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mgs4

War for Profit in MGS4

Plenty of high praise has flowed to Metal Gear Solid 4, but N'Gai Croal offers a different take in his latest posting over on Level Up. The game, like others, makes timely use of Private Military Corporations (read: mercenaries) to create an environment players want to explore and a story they want to advance. But MGS4's true point lies in its "war economy," which governs or responds to the choices made by players.

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10:00 AM on Sun Jun 8 2008
By Owen Good
14,453 views, 148 comments

reviews

Exclusive Reviews: Ethically Troubling?

Variety's Ben Fritz thinks so. Provoked by IGN's 10/10 rating of Grand Theft Auto IV, he draws a line that seems to connect "exclusive" first-crack reviews of games and superior, almost historic ratings (as is the case in GTA IV.)

For example, Game Informer gave Mass Effect a near-perfect 9.75 out of 10, while citing many problems that might otherwise lead to a lower score (and the fact Ben himself doesn't think it even comes close, but never mind that.) Without passing judgment on GTA IVs 10/10ness, he thinks that exclusive reviews are "ethically troubling" at minimum.

"But how can we trust a videogame review when the outlet running it has been given a major commercial favor — one that's worth money — from the publisher of the game? You never see a paper or TV station getting special access from a movie studio or TV network or book publisher to run an "exclusive review." Imagine the L.A. Times or Roger Ebert touting their "exclusive review of 'Iron Man.'" Absurd, right? So why do we tolerate it for a videogame?"
For the record, Ben says he never labels a review exclusive. Neither do we.

Exclusive Reviews are Ethically Troubling [The Cut Scene]

5:00 PM on Sun Apr 27 2008
By ogood
9,182 views, 122 comments

commentary

The Cake Goes To Portal's Commentary

The best part of Orange Box's Portal is, without a doubt, playing it. But the optional developer commentary comes in a close second. For those of you who've played the game but not taken the time to walk through the levels and click on the cleanly-interfaced word bubbles, we urge you to. Consider it the equivalent of a DVD commentary, but with the directors explaining how they subtly manipulated your perception instead of some actor's coke habit. You'll feel like the luckiest lab rat in town. But Portal got us wondering, why don't more games include commentaries? More »

1:40 PM on Wed Nov 7 2007
By Mark Wilson
7,954 views, 82 comments

Latest by n/a: I totally agree that the commentary mode is great. I love me some DVD commentary too - I guess it's just seeing behind the scenes at what was done to achieve something as difficult as a good game is so more »

hee!

GalCiv 2: An Epic Battle

The Bongolian Deathcrab. The USS You Are All So Boned. 17 days of Galactic Civilizations II, and a really, really funny (if longish) running commentary to go with it. More »

3:30 PM on Sat May 19 2007
By Maggie Greene
2,686 views, 21 comments

uwe boll

Uwe Boll's Alone In The Dark Commentary

What more could we possibly add? Although Uwe's right: Tara Reid does look intelligent with those glasses! FLORIAN ECKHARDT

1:00 AM on Tue Jun 6 2006
By brownlee
304 views, 9 comments

valve

Half-Life 2: Episode 1 Preloading Soon

Half-Life 2: Episode 1 preloads are right around the corner. From Valve themselves: More »
commentary

Wait, What Does "Next-Gen" Exactly Mean?

This is embarrassing. I don't know what "next-gen" refers to. Several times a week, I type those two little words into this website, and read it even more times. Yet, I'm clueless. More »

12:20 PM on Tue Jan 10 2006
By Brian Ashcraft
294 views, 11 comments

commentary

Are We Really in the Next-Gen?

Keith Stuart of The Guardian wonders if all of this "Next Gen" talk is getting out of hand. After all, some of this year's biggest games Zelda, MGS4 and Vision Gran Turismo are all sequels to long-standing franchises. Stuart's not impressed. More »

12:40 PM on Fri Jan 6 2006
By lsmith
98 views, 14 comments

graphics

More Writers Wary of Plastic-y Graphics

Josh Korr, a games reviewer for the St. Petersburg Times echoes Clive Thompson's concerns with the Xbox 360 and its character models. They look so, well fake, in some cases. Korr calls it the Jar Jar effect, (citing the plastic appearance of the character in the Star Wars prequels as evidence). Korr points out that Binks lacked the "mass, physics and details of a living thing" and feels similarly about the Xbox 360's early characters. We've all seen Gears of War footage by now, those guys don't look plastic-y and their giant suits definitely have some weight to them. Remember, the original Xbox didn't really hit its stride visually until the last 50 percent of its lifecycle - we need to give the developers a little time to craft and create. More »

10:40 AM on Wed Jan 4 2006
By lsmith
152 views, 4 comments

Latest by Torokun: Since everyone is treating Normal mapping as the hottest thing in the game industry, you will have to deal with the stupid plastic look for a while. Not only that in order to emphasize the normal mapping, they bump more »

year in review

Five Trends from 2005

Over at Game Girl Advance they've published a year-end write-up of their own. There are no "game of the year" choices here. Instead, they choose to look at the biggest trends of '05. Their top five? "Sex and Games" (ooh, Hot Coffee, it burns), "Wireless Online Gaming", "There's Room for Both of Us" (the DS and PSP can coexist), "Console Indie Development" and Gamers Fight Back Against Critics. More »

10:00 AM on Fri Dec 30 2005
By lsmith
62 views, Comment

commentary

The 12 Days of Gaming

Tom Loftus put together the 12 Days of Gaming (totally not singable) over at MSNBC, and in addition to being a superb wrap up of the year in gaming, is also a pretty clever idea (I wish I'd thought of it). Here at Kotaku, we're not all "bah humbug," just Ashcraft - but I think it's the jet lag. More »

2:21 PM on Thu Dec 22 2005
By lsmith
28 views, Comment

commentary

K.K. Slider is Not the Mouthpiece for an Agenda

The New York Times tracked down Perrin Kaplan to talk to her about the mouthy K.K. Slider. Kaplan assures everyone that Animal Crossing's K.K. Slider does not have an anti-music industry agenda. "People can read a lot into a little," Kaplan said, "but musician K.K. Slider — a guitar-playing cartoon dog — is saying only that he's a free spirit who cannot be bought and sold for any amount of money." He's like Neil Young, I guess. More »

2:00 PM on Mon Dec 19 2005
By lsmith
275 views, 4 comments

Latest by Ravidrath: Just wrote this and sent it to the Times. It's not a bad article in general, but I don't like the journalistic liberties the mainstream media takes with games - it seems like the only area they have zero knowledge more »

gift guide

A Love Letter to Sega's Football Manager

David Willis has a pretty descriptive look at Sega's Football Manager series and the addictions it creates over at Great Reporter. FYI, this isn't American Football, this is European Football, he's talking about - but reading the article it sounds like the same sort of obsession American men go through with their fantasy football teams. For those who haven't had a chance to play Football Manager the 2006 version is coming to both Xbox 360 and Sony's PSP this spring. More »

1:59 PM on Mon Nov 28 2005
By lsmith
67 views, Comment