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A Fez Love Letter, Quite Literally
Reader John wrote a love letter to his lady friend Sara. To ensure it didn’t end up straight in the bin, he turned it into an elaborate mural starring Gomez, of Fez fame. John says of the work: I’m a gamer, an art guy, and I love FEZ. Sara is my girlfriend, awesome, and loves…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
OK, Help me Get Into League of Legends
We all have our gaming blindspots. Genres or series we don’t know as much, or play as much, as we would maybe like to. Even those of us paid to be around them all day can’t play everything. For years I’ve been content to let one of my biggest – DotA games – slide. I…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
Culture
Guns, Pretty Ladies & Street Fighters
Artist Arnold Tsang worked on APB before it died and was unceremoniously brought back. He’s also, as Capcom fans may soon recognise, part of the Udon crew, who are unrelenting in their ability to release coffee table books full of awesome Street Fighter art. Right now, he’s working at Blizzard. And right now, we’re going…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
If You’re Going to Steal Pokémon Cards, Don’t Stop to Steal Wart Remover as Well
Victoria Ariail, 27, has been arrested and charged after being caught stealing Pokémon cards from a Lexington Walmart last Thursday. And she would have got away with it too, if it wasn’t for that damned wart remover. See, in addition to the cards, which must be ridiculously easy to steal, Ariail came unstuck because security…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
What Steam Would Look Like if Indies Made It
Steam is lovely, but at the end of the day, it’s run by a single company, and sells games from (mostly) other big companies. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what such a platform could look like at the other end of the market? That’s where Tiggit comes in. An open-source program designed to showcase…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
Help me, Holographic Tupac Shakur, You’re My Only Hope
So, that “holographic” (it’s not really a hologram!) performance from long-dead rapper Tupac Shakur sure was a talking point. I think many people’s problem with it was the fact it was part of some weird half-real rap show. Maybe they’d have been cooler with the whole thing if, instead of bringing him back to rap,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 19, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallYes, This is Andy Warhol Painting Deborah Harry on an Amiga
These days, we remember Commodore’s Amiga system for its games. Classics like Cannon Fodder. In 1985, though, the company had grander plans. In this bizarre live demonstration as part of the machine’s launch, artist Andy Warhol, only two years before his death, sits down and “paints” a portrait of former punk idol Deborah Harry using…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallUm, Sega Once Made a Sonic Fighting Game
As promised, today we’ll be looking at Sonic the Fighters. Otherwise known as That 3D Fighting Game Sega Made That For Some Reason Starred Sonic The Hedgehog The story of the game goes like this: in 1995, Sega released an awesome (and sadly forgotten) fighting game called Fighting Vipers. One of the game’s character designers,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
God of War “4” Leaks Early, Here’s the Debut Trailer
Yeah, it’s looking almost certain that Sony’s big, upcoming PS3 announcement will indeed be a new God of War title. Especially since there’s already an Amazon listing for the thing. And a trailer. A product page on Amazon, complete with box art and trailer (above), reveals the game is called God of War: Ascension. Interestingly,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
Hawken is Getting the Live-Action Treatment
As short as the world is on decent multiplayer mech games, I think the main reason so many people have been so excited for Hawken is the look of the thing. Taking a cue from awesome Japanese model series Maschinen Krieger, its dirty, megacity take on the future would look amazing in a blockbuster, let…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
Believe it or Not, Journey and Hip-Hop go Very Well Together
The moody, desolate affair that is Journey isn’t an obvious choice for a hip-hop remix, but it’s got one anyway. Don’t worry. It’s been tastefully done. Raheem Jarbo, aka Mega Ran, is solely on production duties here (so no rapping), remixing four tracks from Austin Wintory’s amazing score and putting the resulting EP up for…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
The Ripping Yarn of the “Xbox Paedophile Predators”
I’m usually loathe to post “hey mainstream tabloids are crazy” stories here, but a piece on the front page of the latest Metro, a free newspaper handed out on public transport in Britain, is too good to ignore. The headline? “Xbox paedophile predators ‘move in on prey within two minutes of contact'” There’s of course…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
This Real Metal Gear Can Now Climb Stairs
We first told you about this project last year, but DARPA’s new FastRunner – which bears an unsettling resemblance to something from the Metal Gear universe – has come on in leaps and bounds since then. Quite literally. In this clip, you can see the robot take off up a bunch of stairs, its muscular…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
Please, Buy These Beautiful Pokémon Comics, OK?
Maré Odomo’s series of Pokémon comics, called Letters To An Absent Father, are some of the best video game comics you will ever read. And it’s not because they’re funny. No, the comics – penned as trainer Ash writing letters to his father – are often equal parts innocent and brutal, dealing with the more…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
Culture
The Men, Women & Puffy Shirts of The Witcher 2
Polish artist Marcin Blaszczak is one of the men to thank for bringing the world of The Witcher 2 to life. A 3D modeller, Blaszczak has worked on both games in the series. In this gallery, you’ll see some of his work from The Witcher 2, which this week gets a welcome re-release on the…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
Sean Bean Arrives on Set for Game of Thrones: Season Two
If you haven’t seen the first series of Game of Thrones, or read the first book, you may not want to go any further. If you have, well, enjoy! Poor Sean Bean. You wonder whether he just has bad luck, or simply enjoys ducking off from a shoot early to catch up with friends and…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
And You Thought Cel-Shading Couldn’t Get Any Prettier
If you think cel-shading is only something done in cartoons, or a few video games (and mostly then to stilted effect), check out what’s possible when you put a little thought into the process. The clip is sadly silent. May I be so bold as to make a recommendation More info, and a download link…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
The Most Boring Part of SimCity…Still Looks Pretty Boring
For everything right the SimCity series has done over the years, there’s one thing I will never forgive them for: water. I hate it. It’s boring, it’s a pain in the ass, and while it might be “realistic” to expect “cities” to need “water”, it was never fun laying all those pipes. This clip shows…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
Man Sues Ubisoft, Claims he Came up With Assassin’s Creed First
John Beiswenger, author of the novel Link (first published in 2003), has sued Ubisoft, claiming that the historical/sci-fi series infringes on a number of his copyrights. Basically, he alleges that because his book involved a system which could access ancestral memories, then the fact Assassin’s Creed also uses that as a cornerstone of its plot…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012 -
Britney Spears, a Dancing Game and a $20,000 Bra
I’ve been waiting for years to put a link at the bottom of a Kotaku story to the fabulous What Would Tyler Durden Do. Today, I get that chance. It’s the kind of news item you don’t get emailed in the video games press business, but you certainly do in the tawdry celebrity press business:…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 18, 2012
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