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Chicago Cops: 13-Year-Old Killed Cousin After Xbox Argument
Cops in Chicago say a 13-year-old boy killed his 16-year-old cousin on Sunday morning, following a day in which the two had argued “about an Xbox” according to a police report. The younger boy shot his cousin as he slept, according to a police report in this account by the Chicago Tribune, and later admitted…
By Owen Good -
YouTuber Blasts Machinima As The ContentID Controversy Grinds On [Update]
The controversy facing YouTube and video game channels now sees this broadside, by Clash (180,000 subscribers) against his network, Machinima. The video echoes many complaints aired by others, particularly the feeling that, since YouTube changed the rules for how multi-channel networks like Machinima handle or manage their channels, there’s little reason to belong to one.…
By Owen Good -
NES Remix, a medley of bite-sized challenges based on familiar NES favorites, ended a time challenge after an exploit was discovered. The game’s director said yesterday on Miiverse that the “Collect all the coins!” challenge is done after finding out some were able to goose their times by repeatedly pausing the level.
By Owen Good -
Street Fighter Themes Go Great With Hockey [Update: Punch-Out!! Too]
Montréal and Dallas hooked up on Jan. 2 and at 4:56 in the second period, the Habs’ winger Travis Moen decided he’d had enough of counterpart Antoine Roussel’s shit. Hockeyfights.com Metacritic’d this spectacle at 84, with Moen clearly winning the fight. Our ears perked up because … wait … is that Guile’s theme? Yes it…
By Owen Good -
Culture
The Week in Games: 2014’s First Cut
Video gaming new releases are still deep in hibernation but there are a couple of notable titles coming this week. Let’s also look ahead through the next couple of months to see what else is on the way. Here’s the—uh, well, it’s a span of time, in games. Tuesday, Jan. 7 Don’t Starve (PS4) Thursday,…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: High-Class Hookah
The slow holiday week means we’ve got to reach back into 2013 for our first ‘Shop Contest of 2014. It’s the Good Ole VapeCube. More concretely, I need you guys to develop me some more bongs out of well known video-gaming paraphernalia. And put your weed in there! So while I’m not going totally open-ended…
By Owen Good -
Morrowind-in-Skyrim Video Shows Modders’ Impressive Progress
The team of Elder Scrolls fans working on Skywind—the project bringing Morrowind into the series’ most modern engine—released their first development video yesterday. It’s five breathtaking minutes of the massive effort needed to properly bring a beloved 12-year-old game into present day. Skywind‘s development team, which began with about 8 modders two years ago, now…
By Owen Good -
Culture
Sunday Comics: Combat Training
Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best gaming-themed webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published Jan. 2. Read more of Corpse Run Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published Dec. 30. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: The Year-End All-Star Extravaganza: The Winners
We wrapped up 2013 with an encore comprising the the 10 best exploitables for the Kotaku ‘Shop Contest. Including Docherty’s training montage (which we already featured), there is a full complement of 20 finalists bringing paying tribute to 2013’s best jokes, including overall No. 1 Ginger Snap! For those who missed it the first time,…
By Owen Good -
A Father Says His Baby Daughter Was Named For a Mass Effect Character
“Tomorrow my daughter is scheduled to be born,” wrote a soon-to-be-dad named Adam last night. “Since day 1 her first name was always going to be Tali’Zorah. … My wife fell in love with the name during our first playthrough of [Mass Effect] many years ago.” “Confused friends and relatives are told ‘we wanted a…
By Owen Good -
Once again, 2K Sports says it knows what the problem is with NBA 2K14. Ronnie Singh said yesterday developers are fixing crashes in the MyCareer/MyGM modes and the online “ThePark” mode. “We’re getting back to normal everywhere else.” Singh said. He’s indicated he’ll do a Reddit AMA“after a couple more things stabilize.”
By Owen Good -
You Can Buy Farmville Stuff With Bitcoin Now
Bitcoin, the “currency of the Internet,” is now accepted by Zynga, whose FarmVille franchise also celebrates the economic ideal of paying real cash to acquire completely abstract commodities. Zynga said very early this morning it was beginning a Bitcoin test using BitPay, a “leading Bitcoin service provider,” to pay for virtual crap in FarmVille 2,…
By Owen Good -
Ten Years Later, Fans Bring Resident Evil Outbreak Back Online
Fans of Resident Evil Outbreak, a spinoff series for PlayStation 2 released about 10 years ago, have managed to restore online play for the game on a private server, though only for its Japanese versions. Outbreak Server came online recently for both Resident Evil Outbreak and Resident Evil Outbreak: File #2. The project reverse-engineered the…
By Owen Good -
Esports
eSports Owner Vanishes and Top Starcraft Player Says He’s Owed $23,000
The 23-year-old CEO of a leading eSports team has been missing since Dec. 17 and his team’s top StarCraft 2 player says he’s owed $23,000 in unpaid salary and prize money, The Daily Dot reports. The Daily Dot, which first wrote about Boudreault’s disappearance on Tuesday, returned again for this in-depth look at the aftermath.…
By Owen Good -
The Year in Kotaku ‘Shop Contests
If you’re not following the Kotaku ‘Shop Contest, you’re missing on one of the longest-running features here, all of it created by readers. This week’s contest was an encore of 2013’s 10 best subjects, and multiple contest finalist Docherty submitted this outstanding montage capturing all of them (and more) together. If this was an animated…
By Owen Good -
Burn At Least Six Calories in 2014 With This One Weird Video Game
Exercise sucks. Exergaming sucks. If you’re a video gamer who has set a resolution to lose weight, you have a long, hard road ahead of you in 2014. Or, more likely, you have a very short one before you give up. I can’t tell you what my secret to fitness is because my secret to…
By Owen Good -
If You Combined Battlefield and Forza‘s Outrages, You’d Have NBA 2K14
Earlier this afternoon, 2K Sports’ Ronnie Singh—Ronnie2K on Twitter—gave everyone playing NBA 2K14 a code for a special pre-game player animation as a make-good for the online troubles that paralyzed the game this weekend. Naturally, when I went to enter the code on my PlayStation 4, 2K’s servers were down. It’s another letdown in what…
By Owen Good -
Fighting Games Community Raising Money for Colleague Who Died Suddenly [Updated]
A well liked member of the fighting game community died two days before Christmas. His colleagues are paying tribute and holding a fund raiser to help his grandmother pay for funeral costs. Nelson Reyes, 28, better known as EMP_Remix (above at left), died on Dec. 23. His passing was confirmed by his sponsor, Empire Arcadia.…
By Owen Good -
TIME Looks at the History of Consoles—Including the 5th-Gen ‘S–tshow’
The launch of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 this year rounds out the eighth console generation, as good a time as any to look back on the seven preceding it, in this three part video series by TIME. Some familiar faces offer their insights on the overcrowded “shitshow” that was the fifth console generation.…
By Owen Good
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