 - Uncategorized
Thoughts & Prayers, A Short Video Game That Skewers Gun Control Inaction
Every time there’s a mass shooting in America—which is more or less constantly—politicians take to social media to talk about their thoughts and prayers. NRA-supported legislators tend to be particularly thoughtful and prayerful, something that’s thankfully been called out more aggressively of late. Thoughts & Prayers is a short, easy-to-play browser game from political game-makers…
By Kirk Hamilton Published June 17, 2016 - Culture
Steam Controller Update Lets You Customize Every Button Press
The Steam Controller continues to be a thing that is not super comfortable for a lot of people, but that hits just the right spot for customization junkies. Valve’s regularly updated it since launch, and now it’s gotten one of its most ambitious updates yet. Activators, currently available on the controller’s beta client, allow you…
By Nathan Grayson Published June 17, 2016 -
UncategorizedPewdiepie Got Kicked Out of His Recording Studio For Being Too Loud [Updated]
YouTube’s biggest star is infamous for screaming over footage of video games, and while he makes some good money doing it, it seems that his neighbors don’t really appreciate his shitck at all. Actually, Pewdiepie says he is getting evicted from an apartment that he used as a recording studio over the noise he makes…
By Patricia Hernandez Published June 17, 2016 -
UncategorizedNine Cool Things I Did In Zelda: Breath of the Wild At E3
We ended this E3 the way we started, bygoing hands-on with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is direct feed footage of some cool moments that happened naturally as we played the game. Hunting, cooking, stealth attacks, wolf link and more. Tip: listen with headphones, because the sound…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 17, 2016