Luke Plunkett

Apple Tried To Buy Halo’s Creators

Guess Apple boss Steve Jobs had a very good reason for being upset at Microsoft’s purchase of Halo creators Bungie: according to a former Bungie staffer, Apple had itself been on the verge of buying the now-famous developer. Former project lead Tuncer Deniz has told Develop that Bungie’s big cheese had, around the turn of…

Review: Costume Quest

Costume Quest is a short, easy game that plays like Final Fantasy on training wheels. And it’s the best game Double Fine has ever made. Costume Quest is a role-playing game in which you take control of a group of kids out on a Halloween rescue mission. They may be small, but the game’s hook…

The Most Awesome PC Box Art In The World

They may be known as Studio Liverpool today, but there once was a time British developers and publishers Psygnosis were responsible for the greatest video game covers of all time. No, you’re not imagining things, we’ve republished this wonderful look at Psygnosis’ box art to help celebrate Kotaku’s PC Gaming Week. From the mid-80s to…

Vaporware Classic Wardevil Finally Put Out Of Its Misery

Wardevil was one of the first current-generation games to ever be shown off. That was back in 2005. Back when it could still be called an upcoming game. Now? We can call it a cancelled game. London-based studio Ignition has finally pulled the plug on the ambitious title, which over the space of five years…

Steve Jobs Went Bananas When Microsoft Bought Halo’s Creators

Before Halo, Bungie had made a name for itself developing the Marathon series of shooters on the Mac. So when the studio was bought by Microsoft to make games for the Xbox, Apple boss Steve Jobs was pissed “As soon as we announced we bought Bungie, Steve Jobs called,” former Microsoft VP of game publishing…

The First Ever Kinect Cost A Lot More Than $149

While Microsoft’s first attempts at a motion-sensing peripheral were relatively primitive affairs, the very first prototype of Kinect was worth an absolute fortune. A report on the New York Times says that the first working version of what’s now known as Kinect cost Microsoft $30,000 to build. That’s not the cost of the entire project.…

Spectator Mode: DogFighter

If Team Fortress 2 had an air supremacy mode, Dogfighter would be it. It really baffles me why this game isn’t more popular. It’s got a great look, fantastically responsive controls, a simple premise – Mario Kart meets the Red Baron in a fight to the death – and right now you can buy the…

When Kinect Advertising Goes Horribly, Horribly Wrong

Looks like Microsoft ponied up a bit of cash to have Kinect appear in this week’s episode of Chuck. I hope it wasn’t much, though, because this isn’t advertising. It’s dissuading. Sweat. Hair. Sweaty hair. Sweaty man chest. Jiggly man chest. If you’ve ever thought “Hey, some friends and some beers will make all this…

Microsoft Not So Keen On HD Re-Releases For The Xbox 360

From Ico to God of War to Sly to Beyond Good & Evil, the PlayStation 3 is currently being inundated by high definition ports of classic PS2 games. The Xbox 360? Notsomuch. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea,” Microsoft Game Studios Corporate Vice President Phil Spencer told IGN. “I’m going to think about…

Kinect Hits The…Home Shopping Network

We know, Kinect is shooting for a market more familiar with the Wii than with Modern Warfare perks, but it’s still a little strange seeing an Xbox 360 console pop up on the Home Shopping Network. Normally, you’d expect to see magic dusters, or crap that cleans silverware, or some revolutionary ab-busting torture device (or…

GameStop To Accept iPods For Trade-In?

You may not think iPods are true gaming machines, but retail giant GameStop certainly does, as it may soon be accepting Apple’s handheld devices for trade-in. From ancient iPod Shuffles to the more contemporary iPod Touch, if you’ve got an outdated iPod lying around the house that you can’t offload onto a partner or sibling,…

The Princess Is In Another Castle… Feasting On The Flesh Of The Living

A zombie Princess Peach? Anyone would think Halloween was right around the corner. By Luke Denby, thanks Glob!

Red Dead’s Best Update Has Nothing To Do With Zombies

My first thirty seconds of Red Dead Redemption’s multiplayer went a little something like this: whistle for donkey, get on donkey, get shot in the face by somebody on a horse. That pattern continued for another few days I love the idea behind the game’s free-roam multiplayer, where random strangers are thrown together on the…

Blizzard Says Valve’s DOTA Trademark “Doesn’t Seem The Right Thing To Do”

Defence of the Ancients Allstars was a Warcraft III mod. Now, Valve is trying to trademark the name. That doesn’t sit very well with Blizzard, the developers of Warcraft III. “To us, that means that you’re really taking it away from the Blizzard and Warcraft III community and that just doesn’t seem the right thing…

Costume Quest

The Art Of Dragon Age

While Dragon Age fans wait for a proper coffee table book outlining the story (and art) behind the creation of BioWare’s award-winning RPG, the next best thing is currently up over on Pixologic. The art team from the game has opened up and shared a ton of really interesting content, including character renders and even…

Toys Of War

Toy Story’s Woody shows Marcus Fenix that you don’t need a giant neck to be a crazy, crazy killing machine. As seen on Gamefreaks

Spectator Mode: QUBE (Or, Portal With Power Gloves)

Welcome to Spectator Mode, a new feature on Kotaku where we give you a look at some of our favourite PC games that you may never have heard of. Kicking things off is QUBE, a small, short puzzle game built on the Unreal Engine 3.0. It falls somewhere between Portal homage and complete Portal rip-off,…

NSFW: Sonic Burlesque Show Doesn’t End With Werehogs

This Sonic doesn’t kiss a girl. Which for many of you may actually be a disappointment. Those realising that the ancient art form of burlesque is classier than that, though, should enjoy this little routine, which is about the most entertaining Sonic-related thing we’ve seen since the end of the 1990s. Unless you’re at work.…

There Is A New Tribes Game Coming

Hi-Rez Studios, the team behind PC MMO Global Agenda, has bought the rights to the Tribes franchise. And, not screwing around with it, has promptly revealed that a new Tribes game is in development. Built on a modified version of the Unreal engine, this Tribes game is being built with massive online battles in mind,…