Brian Crecente

The Ghostbusters Coming to PSP

Ghostbusters: The Videogame will be arriving on the Playstation Portable, Playstation 2 and Wii, according to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board update for the game. We knew the game was coming to the Wii and Playstation 2, but the Playstation Portable seems like a bit of a surprise. Though, given the multiplatform nature of the…

Wii Fit Says April Fools

This is pretty neat. Booting up your copy of Wii Fit today will earn you a couple of pretty obvious April Fool’s jokes. Reader Andrew shipped us these two pictures, one showing the Wii Fit claiming that it’s broken and another hinting that the Wii Fit may lie about your Body Test results. Can you…

Rock Out on Rock Band To Win A Star Trek Screening

Damn you April Fool’s Day, I actually thought this was a joke at first. But now, MTV and Paramount are really teaming up to cross-promote Star Trek with Rock Band. Beginning today, gamers can register for a 15-day sweepstakes that will give away 500 free Rock Band Music Store downloads each day from April 7…

Godfather II to Sell Downloadable Weapons, Character, Maps

Electronic Arts plans to start selling downloadable packs featuring new weapons, maps and a character for Godfather II two weeks after the game releases. The upgrade packs will go on sell on April 23 on the Playstation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace and will sell for $4 to $10. The Pentangeli Map Pack ( $6.75…

April Fools + Internet = Crap

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Baby Is Allergic To… Oh boy. April Fool’s has already started somewhere in the world, and already major newspapers are posting fake news. Just as a reminder, no Kotaku pranks today. Last year’s Kaketaku was quite a bit of fun, but we’ve been too busy to set anything up and…

Insomniac Uses The Power of Beef Jerky To Recruit

Insomniac is hiring and to get you to apply they’re mocking everything that most boring jobs hold sacred. Hit the jump for the second two videos and remember, jerky talks at Insomniac.

G.I. Joe Goes Top Down For DS

The DS version of upcoming movie-game G.I. Joe will be a top-down shooter with a slight role-playing game element to it, the developers say. “The game will share some fundamental designs with the console version,” said Nick Pavlich, associate producer on the game. “In the DS version you only control one character, there’s a slight…

America’s Army 3 Coming To Steam

America’s Army 3, the upcoming iteration of the real Army’s free first-person shooter recruiting tool, will be available on Steam when it launches. One of the things the first two iterations of the game taught the developers is that they need to make the game as easy to find, download and install as possible, said…

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood A Slick New Take on Westerns

The sequel to Call of Juarez is actually a prequel, set 20 years before the original western shooter. In Bound in Blood players take on the roles of the McCall brothers. The story opens with the two deserting the confederate army and becoming outlaws. It ends, we were told, with a confrontation between the brothers.…

The Skirmish Modes of Battlestations: Pacific

Battlestations: Pacific is a very fan-driven project. The developers went through all of the forums for Battlestations: Midway and got all of the fan feedback for this sequel, said Alastair Cornish, a designer at Eidos. “We have a very vocal, articulate group of fans,” he said. “We were able to take into account most fan…

Wolfenstein Preview: Into the Veil

Wolfenstein has a lot to live up to. The original Wolfenstein 3D popularized, if not defined first-person shooters. Return to Castle Wolfenstein’s multiplayer introduced some of the most popular features of multiplayer gaming to the PC. What will Wolfenstein deliver? What It Is Wolfenstein is the latest first-person shooter in id’s popular franchise. This time…

Embargo!

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: What’s A Radio? Today was a bit of a cluster. Already weighed down with more stories than anyone could hope to finish writing in a day, I decided to go ahead and write up my interview about upcoming action game X-Men: Origins. After posting it, I hit up Activision to…

G.I. Joe Taps Into Comics, Toys, Movie

The upcoming G.I. Joe video game won’t rely on just the movie, instead the game will tap into 45 years of history, from comics to toys to the cartoons, the developers say. “It wouldn’t work if we just followed what was presented in the movie, which is an origins film, to have a fun gameplay…

Excitebots Trick Racing Preview: Excite Trucks Gets a Make Over

The word Excite isn’t the only thing that Excite Truck and Excitebots: Trick Racing have in common. Anyone who spent time with the off-road Wii racer may notice a few similarities between the games. But a developer doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to make a game fun and a new enough experience to warrant…

Wolfenstein Lifts the Veil

Mystical weapons and plentiful Nazis remain a mainstay in the latest iteration of first-person shooter Wolfenstein. “For id, Wolfenstein is a very important IP, it goes way back and we care a lot about it,” said Peter Sokal, community manager for id Software. The game takes place right after the events of Return to Castle…

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Ups the Destruction

A first-look at Battlefield Bad Company 2’s gameplay reveals a lot more destruction, an icy setting and plenty of gun play. Last week, DICE gave a slew of reporters an early look at the gameplay for their upcoming destructive shooter Battlefield Bad Company 2. Senior producer Patrick Bach warned that the gameplay we saw that…

Could The Future of Gaming Be Console Free?

Last week’s annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco gave gamers a tantalizing glimpse at things to come in the world of interactive entertainment. While the week of talks, demonstrations and press conferences was packed with news, the biggest attention grabbers included a device that promises to deliver high-end PC gaming without the computer and…

Game Developers Conference: It’s On (And Over)

The 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco is done and dusted, and churned out the stories. This is the place to check back for all of our coverage of the news, games and people of the show. We’ll make sure to update this post throughout the week with everything GDC. News Warhawk in Space…

Maria Montessori: The 138-Year-Old Inspiration Behind Spore

By: Brian Crecente Spore, Will Wright’s far-reaching game about life, the universe and everything, is a journey, not just from microscope to universe, but of discovery and imagination. It’s also the clearest example of how, in creating his games, Wright taps deeply into the principals of his grade-school education which was based on a pedagogy…

Punch-Out!! Preview: Slick, Punchy Design

Punch-Out!! is a classic Nintendo experience. A game that helped define the Nintendo Entertainment System, but can the remake of the game do the same for the Wii? What It Is Punch-Out!! is a remake of Nintendo Entertainment System classic Punch-Out!! This time around the game will sport extra characters, some new moves and support…