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Bear Hunt Winners
A Zangief cosplayer took top honors at a manly-man pageant last week, and our Kotaku team of super ‘shoppers swung into action. We’ve got 20 studly submissions, plus Debaser101’s winner, inside! For starters, I know everyone was expecting me to pick aardvarkattack’s Asshole Dog entry this week. I hate to go all coach’s kid on…
By Owen Good -
Full-Length Jonah Hill Modern Warfare 3 Ad has a Special Guest Star at the End
The 30-second version of “The Vet & The Noob” started playing last night on GameTrailers. Here now is the 90-second version of the ad, starring Sam Worthington and Jonah Hill (whose most recent flick, Moneyball featured a cameo by Activision top dog Bobby Kotick.) Keep your eyes peeled until the end, when a guy who’s…
By Owen Good -
BioWare Responds to Mass Effect Beta’s Leak on Xbox Live
An egg-faced BioWare scrambled this morning to contain any damage done by last night’s leak of the Mass Effect 3 closed beta to some subscribers on Xbox Live. The developer chalked it up to “human error” and ask that everyone please, please remember this is all unfinished stuff. The beta was made available by mistake…
By Owen Good -
The Sports Video Games of the Year
Rarely considered for overall video-game-of-the-year honors, the uncommon diversity of sports video games support a class of awards unique to the genre. These are Kotaku’s Stick Jockey Sports Video Games of the Year. This year we’ll recognize achievements in seven categories. Some categories from last year were not awarded this year, for lack of distinguishable…
By Owen Good -
See the Grand Theft Auto V Trailer, Set in the Original San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was my favorite of the series, by far, and that’s no slight to Vice City, which I treasure. Still, there was something about C.J.’s adventures that made me feel like I’d lived the greatest summer ever. So it is with a lot of personal affection for the game that I…
By Owen Good -
Welcome Back to Earth, Mars500; Guitar Hero Died While You Were (Not) Gone
The six brave non-adventurers of the Mars500 project yesterday emerged from their capsule for the first time in 18 months, finding they had returned to a dystopic Earth where their Guitar Hero skills were utterly useless. Either that, or they are as utterly sick of the game as we are, after spending a 520 days…
By Owen Good -
Frozen Synapse is Headed to the iPad
The award-winning turn-based tactical game Frozen Synapse is being ported over to the iPad, the developer Mode 7 said yesterday, expecting the game will hit the iTunes App Store in 2012. Mode 7’s Paul Taylor said the studio also is “looking at better ways of updating and supporting the game on its current platforms,” and…
By Owen Good -
Nathan Drake’s Notebook is for Sale on eBay
A timely auction taking place now on eBay has a hand-made replica of Nathan Drake’s notebook from Uncharted 2 on sale for £100. A U.K. art student recreated it, page-for-page, from the virtual one players may peruse in the game. The notebook features 55 pages of hand-drawn pictures, and was completed over the course of…
By Owen Good -
Sixty Get the Axe at Warner Bros.’ Lord of the Rings Operation [Corrected]
Following big releases, staff usually gets axed. That appears to be the case in the laying off of about 60 from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The publisher confirmed pink slips were given, but not the number. The layoffs hit WBIE’s Seattle operations, comprising the Snowblind, Monolith and Surreal studios. Snowblind developed The Lord of the…
By Owen Good -
The Price of Warfare
Values on Tuesday’s big release, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 lead today’s roundup in The Moneysaver. Credits and bonuses can also be found for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, out Nov. 11, and on Xbox Live renewal subscriptions. Software • Tuesday, Nov. 8 release Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3, 360, PC) has…
By Owen Good -
There’s a Free Prototype 2 Minigame on iTunes Right Now
Activision commissioned TwitchGames, makers of Slice HD, to create a Prototype 2-themed minigame available now for iOS devices on the iTunes App Store. It’s a big free ad for the upcoming game, but it’s also a small free game that utilizes the multitouch interface in a challenging way. Like Slice HD, your job is to…
By Owen Good -
The Motor City’s Blowtorch is a No-Brainer for MLB 2K12‘s Front
Justin Verlander, the Detroit Tigers flamethrower who spun a no-hitter in a season evocative of hall-of-fame names like Koufax, Gibson and Carlton, will grace the packshot of Major League Baseball 2K12, 2K Sports said. Verlander is the third pitcher in the past four years (with Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum) to hold down MLB 2K‘s…
By Owen Good -
Reviews
Clean, Convenient Refreshment for Your PS3 Controller
Because of the USB port on the PS3 controller, I always considered the DualShock charging stations I saw at Best Buy to be like bottled water. Why pay for something that’s already provided for free, right? Just plug the damn thing in when it runs low on juice. Thing is, I like it when my…
By Owen Good -
Activision Cools Fears of Pre-Release Modern Warfare 3 Bannings
A foreboding, backchannel warning from Xbox Live’s top cop seemed to suggest that those who legitimately bought Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 from a retailer, before its official street date on Tuesday, could face sanctions if they played it online. Activision has sought to calm those concerns, although still, it kinda sorta would like…
By Owen Good -
What Are You Playing This Weekend?
Having supplied my gut reaction to Sonic Generations on Tuesday, I’m still plowing through the game, on course for a review next week. So there’ll be a large portion of that on my weekend menu, alongside BurgerTime World Tour, aka the game that HezaChan’s boyfriend made. BurgerTime is a lot of fun, but a little…
By Owen Good -
Russian Dancing Men: Too Unforgiving to be Fun
Rhythm games are difficult to do well on a smart device without simply porting over the note-highway interface of Guitar Hero or Rock Band whose ship everyone has agreed sailed about three years ago. Russian Dancing Men (iTunes, universal app) delivers rhythm gameplay aided not necessarily by fast-twitch reflexes, but by truly listening carefully. The…
By Owen Good -
DC Universe Adds 120,000 Players After First Free-to-Play Day
Shifting to a free-to-play model yesterday, DC Universe Online opened the gates to the freeloading hordes. More than 120,000 signed up for the MMO said John Smedley, the president of Sony Online Entertainment. That figure’s for the PC, though. No word yet on PS3 enrollments. Smedley also touted figures for number of users logged in,…
By Owen Good -
Layoffs at Gameforge Jeopardize Free-to-Play Star Trek—Infinite Space
Today, Gameforge, the German-based publisher of browser-based video games, laid off 100 workers in a restructuring that canceled two games and threatens its biggest property, Star Trek—Infinite Space In a message to Star Trek—Infinite Space Fans, the game’s development team said that plans for the game’s beta are “currently on pause until further notice” as…
By Owen Good -
Assassin’s Creed Turns to Sports Stars to Tout Its Stats
For me, the big question is not why NFL running back Adrian Peterson, NBA point guard Derrick Rose, or MMA fighter B.J. Penn are stumping for Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. For me, the question is “Where the hell do I get one of those hoodies.” You can contact Owen Good, the author of this post, at…
By Owen Good -
Harmonix Isn’t Doing Too Bad (For Not Making Shooters)
A couple of weeks ago, Dance Central and Rock Band studio Harmonix was being advised—by someone from the company that sold it off—to make “the world’s first immersive shoot-’em-up,” using Kinect. Today, the firm reported it is doing juuuuust fine by sticking to the rhythm genre. Florian Hunziker, Harmonix’s chief operating officer, expects $100 million…
By Owen Good
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