If someone were to post naked pictures of me on the Internet, I'm not sure if the word "tribute" would be the first to come to mind. But if that someone were Playboy, and that Internet were Playboy magazine, maybe I would feel differently (don't worry, I'm joking and would never do anything to hurt pornography). See the KSFW but probably NSFW promo pics after the jump (you pervs).

Just Kidding.

Playboy's Annual Girls of Video Games [via n4g]

My reason for quitting last time was that I was bored with the game and questing had become very tedious. So something needed to be changed or else I would not be able to play the game for a long period of time. So I looked at the game for some time, trying to figure out a way to make this interesting to me again. Some kind of challenge that I could do to make the game difficult. My biggest complaint was that the game was too easy. So I really wanted to make the game hard so I could not get bored while playing.

I chose to play through the entire game without armor.

Thus began the Naked Troll Project, the work of Juffowup-formerly-Jumba, currently residing on Mal'Ganis and chilling at level 60. Brother, I commend thee.

Juffowup played through levels 0 to 60 without a stitch of clothing, aside from a brief period in his youth where he wore gloves and boots. And I'm proud of him. I wonder how many copycat feats this will spawn, and of what variety. 0 to 60 while actually naked has already been done, I'm sure. 0 to 60 while continually jumping is fairly common. 0 to 60 without killing anything would be a good one. Yeah, do that! Then email me. Eliza Gauger

The Naked Troll Project [Blogger, via Digg]

What you see before you is a sketch Playboy put together for November's issue (on stands next week) which features the annual Playboy's Women of Videogames 2006 spread. The magazine will also feature a look at the state of the video game industry. The six-pages of gaming content include a 2-page foldout, final version of what you see above.

This particular sketch, given to us by Pboy editor Scott Alexander, was used to block the shot before the final renders were done. The image shows eight women from seven games. The cool thing is that all of the art you are looking out, be it pencil or final 3D render, was done by the various game studios. Playboy then melded all of the art into one two-page shot.

This image, showing the different stages of the creative process, is exclusive to Kotaku. No one else has it and no one else is getting it.

And now the run down. From left to right: Sarah Morrison of Tabula Rasa, two of the Femmes Fatale from Scarface (the third from left didn't make the final cut, her name is Jessica McRae), two women from God of War 2, a very preliminary version of Alicia Claus from Bulletwitch, Dr. Jasmine Lin from Timeshift, and Enrica from Splinter Cell Double Agent.

As a special treat, I got Fleshbot to agree to post the unedited version of the photo on their site a little later on tonight. I'll update once it's up. Brian Crecente

Sneak Peek Playboy's Women of Video Games [NSFW, Fleshbot]