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Advertisement Unlocked: Winners
In-game advertising’s creep has been slowed only by a terrible economy damping all advertising channels. That hasn’t stopped one Silicon Valley startup’s vision of inserting it into your achievements and trophies. Last week, Kotaku’s skilled ‘shoppers went the extra mile and inserted ads into them all. Bouzi (3) gives us Fat Drake, brought to you…
By Owen Good -
Fatalities are OK in Mortal Kombat. Finger Banging, No.
Someone hacked apart the config file data for Mortal Kombat on the PS3 and in addition to discovering about 17 on-disc DLC character skins – and, weirdly, a dummy support-string for Kinect, they found hundreds of wirdy-dirds banned from text communication in MK’s online play. You can see them all at the link. It’s like…
By Owen Good -
A Study Returns Easy Answers to Questions Not Yet Asked
Poring over the data, sifting through more than 1,700 specimens, a team of MIT researchers is, as we speak, cataloging the species known as the sports gamer. The data is, so far, unsurprising. 98.4 percent are male; 95 percent watch sports on TV; 70 percent have, and play as, a favorite sports team. Many answers…
By Owen Good -
More Than 250 Colleges Ask for the Crysis 2 Engine
For about a year, Crytek has offered universities a free license to its CryEngine 3, the guts of this month’s big release, Crysis 2. Since it made the offer more than 250 universities have asked for the code, the studio reports. That’s a pretty significant indicator of the mainstream utility of gaming code in a…
By Owen Good -
PSN Outage Leaves One in Five PS3 Customers Considering Xbox Live
Lots of people vow all kinds of extreme things when they’re pissed off, especially at giant corporations. Many come back for reasons of convenience or simply calming down. But a survey taken this week, reacting to the PlayStation Network outage, suggests that 21 percent of PS3 owners are considering selling their consoles and fleeing for…
By Owen Good -
What Do You Want to Hear From Sony?
Early in the morning on the U.S. east coast, Kazuo Hirai will address the devastating outage of and loss of customer data from the PlayStation Network. Hirai’s participation itself sends a message. To investors, he is Sony’s second-in-command. To gamers, he’s one of PlayStation’s principal figures, if not its face for the past five years.…
By Owen Good -
Here’s How You Handle Looking and Turning in a Motion-Control FPS
Head- and eye-tracking will be the next big breakthrough in motion-controlled gaming. Forza Motorsport 4 will deliver it via Kinect. But for first-person shooters, we’re still stuck controlling our look with our arms, an act as unnatural as it is inconvenient. Some University of Texas students have whipped up a solution for that. This concept…
By Owen Good -
Kaz Hirai to Address PSN Breach in News Conference Tomorrow
Kazuo Hirai, Sony Corp.’s second-in-command, in line to become its CEO, will brief the media on the catastrophic security breach in the PlayStation Network. The news conference will be held at 1 a.m. EDT (2 p.m. in Japan). Hirai will discuss Sony’s investigation of the breach, its information management system, and the schedule for bringing…
By Owen Good -
An Ovation for the Ovechtrick
Playoff hockey has brought back Verizon’s “Ovechtrick” commercial with the requisite saturation. For those not in the know, that would be nine goals in a game. (The NHL record is seven). One simulation pegs its real-world likelihood at 2 in 10,000. On the eve of the NHL playoffs opening in real life, Kotaku reader THEAnderson…
By Owen Good -
Nintendo, Wary of Bargain-Binned Spirit Tracks, May Give Ocarina of Time a Small Shipment
When the DS’s The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks showed up in bargain bins four months after release, for less than the price of lunch at McDonald’s, it was rather embarrassing for Nintendo. Rumor has it the 3DS’ Ocarina of Time will get a small shipment to avoid such a fate. The comes from Sinobi…
By Owen Good -
Puttin’ on the Deals Heah, Boss
There’s no playing grab-ass or fighting in the building. You got a grudge against another man, you fight him Saturday afternoon. Any man playing grab-ass or fighting in the building spends a night in the box. First bell’s at five minutes of eight when you will get in your bunk. Last bell is at eight.…
By Owen Good -
Microsoft’s Execrable “Clippy” Returns in Gamified Office Tutorial
Microsoft Word’s loathsome Clippy, the Crazy Crab of application mascots, is making a comeback. Yes, really. Killed off in 2007, Microsoft is now using him as the tutorial host introducing you to the wonders of the latest round of whatever useless bloatware they’re heaping on Office. Ribbon Hero 2: Clippy’s Second Chance – a video…
By Owen Good -
A Compendium of Cave Johnson Quotes from Portal 2
It goes without saying that this site constitutes one gigantic spoiler, so don’t go there if you are still interested in discovering for yourself anything about Portal 2 or the founder of Aperture Science, whose recorded messages of accelerated dementia have made the character another cult hit from Valve. “Cave Johnson, Here!” has thus far…
By Owen Good -
Cliffy B Implies No Master Chief/Gears Crossover Because Microsoft is ‘Kind of Squeamish’
Epic Games characters have appeared into other games before – Lost Planet 2, for example. The studio’s willing to consider any reasonable tie-in with its own games, too, so you’re not the first to wonder how awesome it’d be to have a Master Chief skin in Gears of War The problem, as Epic Games design…
By Owen Good -
Keep That Anti-Madden Feelin’ Alive With All-Pro Football 2K8‘s Editor
A newly released roster editor for All-Pro Football 2K8 refreshes that pro football alternative for the NFL 2K5 diehards and conscientious objectors to the NFL’s seven-year exclusive license of the Madden franchise. Released today, the editor is by Operation Sports’ FlyingFinn, who also built a roster editor for the venerated 2K5. This application, however, only…
By Owen Good -
iTunes’ Approval of Flash Game Ripoff Raises a Troubling Question for Gamers
A blatantly copied flash game currently offered on the iTunes App Store will likely be removed quickly if Apple’s whack-a-mole approach to content moderation is any guide. But this new twist in App Store plagiarism raises a troubling question for game developers and conscientious consumers. How do you know that 99-cent App isn’t someone’s stolen…
By Owen Good -
Don’t Download That Fallout: New Vegas Update Just Yet, Says Bethesda
A title update to the Xbox 360 version of Fallout: New Vegas, to prepare the game for the upcoming Honest Hearts DLC should not be accepted until a replacement update goes live later this evening, Bethesda Softworks said. The update currently being served freezes gamesave data, making it unplayable. That’s kind of a bitch, especially…
By Owen Good -
Sony Considering Make-Good for PSN Subscribers, Too
Sony Online Entertainment has already said it plans a “make-good” for D.C. Universe Online and Free Realms subscribers on the PS3. What about the rest of the 77 million PSN account holders? Sony is “currently evaluating ways to show appreciation for your extraordinary patience as we work to get these services back online,” said Patrick…
By Owen Good -
How an Imperfect Player Became the Perfect Madden Cover Pick
He’s the first Madden cover star from a losing team. The first with no Pro Bowl appearances at the time of his selection. He led NFL running backs in one statistical category last year – fumbles. Peyton Hillis hardly carries the credentials that rate a career honor many great football players will never see. But…
By Owen Good -
Viacom Got a Smidge More Than $49.99 for Selling Rock Band Studio
When Viacom said vaya con dios to Rock Band and its studio, Harmonix, the price of sale was $49.99. Actual retail price of the tax writeoff they got to take? $115 million, with about half of that returned this year as a cash refund on past taxes. [Gamasutra]
By Owen Good
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