Owen Good

Sunday Comics: Class Distinctions

Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published Oct. 5.—Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Oct. 1.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Power-Ups in Real Life: The Winners

Tasked with imagining a world in which magical assistance and life-giving food can appear totally at random, our smart ‘shoppers leveled up and found boosts, shells, and health lurking in all sorts of everyday occurrences. We have all the finalists for you inside, plus overall winner AllThatJuice! Getting started, ykc (15) had the best interpretation,…

NBA 2K13: The Kotaku Review

2K Sports started an arms race with itself three years ago when it landed Kobe Bryant, the greatest player of his era, for the cover of NBA 2K10. Then it reached into the record books to trump him with Michael Jordan in NBA 2K11—and then grabbed Larry, Magic, and Michael for NBA 2K12. So when…

The Moneysaver: This Town Needs an Enemy

If you’re in the mood for next week’s big releases there are savings and bonuses to be found for all of them, plus more than 50 other savings and values in this morning’s jam-packed edition of The Moneysaver Software • Oct. 9 release XCOM Enemy Unknown (360, PS3) for $59.99 comes with a $15 Gift…

The Time You Killed Playing Super Hexagon Lives Again

This week I played Super Hexagon in the office of my insurance agent, financial advisor, and attorney, as I settled up matters relating to the sale of a house. That should establish the game’s cred as an outstanding time-killer. It was also outstanding at killing time—that is, erasing your best time, no small consideration in…

Backhanded Box Quotes: ‘A Flushed Turd Down a Toilet Drain’

Welcome back to “Backhanded Box Quotes,” a collection of measured, thoughtful, sometimes plagiarized criticism from the user reviews of Metacritic and elsewhere. This week, well, what can we say. Resident Evil 6 released to a critical bloodbath. Metacritic counts 2,688 negative consumer reviews—not all of them written—for this title, and it’s not just because people…

Crazy Expectations of a Console That Didn’t Deserve Its Third Chance to Fail

If you never saw Crazy People, a 1990 film starring Dudley Moore, I highly recommend it. Basically, an advertising agency is taken over by the insane, who decide that honesty—the anathema of marketing—is now the best policy. Volvos are sold as “boxy, but they’re good.” Another stunt offers “a free plant for fat slobs.” And…

Tuesday’s Patch Might Be the Greatest in Madden History. Of Course, It Was Still Necessary

The good-news/bad-news tradeoff is that Madden NFL 13 is getting a ton of significant fixes and capabilities with a patch rolling out on Tuesday. Of course, consumers are right to say these features should have been in the game all along. Still, the number of changes coming at least speak to a development team listening…

Faced With NHL 13‘s ‘Hercules Check’ Glitch, EA Sports Steps Up and Owns It

Last week brought us the “Hercules Check,” evidently a glitch in which a skater could park his man six rows deep in the stands if he hip-checked him by the door during a line change. EA Sports, in an oh-fish-ee-al video, has now stepped forward to say, “Yeah, we meant to do that.” Tongue-in-cheek of…

EA Sports Dodges Questions It Recycled FIFA on the Wii

A week ago, Chris Scullion of Nintendo Gamer and Official Nintendo Magazine ripped FIFA 13‘s Wii version chin-to-groin, for being basically indistinct from FIFA 12 other than roster and uniform updates. Everyone knows the Wii is a dead console walking, but that does not excuse a major publisher palming off last year’s release like it’s…

Gwen Stefani and Her Band Settle Lawsuit Against Activision and Its Band Hero

The band No Doubt—basically, Gwen Stefani—put an end to its lawsuit against Activision for the means by which it was portrayed in 2009’s Band Hero, a spinoff of the Guitar Hero franchise. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but one can reasonably assume that money changed hands. Otherwise, Stefani and her cohort would likely…

Curt Schilling’s Blood is For Sale in the Aftermath of 38 Studios’ Collapse

Whether mocked, doubted or venerated, The Bloody Sock is a unique piece of sports memorabilia and it is the symbol of the Boston Red Sox’ cathartic championship of 2004, the one that ended 86 years of aching near-misses and collapses. And the reddest of socks may be put up for sale, collateral damage in the…

Konami Jumps into Major League Baseball—but It’s on Facebook

For those wondering what publisher would pick up a Major League Baseball license this coming year, it’s Konami but, alas, it is not for any console title. MLB Dream Nine is now out on Facebook, and it’s about what you would expect—a rigored click-this player-management simulation that has very little to do witb the sport…

This Guy Played Video Games on the World’s Largest High-Definition Screen. What’d You Do Today?

Brad Keselowski, the current No. 1 driver in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series, and winner in two of its first three postseason Chase for the Cup events, met his match on Tuesday at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. when Josh Bralley of Hickory, N.C. outgunned him to the finish in Activision’s NASCAR The Game: Inside…

Jumping the Snark with NBA 2K13‘s Dunk Contest Commentary

Appreciating the commentary in NBA 2K13‘s All-Star Weekend Slam Dunk Contest, a first for the franchise, requires a little breaking of the fourth wall. Play-by-play man Kevin Harlan and analysts Clark Kellogg and Steve Kerr—Steve Kerr? Commenting on dunks? Really?—had to sit in a recording booth and imagine all kinds of bombastic dunks, and humiliating…

The Week in Games: Shut Up and Jam

Consoles see two big releases this week, Resident Evil 6 from Capcom and NBA 2K13 from 2K Sports. That leaves little room for other big stars. Tuesday • Resident Evil 6 (PS3, 360) • War of the Roses (PC) • NBA 2K13 (360, PS3, PSP, PC, Wii) • NiGHTS into Dreams (PS3) • Sonic Adventure…

If It Hasn’t Already, EA Sports Should Get Out of the NBA

It’s at least a five-day drive from Burnaby, British Columbia to Maitland, Fla.—if you’re using Google Maps, that is. I have no idea what route you’ll get from Apple Maps, last week’s most conspicuous failure in the world of consumer software. Coming in a close second is NBA Live, a game that hasn’t been on…

A Kickstarter project advising other Kickstarter projects how to get funding on Kickstarter ended in a blaze of failure

The Headphones That Didn’t Screw Up a Second Chance to Succeed the First Time

Say this for Performance Designed Products, makers of the Afterglow Wireless Headset, a slick, luminous gaming accessory which promises universal functionality and evokes the costume design of Tron. They are very confident this will work, right out of the box, the very first time. Yet that has never been my experience in reviewing about half…

Curt Schilling’s Video Game Studio Won’t Face Federal Charges

In the aftermath of 38 Studios’ collapse, a slew of government investigators said they were probing the maker of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning for its attempts to secure loans using tax credits that never were issued. Tax credits are the biggest reason the studio, founded by former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, became such…