Owen Good, Author at Kotaku

Xbox Live Survey: Three Percent of Users Don’t Approve of Free Games?

When it was announced back at E3, the free-games-for-paid-subscribers deal called Games With Gold was supposed to last only until the Xbox One’s launch. Well, now it is officially continued as an “ongoing benefit.” That’s not what caught my eye about the announcement, however. “According to recent surveys, 97 percent of participating members have given…

By Owen Good Published October 19, 2013

Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Super Smash Bros., just posted this image to the game’s Miiverse feed; it was then published to its official page. Those antlers belong to Xerneas, The 16-point Pokébuck who debuted in Pokémon X (and on its cover) last week, so look for him to appear in the game in some…

By Owen Good Published October 19, 2013

Grading NBA Live‘s Trailer, in the Shadow of NBA 2K14‘s

Maybe people aren’t cooing over it the way they are the NBA 2K14 hype reel released Thursday, but NBA Live 14‘s gameplay trailer does have its virtues. To reiterate, no video game genre more than sports suffers from the over-promises of a next console generation and the point of diminishing returns we’re reaching in recreating…

By Owen Good Published October 19, 2013

L.A. Suburb Forced to Sell $100,000 Arcade Game Collection

Among the assets owned by the city of Glendale, Calif. is a collection of classic arcade cabinets once valued at $100,000. However, the city is being forced to sell them all off and give all of the proceeds back to the state of California. How Glendale got into the arcade game collection business and why…

By Owen Good Published October 19, 2013

BioShock Infinite‘s DLC Will Feature One Fan’s Home-Brewed Vigor

About a month after BioShock Infinite released, graphic designer Joe Trinder invented a an advertising poster for a vigor that harkened back to one of the plasmids from the original BioShock. That poster and its plasmid will be featured in the “Burial at Sea” extension due to release later this year. “Old Man Winter” was…

By Owen Good Published October 16, 2013

Twenty Years Later, EA Admits Shaq Fu was an Abomination

ESPN’s E:60 newsmagazine ran an evergreen feature last night on the history of sports video games and, while largely a collection of celebrities’ memories, it did feature, at long last, a mea culpa of sorts for Shaq Fu, widely regarded as one of the worst video games of all time. The guy at 0:40 of…

By Owen Good Published October 16, 2013

Original Grand Theft Auto Designer is Remaking Liberty City in 3D

One of the creators of the first Grand Theft Auto—whose top-down perspective bears little resemblance to the series since 2001—is revisiting Liberty City to re-render that map in 3D. Michael Dailly is carrying out the project in GameMaker: Studio, which is made by Dailly’s current employer, YoYo Games. USGamer reports that Dailly had to code…

By Owen Good Published October 16, 2013

Remembering a Miracle in the Early Days of Sports Video Games

The score was 4 to 3, two outs in the ninth, when I woke up on the couch. No one was on base. “I don’t need to see this,” I said. “Nah, stick around,” Dad said. I had two games that day, the World Series on TV, and Hardball! on my Commodore 64. If the…

By Owen Good Published October 15, 2013

Activist: Congress Going After Violent Games is ‘Virtual Gun Control’

Considering how violent video games have been scapegoated by gun-rights hardliners, this defense seems to come from an unusual source. But a man who sued the District of Columbia—and won—over a handgun ban says lawmakers scapegoat video games because they can’t win on the gun debate. “It seems to me that going after shooter video…

By Owen Good Published October 15, 2013

ESPN Says It’s Been Using Next-Gen Madden Footage. It Looks Terrible.

This is a look at Madden NFL 25 on the Xbox One and I won’t lie, it’s not a good look at all. It takes a trained eye to watch this video—an aborted promotion with ESPN’s YouTube channel—and spot actual differences between next-gen Madden NFL 25 and Madden 25 on the Xbox 360. Can you…

By Owen Good Published October 14, 2013

Funky Tecmo Super Bowl Mod Creates Street Version of Gridiron Classic

A legion of editors have kept the nearly 22-year-old Tecmo Super Bowl relevant with mods that allow the game to be played with the modern NFL or college teams. Well, did you know the series also has a 7-on-7 arcade-style version, too? It’s free. “Street Tecmo” debuted quietly about a year ago on the TecmoBowl.org…

By Owen Good Published October 14, 2013

If You Can’t Pull Off These Awesome GTA Stunts, Try Using Moon Gravity

A month into its release, most everyone has figured out that every curb is an opportunity for an insane stunt jump in Grand Theft Auto V—with or without the moon gravity cheat enabled. Some of the drivers behind the stunts in this video say they pulled off these feats without using Moon Gravity, and yes,…

By Owen Good Published October 14, 2013

Check Out Xbox One’s New Friends List

It stands to reason that Xbox Live on Xbox One would adopt the basic features of social networking—following friends, activity feeds and such. Larry Hryb of Xbox Live explains how all of that works in this video of the console’s Friends app. Remember, your friends list expands to 1,000 under the new Xbox One, but…

By Owen Good Published October 14, 2013

Hacker Claims League of Legends Maker Buried a Finished Card Game [UPDATE]

Someone has claimed to hack the Twitter account of the president and co-founder of Riot Games, the makers of League of Legends, using it to publish images and templates from a completed-but-unreleased League of Legends card-based game. “Riot doesn’t want you to play this game,” said “Jason,” the hacker. The breach occurred today at 1:16…