Tomb Raider: Underworld Trailer, and Release Date

The House Of The Dead EX Is All About Zombie Love And Mini-Games

Zombie romance, zombie bowling, zombie rock and roll — all key components of the next The House of the Dead. At least, that's what we can glean from Sega's whacked out promo flyer for The House of the Dead EX, a more comedic, more casual spin-off for the light gun series that brings with a foot pedal a la Time Crisis and a whole mess of crazy. Looks like some of the games in The House of the Dead EX will require just the gun, with others, like bat-thing riding requiring the use of the pedal.

Honestly, we have no idea what's going on here yet, but we like Sega has tossed on an off-kilter anime style to the whole thing. We actually liked the cel-shaded The House of the Dead III and were crushed when Sega nixed it for a more photorealistic look.

Sega is showing off the new arcade light-gun shooter at the Sega Private Show in Japan and we're anxiously awaiting more details.

House of the Dead EX [AM-net]

Nintendo's Geeks and Otaku Statement Pisses Off Jaffe

David Jaffe is pissed. Nothing new, I know. But this time he's pissed about the same thing a lot of other people are pissed about: Nintendo's Geek and Otaku statement.

At a Euro press event earlier this week a Nintendo PR person, flustered by a question about storage space on the Wii, starting talking about "how “geeks and otaku” were the only people who would want this issue addressed."

If true, Jaffe says, it's a sign of either Nintendo's unbridled arrogance or the cluelessness of a single PR person.

YOU SHIT ON MY HOUSE!!! YOU SHIT ON MY HOUSE!!! [David Jaffe]

I woke this morning to find Kotaku at a crossroads, one peopled with a mob. It seems there's a decision to be made: Do we want Kotaku to be represented by the chatter of a thousand voices, people trying to be heard over one another, many not stopping to think before they talk. Or do we want to cull the crowd, reduce the noise so our many intelligent readers can still be heard over the roar and those who speak take the time to think, to read before doing so.

It's disheartening to think that it has come to this, that unless we're talking about the relatively safe topics of consoles and their direct by-products there can't be intelligent discourse on Kotaku. And I don't understand how we've arrived here.

Welcome readers to the new face of Kotaku, a site rededicated to the minute coverage of all things Game Cake. It was a long time coming, but over the years we've noticed that while sites like GameSpot, IGN and 1Up voluminously cover the video game industry, little time is spent on that sweetest of tangents, the artful Game Cake.

No more will we waste your time by detailing the movements of game company CEOs, revealing early the secrets of consoles and developers alike, instead we will work to push Game Caking to the frosty heights it so richly deserves.

Expect in the weeks, months, years to come detailed secrets on the people behind the cakes you know and love, tips on how to prepare your own Game Cakes and nuanced features on the inner machinations of some of bakings greatest.

As always we will strive to stay in front of the pack, covering the game cake industry as both an outsider. Some might argue that all Game Cakes need is a cold glass of milk, but we at Kaketaku knows it needs some hard-nosed journalism.... too.

Kaketaku

The tech Easter Bunnies have been secretly hard at work this week, rolling out today Star Commenting.

You may have already noticed the stars that have begun appearing next to posts by certain commenters. This is a way for readers to quickly scan the comments on a page and stop at comments that are likely to be of high quality. Commenters get star status when they have a large number of followers. We can also reward especially elucidating commenters with a gold star. It's so elementary school, I love it!

Now we need to come out with the opposite of a star. Oh right we already have that, it's called the ban hammer.

House of the Dead 2 & 3 Gameplay

Hate Your Weekends? Love your Kotaku?

It's weekend number two sans-Flynn and we're still in search of a Weekend Editor.

If you're interested in giving up your weekends for a chance to run things at Kotaku Towers when almost no other writers are around, then look no further. We're looking for a solid writer who also has excellent news judgment and a love of the video game bizarre.

If you're genuinely interested, have the time, the patience and the skill, then drop me an email with a run down of your experience, some writing samples and a convincing argument why I should hire you. Keep in mind that I'll probably be getting a lot of these and I'm extraordinarily picky, so you better make it good.

:)

Personally, I think Kotaku is at least 99.9 percent gold. I'd like to think we are, in fact filler free. I do know for a fact that all of Kotaku writers, myself included, only post the stuff they find interesting. But the fact is we do a crapload of posts in a given day. A fact I'm sure you are well aware of if you're a Kotaku regular. Not only do we post a story every 20 minutes on the site during the day, we have our night crew who slave away on the site while the sun is in the other hemisphere.

Keeping up for some can be quite a drag. So we created the day and night notes. Not only does this allow Ash and I to communicate with one another, but it gives us both a chance to point out some of the best stories of our shift.

