Michael McWhertor

Capt. Mario Answers The Call Of Duty

Mario as veteran spec ops commando and Peach as kidnappable scientist in “Super Mario Warfare” by the talented and regularly featured Agent Scarlet, as seen at DeviantArt via GameFreaks. (Thanks, Morris!)

Spider-Man’s Spectacular Game Series Soldiers On With Shattered Dimensions

The Spider-Man license won’t go to waste at Activision just because Spider-Man 4 isn’t coming to movie theaters next year. There will be more Spider-Man games, including one known as Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. The latest issue of GamePro magazine makes mention of the still-unannounced Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, divulging no other details on the latest Marvel…

Gears Of War 3 Dated For April 2011 By Edge, Not Epic

Gears Of War developer Epic Games hasn’t dated (or even confirmed) the third game in the stop and pop shooter series, but someone else has, pegging the third entry for an April release in 2011. Now, Edge may not be in an official position to schedule Gears Of War 3, but according to “a trusted…

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Screenshots

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Snoozes Its Way To America

Square Enix is bringing the PSP prequel to its incredibly popular Kingdom Hearts series to North American shores, unsurprisingly, applying a vague “summer” release date to Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. The fifth entry in the Disney-Square Enix crossover series, Birth By Sleep will be armed with a few new additions in its North American…

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Shows Its “Spirited Green” Side

The best way to sell a PSP in North America these days may be to anchor it to a game like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, as Sony is doing with the latest PSP “entertainment pack.” Sony and Konami are going co-op on the limited edition Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP Entertainment Pack, featuring…

Wakeboarding HD, A Rare Wakeboarding Game, Goes To PSN

How many games have been based on the water sport of wakeboarding? One? Two?! No, three, now that Creat Studios is bringing Wakeboarding HD to the PlayStation Network this week, perhaps the most shark-jumping of the bunch. Creat’s Wakeboarding HD takes some seriously over-the-top liberties with the extreme sport, promising “crazy, high-speed racing and obstacle…

Kotaku Off Topic: Uninterrupted

After giving Kotaku Off Topic a few days off, let’s get back into the week with some conversation that doesn’t have to be about video games if you don’t want it to be. Movies, music, toys, fashion, politics. Cut loose. Even if you want to tell us about the excursions or events of your weekend,…

Mafia II Hands-On: The Scenic Route Is Full Of Centerfolds

What differentiates Mafia II from other open world gangster games, especially Take-Two’s other popular driving and delinquency-filled Grand Theft Auto series? For one, Mafia II runs things at a slower, simpler place. It also has Playboy Playmates. You may already know about 2K Games’ partnership with Playboy, but unless you have already played Mafia II,…

Sony: Passing On Demon’s Souls “A Mistake”

Sony Computer Entertainment published From Software’s brilliant Demon’s Souls in its native Japan, but when it came time to take it westward, it was up to publisher Atlus to step forward and localize the PS3 game. “That was a mistake.” So says Sony Computer Entertainment VP of international software Yeonkyung Kim, according to 1UP’s account…

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes HD First Look At The Inevitable Re-purchase

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, the Nintendo DS strategy-RPG that went under-appreciated—and under-purchased—by too many last year, is getting a second chance on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network in 2010. How’s it looking? Damn good, based on our hands-off preview of developer Capy’s high-definition upgrade to Clash of Heroes. The game’s hand animated…

Joanna Dark Returns, GTA: San Andreas Goes Cheap On XBLA This Week

Perfect Dark keeps Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade Block Party going, with the re-release of Rare’s 10-year-old first-person shooter hitting the Xbox 360 this Wednesday. Also, available, damn good deals on Xbox Originals. If you’re looking to spend exactly 800 Microsoft Points on downloadable video games this week, you have four new choices: Perfect Dark in…

What Are Halo Creators Making With ‘Bungie Aerospace’?

Halo creators Bungie are cooking up something new, something that, despite its new name, may not actually follow in the trail blazed by id Software’s John Carmack and involve shooting rockets into space. So what is Bungie Aerospace? Well, it’s not much more than a trademark spotted by Attack of the Fanboy while many of…

Final Fantasy Director’s Take On Western Vs. Japanese RPGs

How does Final Fantasy XIII director Motomu Toriyama explain the difference between Japanese-designed role-playing games and their western counterparts? By pointing out the divide between classic RPGs like Tomb Raider, Hitman and Final Fantasy. I know what you’re thinking. “Tomb Raider and Hitman aren’t western RPGs!” But Toriyama’s argument was that western gamers—or, more specifically,…

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, The Cool Thing At GDC

I wish I’d seen Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP for the iPhone/iPod Touch at the start of last week’s Game Developers Conference, instead of at the end, so that I could better answer the event’s most commonly asked question. It’s the best response to the frequent smalltalk question “So, did you see anything cool at…

The Super Championship Edition Mash Up That Is Pac-Man Battle Royale

What is Pac-Man Battle Royale? This week’s Amusement Expo in Vegas explains it all with a playable four-player Pac-Man face off that borrows from both Pac-Man Championship Edition and Super Pac-Man to interesting results. Arcade Heroes captured first footage of the newest multiplayer Pac-Man arcade “come back”, giving us a good idea of how it…

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, A Dungeon Crawl For The Gears Age

inXile Entertainment’s Brian Fargo wants to update the classic dungeon crawler, popularized by MUDs and dark medieval adventures like Stonekeep and the Wizardry series, for the modern age, for the Halo or Gears of War player, with Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. The argument can be made that the dungeon crawl has already been modernized with…

Mass Effect 2 Carried Over 700 Plot “Hooks” From Original Game Saves

Players of the original Mass Effect had a big impact on the story of the second, if they imported their character save from the first game. BioWare imported some 700 player choices and associated plot points into Mass Effect 2. BioWare lead cinematic designer Armando Troisi said during today’s Mass Effect 2 Game Developers Conference…

PlayStation Home Now 12 Million Users Strong

PlayStation Home director Jack Buser bragged about the social network’s latest population accomplishment, saying that Sony now has an impressive 12 million users signed up for the service worldwide. Why was Sony broadcasting that particular figure at GDC? Buser was courting developers looking for a new platform, part of Sony’s attempts to transform its 3D…

Sony Says PlayStation Move Precise Enough To Play StarCraft

There’s been a flood of information coming from Sony about the new PlayStation Move controller for the PS3, but Sony’s technically inclined folks showed off some of the more technically capable members of GDC, getting down to the finer details. PlayStation researcher Anton Mikhailov, platform research manager David Coombes and developer support engineer Kirk Bender…