Kotaku

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2: The Kotaku Review

3 years 8 months ago

Let’s just get this out of the way: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is a masterpiece. In perfectly mimicking the iconic skateboarding series’ first two outings, this remaster gives me everything I could ever want out of a game. I am dumbfounded by there somehow being something so good and pure in the world.

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Author
Ian Walker

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VVVVVV’s Old-School Chiptunes Are Flippin' Fantastic

3 years 8 months ago

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. VVVVVV was one of the top indie games of 2010, and its tremendous soundtrack played no small part in elevating the already-great material.

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Author
Alexandra Hall

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An Iconic Osaka Symbol Is Now Gone

3 years 8 months ago

One of the most iconic symbols of Osaka is the fugu (blowfish) paper lantern that hangs over the city’s Shinsekai area. This week, the lantern was taken down as the restaurant it advertises will close.

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Author
Brian Ashcraft

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The fall movie season begins with Tenet, Mulan, and a Charlie Kaufman mindbender

3 years 8 months ago

Despite the dangers that enclosed spaces still pose, movie theaters have begun to reopen in America. As a result, a few films will brave a theatrical release this September—beginning this week, in fact, with Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, which is already playing in multiplexes and at a few drive-ins across the country.…

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A.A. Dowd, Katie Rife, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Jesse Hassenger, and William Hughes on Film, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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The Division 2 Is Getting A 100-Story Skyscraper Mode

3 years 8 months ago

One of the most common criticisms of The Division 2—at least in terms of its game design—is its lack of a repeatable but varied endgame mode. That would be something that players of the urban third-person shooter could keep returning to for a fresh experience. The first Division had been expanded to offer two of them:…

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Author
Stephen Totilo

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Video Game "Walk Cycles" Are Just The Best

3 years 8 months ago

A “walk cycle” is the part of video game animation that covers the most basic, default movement of your character. It’s maybe the thing you see the most in a game alongside a HUD, and as such might also be something you take for granted! Today, let’s not take them for granted.

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Author
Luke Plunkett

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How Three Pairs of TCL Headphones Stack Up, Including One From the Legendary Onkyo Brand

3 years 8 months ago

When TCL tossed three pairs of headphones and earbuds into a box and shipped them to my doorstep, I was excited for a Loot Crate-style look at the lineup it hopes will garner respect in the personal audio world. My “haul” consisted of the true wireless SOCL500 earbuds, some on-ears with active noise cancellation in…

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Quentyn Kennemer on The Inventory, shared by Gabe Carey to Kotaku

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Here's The Not-E3 2020 Press Conference Schedule

3 years 8 months ago

Just because E3 2020 is canceled doesn’t mean everything developers were going to show there has suddenly disappeared. While no digital version of E3 is in the works, other companies and organizations have stepped up with their own virtual events to deliver news on their latest plans and upcoming games.

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Author
Ethan Gach

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I Wish The Wheelchair-Using Inhuman In Marvel's Avengers Did More

3 years 8 months ago

As a wheelchair user I applaud Crystal Dynamics for going out of its way to include a wheelchair-using character in Marvel’s Avengers. It’s heartening to see someone with a disability taking part in the grand battle between good and evil. I just wish Cerise had more to do than just scoot back and forth in place.

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Author
Mike Fahey

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Upcoming Indie Game Nour: Play With Your Food Wants To Make You Hungry

3 years 8 months ago

At the elementary school lunch table, after I was finished with my chicken nuggets or whatever else the cafeteria had served up for the day, my friends and I would mix all our leftovers together. We’d use empty milk cartons as the vessel for our alchemical experiments, throwing in whatever we weren’t eating anymore to…

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Author
Ash Parrish

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Here’s How Microtransactions Work In Marvel’s Avengers

3 years 8 months ago

Ever since Marvel’s Avengers was revealed to be an endless online game, a la Destiny, prospective players have wondered about potential microtransactions, and just how bad they are. To just be out with it: Yes, there are microtransactions in Marvel’s Avengers. No, you can’t pay your way to a superpowered character…

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Author
Ari Notis

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Crusader Kings III, As Told By Steam Reviews

3 years 8 months ago

If you want to know if a game is good or bad, you read its Steam reviews—except in the case of Crusader Kings III. If you want to hear a whooooooooole lot about incest within dynastic families, then you read Steam reviews of Crusader Kings III.

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Author
Nathan Grayson

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Dead Birds, Missing Drugs, and Lost Human Remains: USPS Workers Blame a 'Manufactured Crisis'

3 years 8 months ago

When Ella’s monthly supply of modafinil didn’t arrive in the mail in late August, she wasn’t sure what to do. They’re not like the pills she takes for her allergies or her blood pressure. “Without it, I might not be able to get up for three days,” she said. A 65-year-old on a fixed income, Ella has normocytic anemia…

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Dell Cameron on Gizmodo, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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UN Calls for Investigation Into Trump’s Arctic Drilling Plan, Citing Likely Human Rights Abuses

3 years 8 months ago

The Trump administration’s plan to lease Alaska’s coastal plain for oil and gas drilling has hit a tiny snag: It could be a human rights violation. The United Nations is calling for an investigation into whether the policy violates the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination…

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Dharna Noor on Earther, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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The New Mutants Is a Fitting Final Act for Fox's X-Men Franchise

3 years 8 months ago

The New Mutants is a curious quagmire of a film that’s been defined by “what ifs” from the moment it was announced five years ago. What if it followed Apocalypse’s example and dragged the X-Men cinematic franchise further into the gutter? What if it somehow managed to be good? What if The New Mutants actually lived up…

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Charles Pulliam-Moore on io9, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku

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Gyruss Remixed Bach, Then NES Remixed Gyruss

3 years 8 months ago

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’re checking out Gyruss, which impressed early arcade-goers with its switched-on Bach, then sounded even better on the NES and its Japan-only disk add-on.

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Author
Alexandra Hall

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Xbox Is Coming Back To The Tokyo Game Show, But Without Next-Gen News

3 years 8 months ago

In years past, Microsoft had massive Xbox booths at the Tokyo Game Show, going head to head with the likes of Sony. But, as it turns out, Japanese gamers aren’t really into Xbox! So, as well as missing the 2012 show, Microsoft really went M.I.A. starting in 2015. Now that this year’s TGS is virtual, Microsoft is back.

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Author
Brian Ashcraft

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