Kirk Hamilton

The Worst Facebook Game Title Ever

These days, it can seem as though every Facebook game-title ends in -ville. So thank God for Telaxo, whose game Ball Separation stands out from the sack… I mean pack. Truly, this game looks like it swings free! I hear that Facebook gamers the world over are just nuts for it. It looks like one…

BioWare to “Patch” Error-Laden Mass Effect Novel in Response to Fan Uproar

Mass Effect fans recently tore into the many errors and inaccuracies in William C. Dietz’s new spin-off novel Mass Effect: Deception, putting together a thoroughly damning document cataloging scores of lore-errors and mistakes in the book. Today, BioWare’s community coordinator Chris Priestly posted the following to the BioWare forums: Mass Effect fans have been asking…

Check Out This Explosive Live-Action Battlefield 3 Fan-Film

The guys at ApertureVFX have put together this more-than-somewhat-awesome live-action take on the chaotic, visually disorienting gameplay of Battlefield 3 It plays out almost exactly how you’d picture a real-life BF3 match looking, though I don’t remember seeing quite so many pairs of sunglasses during my time playing the game. I’m not sure whether some…

A Defense of Video Game Cloning

There have been a lot of stories about game-cloning flying around lately, from Zynga’s cloning of Nimblebit’s popular iOS game Tiny Tower to Spry Fox’s lawsuit against 6waves for cloning Triple Town With those stories has come a fair amount of discussion—is cloning a bad thing? Should it be illegal? Where do we draw the…

Mass Effect Producer Suggests Keeping Your Mass Effect 3 Save Games

While speaking with Gamerzines, Mass Effect producer Mike Gamble suggested that “it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep your ME3 saves.” “Obviously I can’t say anything,” he said, “but it wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Rock, Paper Shotgun‘s John Walker had some fun with this, floating theories about the meaning behind Gamble’s statement—perhaps the…

1.4 Million Unsold Video Games Won’t Be Buried in the Desert

Yesterday, we learned that the video game publisher THQ is sitting on 1.4 million unsold copies of uDraw, a hugely unsuccessful game designed around a tablet peripheral. uDraw was such a disastrous investment—it cost the publisher around $100 Million on production and lost revenue—that it is almost singlehandedly responsible for their dire financial straits. Of…

Gene Simmons Wants to Make a KISS Angry Birds Game

Because there’s no product tie-in too outlandish for KISS, frontman Gene Simmons told IndustryGamers that he and his rock band (or, “rock band”) are looking into some sort of partnership with Rovio’s insanely popular Angry Birds video game franchise, in addition to talking to Sony about other possible KISS video games. I have no idea…

Here Are 3 In-Game Screens from The Last of Us

Game Informer Magazine has posted three screens from their new cover story on The Last of Us, the upcoming PS3-exclusive zombie-adventure game from Naughty Dog, the studio behind the Uncharted series. Looks pretty good, though the real question is how the game plays—the Game Informer post describes combat as revolving around both melee and ranged,…

Plants vs. Zombies’ Best Music Meets Shredding Finger-Style Guitar

I adore the music to PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies. I bought the soundtrack from composer Laura Shigihara, and I still listen to it pretty regularly. My favorite track from the whole game is the tune “Watery Graves,” which plays during the backyard pool missions (runners-up include “Loonboon” and the Oingo-Boingoish ““Ultimate Battle.”) So you can…

Ryan Adams: Singer, Songwriter, Skyrim Fan

Indie alt-rocker Ryan Adams is many things: Reformed troublemaker, husband to Mandy Moore, provocative interviewee, and damned good songwriter He is also, it would appear, a fan of Skyrim, based on this tweet about the glory of Denver’s skyline. Go ahead, Ryan.

Ghost Trick Comes to iOS, First Two Chapters Are Free

The critically acclaimed adventure game Ghost Trick has arrived in the Apple app store, where iPhone and iPad gamers can play it… for free? Well, the first two levels are free, anyway. After that, it’ll cost you. Chapters 3-7, 8-13, and 14-end will cost $4.99 apiece, or you can download the whole shebang for $9.99.…

Riding the Soul Train Into the Great Beyond

Greetings Kotaku-eers, and welcome to the evening open-thread. Without any further ado, here are some things you might want to talk about. And some other things that are just fun to look at. And one thing that is gross. And one thing that is kinda disturbing. Rest in Peace, Don Cornelius – May the Great…

Finally, a Video Game with Machine-Gun-Wielding Flying Snakes

I know I’ve been waiting for that for a while, anyway. This video was sent in from the recent Global Game Jam, an indie meetup where developers have 48 hours to build a game. Any game. The theme at this game jam? “Ouroboros,” the snake eating itself. Or, as the presenter here says, “Basically, a…

The Ridiculous Three-Month Ban of An Innocent Xbox Gamer

Reclaiming a hacked account is always a nuisance, but Josh Hinkle’s nightmarish story of losing, reclaiming, re-losing, and then re-reclaiming his Xbox Live account takes the cake. Settle in for a hell of a yarn that reads like a world tour of the Xbox’s worst problems. We’ve got Russian hackers. We’ve got inexplicable bans. We’ve…

I Sure Couldn’t Draw Half-Life This Well From Memory

We’ve written about the very cool blog “Mapstalgia” before, where Josh Millard is collecting drawings from users who re-create levels from their favorite video games from memory. He’s still at it, and has added a whole bunch of new maps, from Tony Hawk Pro Skater to Halo: Combat Evolved to the below map of the…

Spec Ops: The Line‘s Vision of Dubai

I Want to Take His Face…Off

Greetings, Kotaku friends. Welcome, one and all, to our evening open thread. It’s Tuesday, the last day of January. We’re already “into” 2012. How did that happen? I guess time went forward, and took us with it. Before you chat, here are some fun things from around the internet that you may enjoy: I trust…

The Cheesy, Joyous Music of the Ace Attorney Series

I really like the Ace Attorney games – I like the characters, the situations, and I like the games’ uncommon good humor. I like solving crimes, I like the silly judge, and I like seeking justice. I like how Maya likes hamburgers. I’ve played every game in the series except Apollo Justice (bleh), so as…

It Will Be Cheaper to Download Vita Games Than to Buy Their Boxed Counterparts

Sony has confirmed games for its upcoming Vita handheld will be a bit cheaper to purchase as downloadable digital games than it would cost to buy a physical disc. A Sony representative confirmed this to Shacknews, stating that “there will be a discount on the downloadable PS Vita titles from PSN” and that details would…

Twisted Metal, Syndicate Demos New This Week on the PlayStation Store

Some weeks, the PlayStation Store has a whole bunch of cool new digital content. Other weeks, not so much. This week falls a bit into the latter category, though there are two exciting demos out—the Syndicate co-op demo (which looks pretty cool), and the multiplayer demo for the new Twisted Metal Madden fans can download…