Kotaku

TGS Booth Babe March, Brought to you By Microsoft

Every night as the 5 p.m. hour winds around and the show begins to wrap up, the speakers begin to pump out an orchestral version of Auld Lang Syne. Each booth gathers its companions to parade them around their booth for a final goodbye to the show's attendees. Some marches feature mascots, some feature bows, but all of them feature oodles of companions.

Weekend Note: Sony Guts! Pt. II

To: Luke? Bash? Crecente? Oh, God — Fahey?
From: Owen

I have no idea to whom I am handing off this shift. Half of Kotaku is posting from the future, thanks to TGS. The rest, well, we're making it up as we go along. We really could use some advice. Me in particular. Not about the editorial stuff, I mean personal things.

Some might remember two weeks ago that I threw down a grand on the CEO's desk to take a 47-inch flat panel TV and a 20GB PS3 off my company's hands. Well, he came back on Friday and said they need $1,250. Bear in mind, this is a startup, I love my job, everyone's friends with everyone else, and considering subprime lenders are going belly up before they can foreclose on debtors living in refrigerator boxes under an overpass, I'd rather not jeopardize my job security there. But, real negotiation begins at the counter-offer, I always say. First, the highlights:

Super Big Let's TGS Round-Up
This Is What Those Guys Were Watching
'Next-Gen Audio Square-Off': PS3 versus 360
Invade Stormwind? You and What Arm— oh, That One
Cosplay Alley: The Other Side Of The Lens
Hands On With Diablo III: Everything Old Is New Again
Street Fighter IV Booth Punches The Competition In The Face
Gaffer's Gears 2 Leak Pics Include Free (sur)prize

Dead Space and Saints Row 2 are this week's highly anticipated AAA-drops, coming out on Tuesday. Age of Booty for XBLA (Wednesday) and Thursday (PSN) is the DLC highlight. Sports fans get Blitz: The League II on Monday and FIFA Soccer 09 on five platforms on Tuesday. I've gotta be a little more strategic about my rentals, so I might take a peek at Saints Row 2; Dead Space I may not buy this week just for the backlog, but it'll definitely be on my screen sometime soon. What about yours? Full list on the jump.

Those Tecmo girls? Sure, they were easy on the eye, but flashing skin is so cheap. And cheap is something Konami are just not interested in. At least when it comes to booth companions. Instead, the company that wishes they could release Metal Gear Solid 4 every year kept things a little classier, opting for this classic number that sits somewhere between naughty nurse and 50's flight attendant.

Insidious Tuna sent this along. I swear I've seen it somewhere before, but apparently not on Kotaku. This game has a very simple premise and a very difficult opponent — your own patience. My only advice to you is that, after you click to start the level, any movement of your mouse, click, or key strike fires the gun. This game should be used at business leadership conferences, because it would definitely show who was the hypercompetitive, win-everything-at-all-costs guy in the crowd. I got to level 7 before I just had to fool with it and kill the puppy. But I'm thinking I could beat this game if I had a good book to read in the meantime.

Sorry about the lame screengrab. I couldn't get actual gameplay, for reasons that will become obvious.

Don't Shoot the Puppy [rrrrthats5rs.com]

"Do yourself a favor when you get the game," writes Ben Kuchera at Ars Technica. "Make the room as dark as possible. Turn the sound system up. Allow yourself to be swept away in it."

"The game is scary," Kuchera says definitively. "You're having a good time, and then BAM! Something happens and you jump out of your seat."

You folks know me, I've been sweet on Dead Space for a while now, but I am not sure I can bring myself to play it in pitch black darkness. I blame my timidity on a conspiracy in my childhood involving Steven Spielberg, who made Poltergeist, Jack Valenti, the MPAA chief who rated it PG when Spielberg bitched and moaned about an R; and my father, for encouraging me to watch it, giving me insomnia for a week solid and turning every slightly scary flick since then into a pants-shitting experience.

I'll play Dead Space between 11 am and 3 pm, thank you. With someone else running the controller, so I can yell "No! Not in there! Don't go in there!" and actually have the character on the screen take my advice.

Is Dead Space Scary? Yes. [Ars Technica]

Fun and the Future: Masaya Matsuura on Gaming Today

High Voltage Announces WiiWare Racer

Still not having a publisher for The Conduit doesn't mean High Voltage can't work on other things, such as the above High Voltage Hot Rod Show a WiiWare title due out sometime before the end of the year. Crazy action, don't-give-a-shit physics and a Dukes of Hazzard air horn make this look good for a few laughs among friends. You can have up to four races simultaneous in split-screen mode. Let's see Mr. 36-Man Warcraft dude take on that.

High Voltage Announces New WiiWare Racer [Nintendo Wii Fanboy]