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Reigning King Of Kong Goes After Own Record
After Steve Wiebe reclaimed the world record high score in Donkey Kong in September, the Seattle teacher said there still was “room at the top” left for future challenges. He’ll try to beat his own mark in about two weeks. Wiebe, whose 1,064,500 in Donkey Kong is currently the top mark, thinks a score of…
By Owen Good -
The Year, NSFW
Some year-end retrospectives play out to the accompaniment of a tinkly piano. Others to a cheese-cloth montage. Our subject here plays out to strains of bow-chicka-bow-bow and the censor bars. It’s Kotaku’s Year, NSFW. (Warning, NSFW, duh.) Heavy Rain is Light on Clothing: Midway through the PS3 thriller Heavy Rain, Kotaku reader kuroner declined a…
By Owen Good -
Reviews
From the Mouths of Babes, Withering Criticism
Tron: Legacy has been, at best, a critical disappointment. At worst, well, “a Dora the Explorer movie would be more interesting.” Who said that? The eight-year-old daughter of noted video game academic Ian Bogost. Bogost, whose “Cow Clicker” Facebook application this year masterfully blended his talent for games criticism and design, today received a four-paragraph…
By Owen Good -
Dead Rising Mobile Is Little More Than a Reanimated Corpse
There’s a difference between dead and lifeless, as this iPhone port of Dead Rising unfortunately demonstrates. Tedious mission design, bad frameskip and close – I mean very close – redraw distances, plus a slapped-on social networking feature, don’t do the Dead Rising brand any favors in Dead Rising Mobile. Its sludgy virtual stick controls are…
By Owen Good -
The Platform That Plays Together Unlocks The Bad Company: Vietnam Map First
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 wanted to see a team spirit on its new Vietnam DLC package before unlocking a remastered Operation: Hastings map. PC players have answered the call first, passing the 69 million “team action” threshold required earlier today. By comparison, the Xbox 360 community is about halfway there (37 million team actions), and…
By Owen Good -
Activision Rips Lawmakers’ Fixation On Postal
When the mainstream debate turns to violent video games, it’s inevitable that someone will dredge up Postal. It’s like the triple dog dare, or comparing someone to Hitler, a completely bogus trump card with no real argumentative value. George Rose, the chief public policy officer for Activision Blizzard, finally called bullshit today in a guest…
By Owen Good -
Call of Duty Players Log More Than 600 Million Hours In 45 Days
Lending weight to CEO Bobby Kotick’s claim that Call of Duty is as much a social networking phenomenon as it is a video gaming one, Activision released numbers boasting of online time that, per user, surpasses the Facebook average. More than 20 million users on Call of Duty: Black Ops logged more than 600 million…
By Owen Good -
Pioneering Games Developer Killed in Hit-and-Run
Brigitte Burdine, a casting director with credits spanning World of Warcraft, Killzone 2 and Mortal Kombat, was killed early this morning in a hit-and-run accident as she was walking home from a late-night date with her boyfriend. She was 48. Well known and admired for her work in an industry dominated by male co-workers and…
By Owen Good -
Introducing Fight Night Champion’s Introductions
Manny Pacquiao and Sugar Shane Mosley duel May 7 in one of 2011’s first big fights. By then, Fight Night Champion will have been out two months, and they will have fought repeatedly. Here’s what their introductions will look like. What say you? I know the video’s meant to showcase the intros, through which the…
By Owen Good -
ESRB Lists Xenogears, Three Other PS1 Classics
Four classic titles from Squaresoft (now Square Enix) have been rated by the ESRB for release on the PSP and PS3, indicating an imminent release to the North American PlayStation Store. Xenogears, plus Legend of Mana and Vagrant Story all have gotten Teen ratings, while Threads of Fate has been rated Everyone. Sony Computer Entertainment…
By Owen Good -
Monday Night Combat Is Half Off Today
Less than a month before it releases on Steam, Monday Night Combat has dropped to half off over Xbox Live Arcade for the time being. You can grab the cooperative/competitive shooter for just 600 Microsoft Points ($7.50) while supplies last. Clarification: The sale is for today only, says Uber Entertainment. For those who are buying…
By Owen Good -
LittleBigPlanet 2 Demo Available Now
Slated for release last week, LittleBigPlanet 2 arrived on the PlayStation Store today. The file weighs in a shade under 2 gigs. The 2,025 MB demo includes three playable levels – Rocket Funland, Avalon’s Advanced Armaments Academy and Tower of Whoop, plus three trailers detailing features of the new game. While you’re waiting for it…
By Owen Good -
Games Pirate Loses House, Car and $350K in Piracy Sentencing
A software pirate whose employer discovered his $700,000 counterfeit-games operation will spend the next 2 1/2 years in federal prison. Qiang “Michael” Bi, 36, of Powell, Ohio, was sentenced today on charges of copyright infringement, mail fraud and identity theft for more than four years worth of selling pirated games at $10 a pop, reports…
By Owen Good -
Korean College Student Dies After 12-Hour Gaming Session
There seem to be few gaming stories out of Korea lately that don’t involve some sort of fatality. In this case, a 19-year-old college student died after a 12-hour-session with an FPS at an Internet parlor. The victim, identified only as “Moon,” started gaming at 2 a.m., took a break at 10:30 a.m. to get…
By Owen Good -
All We Need Now Are The Budweiser Clydesdales
To: Luke From: Owen Re: TK We don’t have clydesdales but, honest, we do drag-race AT-ATs down here. What you missed while you were out: Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Make a Move Winners iPhone’s Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Is a Spectacular Action Shooter Marty McFly’s Actor Infuses His Voice With ‘Artificial Nervousness’ The…
By Owen Good -
Mega Man Christmas Carol Beats The Dickens Out Of Holiday Boredom
Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner? Mega Man Christmas Carol replaces the robot masters with the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, plus that poor old bastard Marley. Dr. Light co-stars as an insane Santa Claus running the conspiracy. Mega Man Christmas Carol features no levels, just the boss battles. One question –…
By Owen Good -
Dating Sim Will Prevent Your Friends From Stealing Your Virtual Love
Project LovePlus, an upcoming Japanese dating simulation from Konami, will use the Nintendo 3DS’ camera to recognize its main user’s face and make sure the virtual girlfriend in the game doesn’t stray to any of his backstabbin’ friends. Famitsu says that, should someone else pick up Project LovePlus, they’ll encounter the “Boyfriend Lock,” which will…
By Owen Good -
The Week In Games: Boxless Day
We close out 2010 with four releases on download services, headlined by the first extension for Dead Rising 2 – or second, if you count Case Zero, which preceded the game. Monday (Dec. 27) Dead Rising 2: Case West (XBLA) – Frank West returns to the Dead Rising story to battle the shambling hordes with…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku’s Top 5 List of Top 10 Lists
Each week throws off several new video game lists ranging from the humorous to the trivial. What’s better? A list of those. Here’s a roundup of the rundowns out there. •The 25 Best Co-Op Games [UGO] Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, World of Warcraft, Double Dragon, Rock Band 3 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Make a Move Winners
Sometimes the easiest contest concepts deliver the most complex entries. Such was the case with our Make a Move challenge. Sure, ‘Shopping a controller into someone’s hand is easy, but the base image is where the real genius is found. We narrow the roundup to 20 but when I looked through my candidate pool I…
By Owen Good
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