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ReviewsWhat Happens When A SNES Controller Is Eaten By A Wii U Controller
A few months back, I gasped in horror at the sight of a third-party Wii U pad that, from the hideous photoshop promotional image, looked to be a sin against everything Nintendo held dear about controllers. Well, for the past week I’ve been using the thing. It’s called the Controller Pro U. Combining the functionality…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 20, 2012 -
Sony Releasing Custom God of War Control Pad
To cash in on the upcoming release of God of War: Ascension, Sony Japan will be releasing this custom Kratos-themed DualShock 3 controller. It’s not exactly subtle, but I actually like the skin-tone shade they’ve gone for, makes a nice change from the bolder stuff companies normally choose for controller colour schemes. The pad will…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 20, 2012 -
Far Cry 3 Isn’t Racist. You Just Didn’t Get It.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved Far Cry 3. It’s a magical game. But at the same time, the further I got through the game’s story, the more uncomfortable it made me feel. Yeah, there’s the racist stuff, but also just the sense that, oh dear, one of the best games of the year is…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 20, 2012 -
Culture
This Artist Is Paid To Draw Star Wars Pictures All Day Long. So Jealous.
If you’d asked me as a kid what my dream job would have been, getting paid to draw pictures of Star Wars would have been right up there. So yeah, Amy Beth Christenson has quite the day job. A former senior concept at Lucasarts for over a decade, she now works at Lucasfilm, and since…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 20, 2012 -
Team Fortress 2 Celebrates Christmas With… Godzilla Tributes And Giant Robot Engineers
Team Fortress 2 just got itself a big Christmas update. I’m so far past playing this game that the significance is lost on me, but hey, that giant Godzilla poster is awesome. Mecha Update [Team Fortress 2]
By Luke Plunkett Published December 20, 2012 -
Diablo III Bans Thousands Of Robots
The world of Diablo III is a little less mechanical today, with Blizzard having made recent steps to ban a ton of people who were using bots. It wasn’t a handful of folks, either. It was “several thousand”, all in the name of rooting out those causing “technical problems with the game” and “undermining the…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 20, 2012 -
I Played The War Z So You Didn’t Have To
The War Z has quickly become the week’s most interesting, and hilarious, news item. Between the bad press, the worse press and the fact the game’s been taken down from Steam, most of you are probably yet to actually play it. Well, over the past few days, I’ve been playing it. So you don’t have…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
Giant Mecha Bowser, Made of LEGO, Is My New Dream Christmas Present
Only one of these exists in the world. And that, my friends, is a tragedy. LEGO builder Zane Houston put this beast together for a contest, providing some back-story as to why Bowser has given up on air power and turned to bipedal mechanised killing machines: Years of battling Mario and Luigi has taken its…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
Here’s The First Trailer For Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII [UPDATE]
Square Enix returns to the well one more time next year with another Final Fantasy XIII spinoff, this one called Lightning Returns. Below, the game’s first trailer. That’s… quite the outfit change you’ve had there, Lightning. You can read a lot more about the game in this exclusive interview we had with its creators back…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
THQ’s Boss Explains, In Plain English, What The Hell Happened To His Company Today
Jason Rubin, the president of beleaguered publisher THQ, has penned a plain and, for the average consumer/fan, incredibly helpful summary of just what happened to his company today While the word “bankruptcy” is enough to cause alarm, as it should, Rubin reminds us that along with that move, the company has also been sold (tentatively,…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
It’s Easy To Become The Tallest (And Cuddliest) Dwarf In The World
DeviantArt user Saddayscrochet made this for her brother. It’s an all-in-one dwarf helmet-and-beard combo, based on Gimli’s noggin from the Lord of the Rings movies. It’s a shame you can’t buy it, because it sounds luxurious. There’s a fleece interior inside the “helmet”, and you can disconnect the beard if you need to walk into…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
ReviewsA Gaming Mouse That Rolls On Giant Gold Rims
You can say a lot of things about Leetgion’s El’ Druin gaming mouse. About the only thing you couldn’t say is that it’s boring. Just look at it. Forget what it actually does for a second and just look at it. I’ve never seen a mouse like it. Which in a crowded peripheral marketplace surely…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
The War Z Gets Suspicious Microtransactions Just As It Hits The Top Of Steam’s Charts
Despite some negative press, zombie survival sim The War Z has launched on Steam and gone straight to the top of the best-sellers charts. So it’s curious timing that, on the same day the game was hitting those lofty heights, developers Hammerpoint Interactive released an update. Which introduced a new “feature”. Previously, including on the…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
Culture
Aren’t You Guys A Little Short To Be Stormtroopers?
The art you’re seeing today comes from Daryl Mandryk, a freelance concept artist who has worked with EA on games like Need for Speed, Def Jam and SSX, and more recently on the Turok and Tron franchises. You may have seen him on Kotaku previously for that Tron stuff, but today’s gallery encompasses all of…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
We Can Cover 2012 In Video Games In Under Two Minutes, Apparently
Malcolm Klock put together this nice video book-ending the year in video games in under two minutes. Before you reach for the keyboard for an angry “WHERE’S MY FAVOURITE GAME”, here’s what Malcolm has to say on the subject: Your favorite game isn’t missing because I don’t think its great, more likely it just didn’t…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
How Video Game Stories Are Written
Having just endured the train wreck that was Far Cry 3’s narrative arc, now’s the perfect time to look at this guide by GameFront on how to write a story for a video game. It may look like a joke (and because it is a joke, it gets a little wonky in parts), but think…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2012 -
There’ll Always Be A Giant Baggins Under A Giant LEGO Bag End
What you’re looking at here is the result of over 3000 hours of work and, insanely, two million pieces of LEGO. It’s a recreation of Bag End, from The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings, and it’s life-sized. Well, sort of. Gandalf is as tall as everyone else, so maybe “giant minifig-sized” would have been a better…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 18, 2012 -
Hacker Breaks Into Heroes of Newerth, Targets League of Legends Next
A hacker claiming to be a software engineer from Belarus broke into online game Heroes of Newerth earlier this week, stealing passwords and account information from developer S2 Games’ database. “I hacked HoN because there’s nothing as hilarious as seeing a bunch of fanboys of a game get enraged over the fact that their favourite…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 18, 2012 -
2D Is Not A Type Of Game. It’s a Work Of Art.
Photography student David A. Reeves likes video games and movies with guns in them. So he’s found an awesome way to combine all three, crafting intricate little silhouettes of game and movie scenes out of paper then taking photos of them. If you think the results look a lot like Limbo, that’s cool, he’s got…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 18, 2012
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