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Star Trek Sets its Phaser for Thrill
So, yes, I saw the Phaser. The PlayStation Move attachment showed off to oohs and aahs at Sony’s E3 press conference is, indeed, a beautiful thing. More importantly, so is the game that’s arriving with it. Star Trek, despite the series’ long history, and its long history of video games, has rarely done action-adventure shooters…
By Owen Good -
Shield Posing
We knew going into E3 that something seen there would be the basis for our latest ‘Shop Contest challenge, and that the new console from Nintendo would probably be it. It is. Instead of the console case itself, though, we’re thinking that new Wii U controller has some untapped potential, especially in the real world.…
By Owen Good -
Weekend Talk Amongst Yourselves
Welcome back to Talk Amongst Yourselves. E3 seems like both a day and a month ago. I feel like I’ve traveled through a time warp. So let’s get the morning warmed up while I get my act together. Once again, our Weekend TAYpic, and like the last five TAYpics overall, comes from Incursor. Can anyone…
By Owen Good -
Culture
Sunday Comics
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. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published June 6. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published June 9. – Read more of Nerf…
By Owen Good -
CultureShop Contest
Smackdown vs. 3DS Winners
The strange appearance of an Aqua Blue 3DS capturing the action at a pro rasslin’ event provided the grist for our latest Kotaku ‘Shop Contest, in which the Nintendo handheld makes 20 cameos just as bizarre. Getting things started, Bet@ (2) calls back to our L.A. Noire contest with a shifty-eyed Sheamus. BigMike McCarthy’s joke…
By Owen Good -
Facing the Lockout, Madden and NFL Fans Seek a Common Refuge
At E3 this week, the sight I was least prepared for was that of Ray Lewis in full Baltimore Ravens uniform: eye-black, skullcap, gloves, wristbands, everything. This was an appearance for Madden NFL 12 but to him, it didn’t look like it was for show. Lewis looked ready to play right there, ready to go…
By Owen Good -
Notch Will Get That For You, Cliffy B
Epic Games and Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski have made a ton of money. Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson carries around a little bit of scratch himself. We’re pretty sure both had no trouble making their escapes from Los Angeles after E3. [via Twitter]
By Owen Good -
Michael J. Fox Voicing Two Characters in Back to the Future Finale
Michael J. Fox will lend his voice to the fifth and final chapter of Telltale Games’ Back to the Future adventure, but we didn’t know he’d be supplying the voices of two characters. Telltale’s creative director, Dave Grossman, confirmed the dual appearance during a preview of Telltale’s coming work at E3 2011. Grossman wouldn’t say…
By Owen Good -
South Park Presses Square for Doubt on L.A. Noire
Fresh from the vivisection they performed on EA Sports and Peter Moore (which Moore himself quoted on our Twitter feed Thursday), the kids of South Park turned their attention to L.A. Noire in Thursday night’s episode, in which Stan battles chronic cynicsm—aka “Internet commenter’s syndrome.” We can see its more tragic manifestations here in Stan’s…
By Owen Good -
Phishing Threat Closes European Club Nintendo
Nintendo today sent a message to members of its European website saying that a potential phishing threat prompted the company to close down portions of the site, including Club Nintendo “The protection of our customers is our utmost priority and so we have taken the precaution of immediately shutting down some parts of this website…
By Owen Good -
Triple Crowns are Not Uncommon
The Belmont Stakes runs today, and while there has not been a Triple Crown winner in horse racing since 1978, nor a triple crown winner in Major League Baseball’s hitting categories (batting average, runs batted in, home runs) since 1967, we have seen six triple crowns over the past decade. They’ve just been in a…
By Owen Good -
Eventually, all Microsoft Games will Employ Kinect
For Microsoft, the E3 2011 recipe read much like E3 2010’s—Kinect, and lots of it. The head of Microsoft’s Game Studios noted the company’s focus on the device and said at some time in the future, all first-party games from the Xbox 360 maker will include Kinect support. “It’s not a mandate that everything we…
By Owen Good -
Mission Critical Deals
Two actors pose atop vintage armor in the World of Tanks display outside the Los Angeles Convention Center’s South Hall at E3 2011. Image by Isaac Viel. Sorry folks, no snappy film quotes today, just this badass pic to get us back on track coming out of the big week at E3. On with the…
By Owen Good -
UFC Undisputed 3 Seeks a Bid to Fighting Game Tournaments
UFC Undisputed may be a sports simulation, but the series has roots in fighting games, says the game’s producer, and UFC 3 will pay tribute to those roots when the game releases in January. Developer Yuke’s Future Media Creators told me at E3 that the point of UFC Undisputed 3’s competition mode is to get…
By Owen Good -
Barely Feeling the Force in Kinect Star Wars
For as long as brothers have swatted one another with wrapping-paper tubes, Star Wars fans have wanted something, anything, to give them the sensation of wielding a lightsaber, repelling blaster fire and cutting down Stormtroopers in a streak of blue. That, too, is the goal of Kinect Star Wars and all who are making it…
By Owen Good -
The Latest Ace Combat Gets to the Choppah (and the Bombah)
The aircraft of the venerable Ace Combat series all have been of the fixed-wing variety. The most notable variance in the latest installment Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is the inclusion of helicopters, as many saw when the game’s first trailer showed an Apache Longbow used in gameplay. “If we just wanted to make a jet…
By Owen Good -
Take a Tour of BioShock Infinite‘s Thrill Ride in the Sky
Watching the BioShock Infinite demonstration at E3, I formed the mistaken impression that the thrill-ride skylines of Columbia had, within the game’s story, always been intended as a primary mode of personal transportation. They aren’t, as Irrational Games’ Ken Levine explains in this four-minute video featuring lots of gameplay. Originally the skylines were a means…
By Owen Good -
If XCOM is a Shooter Then So Is Mass Effect
The news that 2K’s XCOM reboot would handle combat as a first-person shooter sent longtime fans of the PC strategy series on a gamer’s tour of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, rage, of course, lasting the longest. A year after it was first shown at E3, and about a year before its release, we might…
By Owen Good -
Far Cry 3 Sanely Delivers the Same Results, with the Same Methods
Perhaps ironically, perhaps not, Far Cry 3 opens with a psychotic bandit lecturing you on the nature of insanity. Crazy is doing the same thing, expecting different results, goes the oft-quoted saying. And again, for the third time now in this series, you are surrounded by a jungle, up to your ass in trouble. You’re…
By Owen Good
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