Kotaku: Animation

The Terror, and the Wonder, of a Street Fighter x Mario x Mortal Kombat Mashup

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:30:00 EST

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GI Joe. M. Bison. Cammy. The Mushroom Kingdom. Mortal Kombat. I'm 31, and what is this. More »

The Bats Vs. Jokerz War Pits Neighbor Against Neighbor

Mike Fahey — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:20:00 EDT

The battle between the vigilante Bats and the villainous Jokerz gets the DC Entertainment animation treatment in this short but sweet trailer for Gotham City Impostors. More »

There Were Worse Mario Cartoons Than the American One

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EDT

It has a certain nostalgic charm, yeah, but lets face it, the American Super Mario Bros. cartoons were pretty terrible. Poorly animated, poorly written, poorly voiced. More »

The Best Nintendo Downloadable This Week Isn't A Game At All

Mike Fahey — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EDT

Riding on a wave of WiiWare demos, word searchers, and puzzle games, this week's most intriguing downloadable offering comes from Flat Black Studios, the animation and software company behind the films Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. More »

Mega Man Can Totally Kick Starscream's Ass

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 06:15:00 EST

Because what you really need to get you through a Monday morning is a stop-motion video of Mega Man taking on a bunch of robots. Via ALBOTAS. More »

Remembering Possibly The Worst Thing Zelda Ever Did

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

Nearly every single Legend of Zelda video game is revered, if not as an all-time classic, then at least as a pretty good/good/great game. The franchise's one major departure onto TV screens? It was not good. Not at all. More »

How A Game Character Nearly Turned Up On A Star Wars Cartoon

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 04:00:00 EST

Revan, the star of Knights of the Old Republic, is a fairly popular character in Star Wars' expanded universe. So it's probably for the best that plans to include him in the woeful Clone Wars cartoon fell through. More »

Armed Camels and Cats Have Never Looked So Adorable, So Deadly

Brian Crecente — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:00:00 EST

Don't let the cats and camels fool you, Cat Shit One is not an animated series for the feint of heart. More »

How Dead Space 2 Tuned Its 'Meat Cello'

Owen Good — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:40:00 EST

Nearly a year ago, the Dead Space 2 production team crowdsourced one of the game's signature kill animations, in which the player and a necromorph are locked in combat. "Meat Cello," which you'll see when the game releases, was chosen. More »

The Day The Mario Bros. Saved George Bush, Democracy And America

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 EST

Despite the majority of their adventures taking place in the mythical Mushroom Kingdom, for one day in 1990, the Mario Bros. forgot about saving a princess and had to save the President of the United States instead. More »

Angry Birds Hurl Themselves At The Small Screen

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 04:30:00 EST

Angry Birds. It's the craze that's sweeping the nation. Well, many nations. And soon, it'll be the craze that's sweeping TV sets (or computer monitors), with an Angry Birds animated series on the way. More »

See Halo's Heroes Get Stabbed Over And Over And Over...

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 04:30:00 EST

Tom Saville, an animator at Bungie Studios, had a great job on Halo: Reach. He got to do all the stabbings. Here, then, is a highlight reel of his work. Which means it's two minutes of stabbings. More »

What If Pokémon Featured Real Animals And Tons Of Profanity

Mike Fahey — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:40:00 EST

The world of Pokémon is bright, colorful, and filled with joy and wonder, but what if we replaced those colorful pocket monsters with real animals, and the kind-spirited characters with foul-mouthed Brits? I think it would go something like this. More »

Kinect Can't Just Read Your Motions, It Can Capture Them Too

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 04:00:00 EST

We've already seen one way Microsoft's Kinect can be used to help bedroom game developers, but here's another, just as practical way: it can allow for home-grown motion capture. More »

When Quarters Attack Things Get Magical

Brian Crecente — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:00:00 EST

Before you scrutinize this video, sit back and absorb it. Take it for what it is said to be: An unbelievable stop-action ode to video games made entirely of quarters. More »

Russell, There Is No Badge For This

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:30:00 EST

All this time, we never knew Up was essentially a prequel to Joust. By Chad King, as seen on Super Punch. More »

How To Turn A Great Cartoon Into A Video Game

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:00:00 EST

Adventure Time is the best new cartoon I've seen in years. So it's nice to see that the first person putting down sketches on how a game adaptation would work is Pendleton Ward, the man who created the show. More »

Let's Hope Half-Life 3 Looks This Good

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 08:00:00 EST

While game studio Valve torture the world with a lack of updates to the Half-Life universe, animator James Benson has whipped up for kicks his own vision for an updated, improved Half-Life game. More »

Meet The Pixar Of Video Games

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EDT

When we play a great game, we know who to thank: the developers. But when we see a great game trailer, did you know that sometimes the developers had little or nothing to do with it? More »

Please, God, Let Somebody Make A Half-Life 2 Movie Like This

Luke Plunkett — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:30:00 EDT

This animated Half-Life 2 clip isn't your average piece of amateur machinima. It's a cinematic trailer put together by Marco Spitoni, who works at WETA, the guys behind the special effects for Lord of the Rings and District 9. More »

CGI Snooki Beats Obama With A Wine Bottle

Mike Fahey — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:20:00 EDT

Next Media Animation continues to make a game out of Taiwanese news, with a summation of trash TV show Jersey Shore that captures Snooki's true essence. More »

The Game Without Polygons Or Sprites

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:30:00 EDT

OK, there's a sprite or two in the mouse cursor. But that's about all you'll find in The Dream Machine, an adventure game made entirely out of "clay and cardboard". More »

