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Mario Faces The Final Boss

Better get to that super star real quick. Before that sneaky Thwomp gets there, preferably. Grosnez is a professional illustrator from France, and this is a fantastic piece of Mario fanart. Not much else to say there. There’s a few more gaming -related pieces from Grosnez below; his DeviantArt gallery has more pics, mostly in…

Activision Hires Former ESPN Boss To Run New eSports Division

The company behind Call of Duty and World of Warcraft is starting a new eSports division. Activision Blizzard announced the move today, vowing in a press release to come up with “all-new ways to deliver the best-in-class fan experience across games, platforms and geographies.” The division will be headed by two industry veterans: Major League…

Modded Halo 5 Xbox One Covers Itself in Battle Armor

In honor of Halo 5: Guardians’ impending release, Vadu Amka, Belgian purveyor of excellent custom consoles, has crafted a Halo-themed Xbox One—his first current-gen console mod, in fact. The console box, which is covered in a battered-looking metally design, will actually be given away at a local launch event for Halo 5. Says Amka: In…

As our overseas buddies at Kotaku UK note, PS4s are having their price dropped in Europe and Australia, following earlier price cuts in North America and Japan. Going forward, a 500GB PS4 will cost £300 in the UK (down £50), €350 in Europe (down €50), and $480 AUD in Australia (down $70 AUD).

In its latest annual earnings report, Square Enix talks about revitalizing its lineup by taking “IP developed for earlier game consoles and [recreating] it for the latest consoles, while also developing versions for play on smart devices.” The company also mentions plans to explore “VR and other new platforms.”

Happy 20th Birthday to Terranigma, the SNES RPG America Missed Out On

On October 20, 1995, Enix released Quintet’s Tenchi Sōzō, a spiritual followup to their earlier ARPG Gaia Gensōki, or Illusion of Gaia, in Japan. Nintendo localized and published the game as Terranigma in Europe and Australia—but unlike Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma never officially made it to North America. Terranigma was, at its core, a dungeon-crawling…

Start Off Monday With Some Blocky Snacks

The blocky sushi and blocky salad are both sublime. To enjoy them, all you need is a copy of Minecraft These were made using MrCrayfish’s Model Creator, by a minecrafter named VanillaBurp, in about a week and a half. There’s thirteen food items in total, and since the models are included in the map file,…

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII should be out on PC in December, according to a recent message on the development team’s official Twitter. The port, the tweet says, is currently getting some finishing touches, with the team promising to share more info soon.

A Dark Souls Poster with Some Familiar Faces

See if you can spot your favorite character. Or least favorite. Since, y’know. Dark Souls. The poster, called “Prepare to Die,” can be seen in its full glory here: It was drawn by Shane Hillman, an illustrator from Canada, who wanted to do a poster featuring his own favorite Dark Souls characters—or at least some…

Charmander is Bigger Than I Remembered

Looking at Pokémon on a tiny handheld screen messes with your perception, I guess. Maybe watching the anime would’ve helped. In any case, this lifesize (ie. 22 inches tall) Charmander was lovingly handcrafted by Nazegoreng, a plushie maker from Australia. It’s not the first Pokémon she’s made. Before we look at a few more, here’s…

That’s One Pissed-Off Simon Belmont

Wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that Vampire Killer. Even if it’s solid stone and doesn’t move. The most famous vampire hunter is the latest subject to be expensive-polystone-statue-ized by First 4 Figures, with a design based on the cover art for the first game: The 20-inch tall piece, available early next…

Minecraft Player’s Pretty Good at Castles

This looks way way way better than my castles, which are basically stone blocks with teeth. It’s why I mostly stick to the tried-and-true Crappy Wooden Rectangle™ houses nowadays. Anyway, this pretty castle. It was built by Xidus933, who’s submitted several castles to r/minecraft in the past—this being the most recent and most well-received. Xidus…

Tiny Pokémon Fit on your Fingertip

Very cute but probably very easy to lose. Better not drop them. Or take them near couches. These polymer clay sculptures were created by Ruby Huang, AKA Lonelysouthpaw. She likes to make clay fanart, basically, sometimes selling the results through Etsy. Apart from these Pokémon, which she recently started uploading on Instagram under the #pinkymon…

Our Favorite Games From September

Kotaku tries a lot of games, both good and bad. This list contains all the good ones we played last month. Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer Patricia tried to break the new Animal Crossing by designing the ugliest houses possible. She didn’t succeed, but she had a great time. You can buy the game for…

Darth Vader Is Pretty Good at Unreal Engine 4 Demos

He’s chillin’ in some winter ruins, havin’ a good time. CryZENx, the creator of this demo, which is the latest in a series of pretty UE4 demos featuring random characters, obtained the Vader model from SoulCalibur 4, then did the model rigging and cloth animations while importing in the engine. The model was then placed…

Being a Cardboard Box Sure Looks Fun

And the game itself isn’t called Box Simulator, to boot. That’s a definite plus. Unbox, as it’s known, is an Unreal Engine 4 game about being a self-delivering (ie. live) cardboard box (via Screenshot Daily). It’ll be out on PC next year, featuring a single-player campaign based around physics platforming, and split-screen local multiplayer modes…

Mass Effect Gets Its Own Theme Park Ride

Following Ubisoft’s announcement of their new Malaysian theme park earlier this month, now, we’ve got Bioware talking about a Mass Effect-themed attraction in a US theme park. Smaller in scope, sure, but at least it’s close by. The ride, which will debut at California’s Great America in 2016, is said to be a “dynamic 3D…

Minecraft Can Now Do In-Game Tutorials

Visually, this Minecraft map is nothing fancy, but it does demonstrate how the game could be used as a teaching tool. The map’s the result of a collaboration between Marc Watson, who works at Mojang, and Dragnoz, a renowned Minecraft builder. Here’s Marc explaining the goal of their map: This map is a simple demonstration…

A Spectacular Minecraft Rant About Boats

Boats in Minecraft, due to their durability (or lack thereof), have been nigh impossible (or at least highly aggravating) to use on anything but the open sea for years now. One player took to Reddit to vent a bit on the matter. And thank goodness he did. Redditor AllPurposeNerd wrote down his thoughts in a…

Drawing a 3D Samus Looks Like a Tough Job

But the end result is totally worth it. The drawing was done in chalk by Denver-based artist Chris Carlson, who specializes in 3D pieces like these. He’s got a lot more of them over at his website Here’s the finished piece, in its full glory: And a making-of timelapse vid, which the above GIF is…