But that still might not be what you're looking for. So here's another solution, the master list to all of our tagged RSS feeds. That's right every single tag we use on the site, from 1080p to Zune, has its one RSS feed. Go hog wild, but don't come complaining to me when you miss a feature on Objectivism on BioShock or us breaking the news that Peter Moore quit Microsoft.

RSS Feeds Master List [Kotaku]

Hey You Got Your Video In My Comments

Sexy! Now you can post video clips in your comments. Unfortunately, this only works with Youtube links (and I despise Youtube), but it's still pretty neat and has great potential for abuse. To make it work just drop the link into your comment and a patented blend of pixie dust and virgin blood will turn it into a playable clip. We're still in beta so make sure to point out when it doesn't work... in comments.

Don't Blame Uwe, Blame Games

A lot of video games have no story. I did the movie House of the Dead and got bashed and I said, what were you expecting, Schindler's List? I showed zombies chasing people and this is basically what the movie delivers. I don't know what they were expecting if you make a movie based on an ego shooter where you kill ninety minutes of people non-stop.

House of Dead 2 & 3 Return Bundle Going Japanside

Despite beating both games countless times in arcades, this The House of the Dead 2 and 3 Return bundle may be reason enough to pick up a Wii Zapper. Featuring two of Sega's famous shooters, the newly announced pack will include the already announced games along with Nintendo's newest Zapper casing for about $44 when it's released this March in Japan. Here's hoping the bundle makes its way stateside, since the game alone is currently priced at about $40. For $4, the Wii Zapper doesn't look all that bad (or difficult to stuff into my entertainment center).

HotD 2 & 3 Zapper bundle coming to Japan [via gonintendo]

Win a Wii... and a House... and a Car... Wait, WHAT?!

Just a little heads up to those of you who read Digg and Kotaku and maybe have seen the "Kotaku steals photos" story floating around out there. Here's the full story.

The owner of a site we linked to a few months back, also using a cropped version of their pic, emailed me yesterday to let me know we had used his pictures without his permission or authorization.

I sent the info on to HQ and then headed out to spend the rest of the day setting up for our Child's Play fund raiser in Denver. Hours into the fund raiser, the emails starting rolling in pointing out the story that, I can only assume, the site owner had written, saying we had stolen his images.

This morning I got a hold of the site owner and we were able to resolve the issue. Now back to nursing my Child's Play fund raiser hang over.

This isn't news. This isn't about gaming... not really.

After three weeks of Australian-flavored vacationing I'm back, well at least in mind I'm back. I'm actually still here in Australia for another couple of weeks, hanging out with my in-laws on the Central Coast, north of Sydney.

It's been a fun, and fruitful vacation. I managed to finally take up surfing, taking lessons from a surfer just south of Surfers Paradise. Never mind that he had to tow me out past the breakers the second day of lessons because I was shot, I still managed to catch some big waves, something I've always wanted to do.

The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return for the Wii is no longer a rumor, as Sega has officially announced the collection for a Spring 2008 release. The Zapper-ready arcade port promises to offer "the full arcade experience of battling hordes of rabid zombies in the comfort of their homes." Surely a port of Typing of the Dead with USB keyboard support can't be far behind, can it?

Pray for it while perusing the official news release after the jump.

House of the Dead Series Shuffling To Wii

Ghost Squad may not be the only arcade light gun shooter Sega plans to refit for the Wii Zapper, as Go Nintendo has uncovered a listing for House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return at rental service Gamefly. We can fairly safely assume that this will bring both The House of the Dead 2, based on the Sega Naomi hardware, and The House of the Dead III, originally for the Sega Chihiro hardware. The two titles have made console appearances on the Dreamcast and Xbox, respectively, but have never been bundled before.

At this point, Sega has made no official announcements about such a collection, but Gamefly's track record of spoiling announcements has been fairly solid so far. As a superfan of The House of the Dead 2, I am cautiously optimistic, hoping that I'll get the Wii opportunity to give the shotgun-heavy The House of the Dead III a second chance.

House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return [Gamefly via Go Nintendo]

Commenting Borked

No, we don't hate you. But apparently the Ghost in the Kotaku Machine does. Over the past week or so the servers apparently gained some form of sentience and become the Kotaku Kollective, arbitrarily banning commenters on its own. Perhaps this new gaming hive mind has a greater plan in store for us, one that mere editors and writers can't fathom. But have no worries—as we speak, gritty techs are working their way through the needless maze of saw blades, flame throwers and pit falls to get to the center of the servers and "fix" the rebel bug. So, if you've been banned after one or no comments recently, and that comment wasn't something like "not news", there's a good chance that it was Steve (That's what I've decided to call our server.) and he's being dealt with.