Batman: Arkham City is a mature game. I know it’s rated “T for Teen,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not for grown-ups—it features some really dark content. Torture, serial murder of innocent people, gleefully sadistic violence, lots of sexual and rape innuendo, and some surprisingly salty language. Arkham Asylum went to some dark places, but…
It’s been damned popular for a damned long time, but Angry Birds‘ numbers don’t appear to be dwindling at all. As Mashable reports, 30 million people play the portable game each day, logging over 300 million minutes of gameplay. Each day! That’s 208,333.3 days of Angry Birds played for each day of real time (or,…
Hello late-night travelers, it’s time to do my second of many off-topic threads. I hope you are all doing well, and don’t doubt you have many things you’d like to discuss. In case you’re wanting for conversation fodder, here are some starters. The Walking Dead Premiered on Sunday, to mixed, mostly positive reviews -I thought…
We already knew that Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks will be voicing the female lead in the upcoming Need For Speed: The Run. Electronic Arts is now saying that Sean Faris, star of The Vampire Diaries, will be assuming the role of the male lead, Jack Rourke. EA’s Press Release describes Rourke as “one of the…
I’ve never totally gotten the appeal of Wii dancing games, though clearly there are a whole ton of Just Dance fans out there who disagree. This new ad for Harmonix’s just-released Dance Central 2 takes a humorous dig at Wii games, and their obsolescence in the face of full motion-tracking. Honestly, while truly compelling Kinect…
You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, Gamasutra’s Brandon Sheffield ran an interview with id Software’s CEO Todd Hollenshead about Rage. In the interview, Sheffield expressed some doubts about the game, and wasn’t convinced by many of Hollenshead’s answers. It was a solid piece of journalism, and as our own Stephen Totilo pointed…
Last Friday, Double Fine invited a gaggle of press over to their San Francisco Headquarters for hot dogs, beers, and game announcements. In addition to announcing Costume Quest on Steam and some new (and fun-sounding) Iron Brigade DLC, they also announced a new game: Happy Action Theater, a minigame collection for the Xbox Kinect. Now,…
Today marks the release of Ubisoft’s Rocksmith, a music game that may seem a bit on the late end of the Great Music Game Craze of 2009. All the same, it comes with a tantalizing promise: it allows players to plug a real guitar into their game console via a 1/4 inch-to-USB cable and play…
Sony’s been making a big deal out of ModNation Racers on their upcoming handheld, the Vita. I still shudder to think about the ten minute stretch of their E3 press conference when (very nice, I should say) ModNation guys came onstage to demonstrate how to build a track and customize things in the game. I…
Well this certainly sounds fun-slash-frustrating. On CBS Interactive’s upcoming show The Controller, six pro gamers will be competing against one another in Battlefield 3, but not in the way that you’d think. Rather than sitting down and demonstrating their skills in the game itself, the pros will be competing in real-world physical challenges, then training…
Among the things that beloved editor Michael McWhertor left behind was his curation of the nightly off-topic open thread. And so the responsibility to keep the OT up falls to me, Kotaku‘s sole west coast editor on Mondays and Tuesdays. So, bear with me as I track down random things I see in the news…
Last weekend, a new Rubik’s cube world champion was crowned in Bangkok. Polish speedcuber Michal Pleskowicz won the event by completing a Rubik’s Cube in 8.65 seconds, almost a second faster than the first runner-up, American Rowe Hessler, who clocked in at 9.56 seconds. Good gravy. That is some fast ‘cubing. The event was held…
Over at Bitmob, Andrew Hiscock has put together this delightful “Choose Your Own Adventure” text-based adventure. The difference between this CYOA and the ones you may have read as a kid is that this one takes place… in Gamestop. Well, technically it takes place in “The video game store,” but I think we all know…
On the eve of the release of Batman: Arkham City (which the Kotaku staff gave a unanimous “yes” in last week’s gut check), I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the various Batman themes we’ve had over the years, and see how the motifs and melodies that summon the caped…
At NYCC last weekend, BioWare was in attendance talking about the upcoming Dragon Age comic series, which will follow Alistair, Isabella, and Varric as they perform some sleuthing into Alistair’s past. Well then, that’s three of my favorite characters doing stuff that certainly sounds fun. I’d love to see how virginal Alistair and worldly Isabella…
Double Fine’s Iron Brigade is getting a new campaign and horde-mode styled game mode, the game makers tell Kotaku The yet to be priced or dated downloadable content for Iron Brigade, the game formerly known as Trenched, is called Rise of the Martian Bear. Iron Brigade recently had to change its name due to a…
I continue to find myself looking forward to Cave Story 3D on the 3DS—something about the game’s look seems like it will really lend itself to both portable play and to the 3DS’s screen (and hopefully, controls). In fact, I might just be looking forward to this game more than any other upcoming 3DS title…
I got an email today from a PR firm that said that they were excited to tell me about a new transmedia project called “Rubicon.” “Neat!” I thought. “I really liked Rubicon!” See, Rubicon was a cool AMC show about codebreakers and conspiracies. It never did live up to its potential (and got cancelled after…
Our own Stephen Totilo spent some time at New York’s Comic Con today, and among his activities he’s put together this video of some cases of super hero statues from the DC Comics booth. Many of the old favorites are in the beginning, but afterwards he moves on to some really cool and more out-there…
One of the teased elements of Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham City is the ability to play as the caped crusader’s frenemy/love interest/ally Selina Kyle, aka the Catwoman. It wasn’t clear what her involvement would be in the main storyline, other than that she would be a part of it. But last week, when I set up…
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