Mike Fahey

Own The Art Of Alice: Madness Returns Before The Game

We won’t be able to get our hands on Alice: Madness returns the game until June 14. Luckily Dark Horse’s gorgeous 184 page hardcover art book for the game will be here in May to tide us over. Due for publication on May 11, The Art of Alice offers fans an unprecedented look at the…

Batman Doesn’t Just Let Random Superheroes Wander Into The Batcave

Even a comic book-based video game requires a little suspension of disbelief. Take the Batcave Inner Sanctum group combat raid from DC Universe Online, in which Batman enlists a group of newbie heroes to protect his most sacred of places. “Wow, Batman. Your inner sanctum is directly under Wayne Manor? How weird is that?” Right,…

Microsoft Reanimates Dead Xbox Live Gamertags

Was your original choice for an Xbox Live gamertag unavailable? Well check again! Microsoft has started reviving previously used and unavailable gamertags, so now’s the time to recapture your former glory. Some bastard is still hogging the Fahey gamertag, but you might have better luck. According to Xbox Live’s Major Nelson, Microsoft is slowly reactivating…

It’s Not A Game Developers Conference Without Capoeira

While preparing for the 2011 Game Developers Conference to kick into full gear tomorrow, our Stephen Totilo takes a moment to soak up the not-so-local flavor outside San Francisco’s Moscone Center. McWhertor, Totilo, and Crecente are all getting ready for the non-stop pace of GDC 2011, so I’m left alone in Kotaku Tower, forced to…

The Best Game Design Schools In North America

Looking to embark on a wondrous career in game design? GamePro Media and The Princeton Review have teamed up for a second year to list the 10 best graduate and undergraduate schools for video game design in North America. With video games becoming an increasingly important part of our culture every year, more and more…

Sins Of A Solar Empire Spurs A Rebellious Expansion

The intergalactic war of Ironclad Games’ real-time strategy game Sins of a Solar Empire has gone on too long, prompting the game’s third expansion, Rebellion, packed with new tech and ships capable of destroying entire fleets all by their lonesome. Diplomacy is no longer an option in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. Sub-factions have…

A Video Game, Violence, And Depression Study That Looks At The Big Picture

Over the past decade countless studies have arisen supposedly proving a causal link between video games, violent behavior, and depression. A new study conducted by Christopher J. Ferguson pinpoints why all of the others may have gotten it wrong. Video games cause violent behavior. Video games don’t cause violent behavior. Video games cause depression. Video…

The Most Surprising Fantasy Game Expansion Pack Ever Created

Yes, the first expansion pack to Arrowhead Studios’ runaway PC role-playing hit Magicka is titled Magicka: Vietnam. It’s okay to be a little speechless here. We’re right there with you. Magicka is an action role-playing game that’s won the hearts of PC gamers around the world with its combination of intelligent action and tongue-in-cheek humor.…

Mod Men Shows You How PC Modding Is Done

Want to enter the magical world of PC modding but have no clue where to start? Mod Men is a new five-episode web series that will show how the experts turn boring old PCs into works of high-performance art. Modder-extraordinaire Bill Owen of Mnpctech stars in Mod Men, a web television series for both PC…

LA Noire

Kylie Minogue Inspires The Fanciest Kinect Sensor

Australian pop singer and tragic one-shot Doctor Who companion Kylie Minogue’s European tour is sponsored by Microsoft Kinect and Dance Central, and this crystal-studded Kinect sensor is the by-product of that union. Created by PlayBling and studded with more than 6,000 Swarowsky Elements crystals, the Kylie Minogue Kinect is styled after the singer’s latest album,…

Will Video Games Age Gracefully?

Commenter EcksJay22 wonders if video games will hold up as well as the classic films of yesteryear in today’s Speak-Up on Kotaku. I was playing some Splinter Cell yesterday and remembering how jaw-droppingly amazing it’s graphics were at the time. They were still okay, but a lot of the initial wow factor the game had…

The Best iPhone Dungeon Crawler Crawls To The PlayStation 3

Diablo III might be coming to consoles, but it’s still a long ways off. In the meantime, PlayStation 3 owners can satiate their dungeon crawling cravings with Dungeon Hunter: Alliance, coming in April to the PlayStation Network. The Dungeon Hunter series for the iPhone and iPad is quite derivative of Diablo, but if Gameloft’s developers…

Killing Tasty Animals The Windows Phone 7 Way

After the initial lineup of Xbox Live-ready games for the Windows Phone 7 platform debuted, new releases have slowed to a crawl, and crawling is just want you’ll need to do to score a kill in Deer Hunter 3D. Like many Windows Phone 7 games, Deer Hunter 3D is a port of an older iPhone…

Rift Combats Massive Player Influx With Massive Server Additions

Response to Trion World’s MMO Rift has been overwhelming, with the 17 servers allocated to North America for last week’s head start blossoming into 39 to combat long login queues. The game launches tomorrow, with more servers on the way. My Dwarven warrior Oprah might be exaggerating a little, but not much. Since the Friday…

The Bleak Despair Of Abject Poverty In Video Game Form

You’ve lost your job, your house, and your savings are completely gone. Can you survive for a month on $1,000? That’s the challenge put forth in the game Spent. Are you up to it? For many of us, poverty is something that happens to other people. We have comfortable jobs, reliable transportation, good health insurance,…

Steam Plans To Take Over Your Television

Not content to dominate digital downloads on the Mac and PC, Valve is heading to GDC 2011 with plans for a “big picture” mode, a controller-friendly version of Steam perfect for playing on your big-screen television. Steam is big, but Valve wants it bigger. With the digital download platform’s dominance on the PC growing every…

Suspect Compares British Shooting Spree To Grand Theft Auto

Qhuram Awan was either an unwilling hostage or a willing accomplice during Raoul Moat’s 2010 crime spree that left one dead and two seriously wounded. Speaking to Newcastle Crown Court, Awan recalls the event was “like a video game.” “It’s all getting too much now. It’s like a cross between GTA and Jason Bourne.” Those…

Flashback Designer Creates Survival Horror Babysitting Adventure

Paul Cuisset, the man behind the rotoscoped classic Flashback, takes a turn at survival horror with Amy, a tale of post-global warming horror that charges you with protecting one very special little girl. Developed by Cuisset’s VectorCell studio and published by Lexis Numérique for the PlayStation Network, Amy tells the tale of a near-future Earth…

Now That We’ve Mastered Modern Warfare, Bring On The Swords

In today’s installment of Speak-Up on Kotaku, commenter Nameloi craves a game that realistically depicts getting brained with a morningstar. We’ve got modern combat covered, why not medieval combat? She’s even made her own box art. How about a First Person Combat game set in the middle ages? replace assault rifles, bazookas and grenades for…