My, Professor Layton, What A Lovely Big Box You Have

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:30:00 EDT

The Professor Layton animated film, which by all accounts is rather good, will be getting its first official Western release in the United Kingdom. And what a release it is! More »

The Legend Of Zelda Goes Lo-Fi

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:30:00 EDT

This Zelda clip is pretty primitive! Pretty childish, too. You may cite these as reasons for not liking it, but then, you'd be missing the point. More »

Blizzard Is The Pixar Of The Video Game World

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Pixar is the...Pixar of the animation world. But who's the Pixar of the video game business? Well, according to Pixar, two companies share that honour. More »

This Stop-Motion Animation Gets My Votive

Owen Good — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 22:30:00 EDT

Somehow this went to half-a-million YouTube views before I saw it. That's what happens when you upload it the Sunday before E3. Seriously, stick with it until 0:50, the Tetris representation is worth the price of admission. Which is free. More »

Heavy Rain's Cartoons Are Better Than Heavy Rain

Luke Plunkett — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 01:30:00 EDT

I liked Heavy Rain! Really liked it, actually. Funny thing is, I enjoyed the three short cartoons found within the game a lot more. More »

A Great Trailer For A Fake Game

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:00:00 EDT

This video, called Round 6, is for a video game that doesn't exist. It's simply a concept piece, done by an animation studio, with the aim of making "a high quality video game cinematic styled trailer". More »

Star Wars, Like You've Never Seen It Before

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:30:00 EDT

Star Wars games have often tried to paint the franchise in a different light, from Super Star Wars' over-abundance of bad guys to LEGO Star Wars' fondness of plastic dismemberment. But these animation shorts, these are different. More »

Halo Legends DVD Review: Ring Around The Halo Universe

Mike Fahey — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:20:00 EST

Delve deeper into the Halo Universe with seven animated shorts from acclaimed animation studios in Halo Legends. Does anime and Master Chief mix? More »

Re/Visioned Activision 2600 Classics Finally Arrive

Mike Fahey — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:20:00 EDT

In November of 2007, Gametap promised to continue their Re/Visioned animation series, with comic book talent taking on classic Atari 2600 games. Now those shorts have finally seen the light of day, and they're brilliant. More »

Dante's Inferno Getting Animated Movie

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:30:00 EDT

Like Dead Space before it, EA are serious enough about this "new intellectual property" thing with Dante's Inferno to go making cartoons. More »

The First 11 Minutes Of Resident Evil: Degeneration

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:30:00 EST

Click to view Above, the first eight minutes of the upcoming Resident Evil CGI feature film, Degeneration. You'll get eight minutes of backstory and build-up, along with a certain...understanding. See, at TGS, they had this running right next to Resident Evil 5, on a big screen. And Resident Evil 5 looked better. A lot better. The stiff, bulky characters and animation on show here look more like a pre-rendered cutscene for a PS2 game than a 21st-century animation film. Ah well. It has zombies, it's Resident Evil, people will love it. After the jump, the 3-minute conclusion to the above scene, age-gated because there are eat-the-flesh-of-the-living bits. Click to view More »

Dead Space: Downfall To Air On Encore Action Sunday

Mike Fahey — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:20:00 EDT

Did you love Dead Space, but not enough to shell out $15 for a DVD version of the animated film tie-in Dead Space: Downfall? Well if you receive Starz's Encore Action channel from your cable provider then you're in luck, as the full animated feature will be making its world television premier this Sunday, November 2nd, at 10PM Eastern and Pacific. More »

NBA 2K9 Introduces Living Rosters

Mike Fahey — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:40:00 EDT

The internet-enabled console age has been very, very good to sports gamers. Take 2K Sports' upcoming basketball title, NBA 2K9. They've just announced a Living Rosters feature for the title that will enable the game to download up-to-date statistics, player ratings, and player behaviors as the NBA season progresses. Nothing new, sure, but when you take into account the fact that they'll be releasing special animations for key players who breakout during the season you get something extremely close to awesome. More »

Metal Gear Solid: Cold Blooded

Mike Fahey — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Graham Cornell, Creative Director over at multimedia studio TheDuoGroup, directed us to this amazing animated Metal Gear Solid short his company created. Did you ever stop to think about how the enemies that Big Boss and Solid Snake see their nemesis? Cold Blooded explores this in the form of a brief encounter in 1972 that Captain Mikhail Tarasov calls "The Margov Incident." The short is just so beautifully done, and at the end I felt an odd sort of pride at being briefly in control of such an absolute bad-ass. Very, very nice work Graham. More »

Kings of Power 4 Billion % Due Next Week

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:20:00 EST

Australia's favourite son, Paul Robertson, will be releasing his new animated flick, Kings of Power 4 Billion % next week. Don't know Paul Robertson? This might help jog your memory. If it doesn't, the words Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight might. Trailer's above, and if you feel like joining me in feverishly counting down the days, please, be my guest. More »

Castlevania Animated Movie: The Goat Fucking Stays In The Picture

Michael McWhertor — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:40:00 EST

Warren Ellis, salty-tongued screenwriter for the who-knows-when animated film based on Castlevania III, updated his production blog on the subject recently, indicating that things are moving along quite well. Very well, actually, as the folks at Konami didn't seem to blush at the more mature themes of Ellis' screenplay. Dialogue about the sexual violation of a goat? Cool. Lots of bad language? Just peachy, it seems. Ellis and company's plans for "a film for adults" look like they're shaping up. More »