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Culture
More Killer Concept Art From Korea
Not content with showcasing the talents of one Korean artist this month, I’m now going to feature a second, NCSoft’s Tae Won Jun. Also known as “Taega”, he’s an artist at the company behind games such as Lineage, Guild Wars, Wildstar and City of Heroes To see more of his work, visit Taega’s personal page…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 24, 2012 -
YouTube in the 1990s Looked Awesome
YouTube wasn’t around in the 1990s. It didn’t open for business until 2005. Let’s pretend for 3:31 that it was around in the 1990s, though, because 1990s YouTube looks great This clip was done by Squirrel Monkey, the same person behind those great Angry Birds and Draw Something clips from a few weeks back. If…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 24, 2012 -
Diablo III’s Witch Doctor is All About the Mana
DIABLO III. WITCH DOCTOR. CONCEPT ART. DRAMATIC VOICE-OVER. LOTS OF GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE. COMING MAY 2012. OK, seriously, I’d be OK with this guy doing the voice-over to just about every game out there. He’s wonderful.
By Luke Plunkett Published April 24, 2012 -
The Amazing Hair Salon That Doubles as a Retro Game Store
Bobby Ågren runs a store in Copenhagen, Denmark called Ruben & Bobby. It’s a hair salon. Oh, and it also sells old video game systems, old video games and old toys. Making it a hair salon/game store/cultural museum. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those before. Especially one run by someone as awesome…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 24, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallOmega Boost’s Intro Might be the Coolest Thing 90s Video Games Ever Did
This is Omega Boost. It was an OK shooter released in 1999 on the PlayStation. I remember it, and pay tribute to it here today, not for the game, but for everything around it. Like the incredible FMV intro sequence, which goes from corny to amazing to “wow those aren’t bad props and costumes for…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallPortal was First Released in 1986, and was an Activision Adventure Game
Portal may be the name for a contemporary series from Valve, about mad robots and jumpsuits, but it’s also the name of a video game first released nearly thirty years ago. That game, Portal – Valve got the trademark after the original ceased using it – was a strange adventure title for personal computers, and…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
Using Strap-On Joysticks to Fight With Fake Dicks
That’s not a crass headline. It is quite literal. There’s an indie game (not a video game, a literal game) called Swordfight. It asks players to buy old joysticks, strap them to their crotch using an S&M harness (complete with cuffs!) and, well, sword fight A circuit board hidden within registers “hits”. Photographs of people…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
Take a Look at Some Cancelled PS3 Exclusives
Martin Binfield, a former artist at Sony Cambridge Studio, has recently posted a showreel of his work, and contained within are glimpses of some games we never actually got to see. Games like binned PS3 exclusives Heavenly Sword 2, and Eight Days Eight Days was cancelled a long, long time ago, while Heavenly Sword 2…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
Judge Thinks Xbox 360 Infringes on Multiple Patents
A story that’s been brewing since 2010 just took an interesting turn: a judge from the US International Trade Commission agrees that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 infringes upon five patents held by Motorola, mostly related to video codecs. Note this is just a preliminary ruling, and it’ll take more decisive court action before anything drastic happens.…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
Kotaku East
Microsoft Rejects Game Because it Made Toilet Sounds
A Windows phone game, developed by Austrian Christian Zangl, has been blocked from release in China not because it contained contentious political commentary. It’s been blocked because it featured the sound of a flushing toilet. According to Microsoft, that makes it offensive to the Chinese market, and “Content that is offensive in any country/region to…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
Read Valve’s Employee Company Handbook. It’s Amazing. [Update]
On Friday, a user on the Flamehaus forums uploaded a very convincing pdf, complete with accompanying photo, of a new book called Valve: Handbook For New Employees Joining the pdf is an apparent email from Valve’s Greg Coomer, saying it was written to “make it as easy as we could for new people to join…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
A Stormtrooper Reflects on the Biggest Mistake of his Career
Forget Noir. Forget LA Noire. This is Star Noir. Or, as I’m going to call it, Episode IV: A Noir Hope When Obi-Wan gets Luke and the droids past an Imperial roadblock, it’s good for a laugh and we, as an audience, move on. We never once pause to think about what happened after, to…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
Hey Capcom, This Five Year-Old Kid Has Some Ideas for New Mega Man Games
Capcom is out of ideas (or at least the willpower) for new Mega Man games. Little Mark here, though, Mark is a fountain of ideas. Not only does he know everything about the Blue Bomber and his games, he knows exactly what he wants from a new Mega Man game. Bonus: I know it’s long,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
These Dolls are so Damn Big They’ll Destroy Your City
That is, unless your city is Tokyo, and Godzilla can stop them. Royal de Luxe is a French performance art company whose centrepiece are enormous marionette dolls, so large they need an industrial-size frame to control and which end up scaled more on a “Stay Puft Marshmallow Man” size than a “Doll for Little Girls”…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
Captain America’s Life-Like Action Figure, Reporting For Duty
Just in time for The Avengers, Hot Toys has released images of its stunning Captain America figure. While it won’t actually be released in time for the superhero flick, it will come with two interchangeable heads, two shields, four sets of hands and a very fancy gun. He’ll retail for over $200, and will be…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
This Week’s Cosplay: Mass Effect Steps Out in Style, Pokémon Dreams Come True
Mass Effect is fancy, don’t you know? Fancy enough to wear suits. And all it takes is a fancy camera and a wonderful costume to bring Pokémon ladies to life. Those, and more hard truths in cosplay, can be found in this week’s Fancy Pants roundup. We’ve also got an incredible Cloud from Final Fantasy,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
That Gorgeous Sonic 2 Remake Has Been Cancelled
A false alarm related to keylogging, which seemed like a pretty raw deal for a promising fan remake of classic platformer Sonic 2, turned out to be just the tip of a giant iceberg scientists have named “Drama”. One that’s now sunk the promising game. We later learned that the project, once a community-developed game,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012 -
Culture
The Cast of Tekken, in Glorious Sketch-o-Vision
Japanese artist Shunya Yamashita is to thank for these sketches of the cast of Tekken Tag Tournament 2, used as promotional art for the 2011 arcade fighter. Interestingly, they’re also forming the basis for Kotobukiya’s fancy “Bishoujo” line of Tekken figures You can see the entire collection at the link below. Tekken Tag 2 –…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
Luke Plunkett
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