Owen Good

My Money’s On The Guy In Purple Pants

Donkey Kong vs. the Hulk, by artist David Stonecipher – who’s done video game takes on gender switches and “Lost” before. See Mario and Superman, Solid Snake and Batman, and Spider-Man and Just Cause’s Rico Rodriguez at this link.

I Would Hurt A Flea

Yesterday I scheduled a vet visit to clear up a nasty flea infestation on my cat, Bear, and buy some weapons-grade chemicals to annihilate their existence. After $250, you better believe I have a genocidal hatred of fleas. Fleas are like the crabs except they’re harder to get rid of, and and you didn’t even…

Madden Diehards Pan Its New ‘Pad’

A major change to a technical – but essential – component of calling plays had hardcore Madden gamers howling with complaints within hours of the demo version’s release on Tuesday. But the new “Strategy Pad” controls are here to stay, like it or not. At issue is the new method of pre-snap adjustments. EA Sports…

What A Year’s Worth Of Tweeting About Games Looks Like

The 150 most commonly used words in more than 28 million games-related Tweets, July 2009 to present, as compiled by AggreTweet. The entire infographic is on the jump.

Street Soccer Comes To FIFA On Wii

Not wanting to neglect the Wii version of its international seller, EA Sports Canada built a five-on-five street soccer mode into this year’s edition, with venues ranging from indoor (with Andrés Iniesta, pictured), to the streets of Brazil and France. Players will perform in street wear in this mode, and it sounds like it will…

APB’s Human Avatar, The Final Stage

Realtime Worlds’ endeavor to create a human avatar modeled on APB has reached its fifth and final stage: the outfitting. And Josh didn’t do so bad. You can hear the relief in his voice when Josh finds out he only got the steampunk look. Which, honestly, is pretty tight. His fittings also complement the parkour…

Absolutely No Fire Flowers Within 10 Feet of Pump

Entrepreneur Mario diversifies his holdings. Seen by Kotaku commenter Jedi Monkey in Tampa, Fla.

“Draft Combine” Included in NBA 2K11

Last year’s “NBA Draft Combine” for NBA 2K10 – a paid downloadable mode that went out before the game’s release – will be part of NBA 2K11’s main game this year, according to a 2K Sports community manager. Today over Twitter, 2K’s Ronnie Singh proffered that last year’s Draft Combine – a novel way to…

President Obama Will Appear in Madden NFL 11

Click to view The Super Bowl celebrations and animations for Madden NFL 10 were, honestly, a bit underweight. This year the game goes all out – even bringing in the President of the United States for the big party. IGN first reported today, with that video, on Madden 11’s enhanced Super Bowl interstitials. NFL Commissioner…

Madden Soundtrack Goes For That Gameday Feeling

Seven NFL teams’ fight songs are included for the first time this year in the Madden NFL soundtrack – unfortunately (from my perspective) the best one is MIA. Probably because they didn’t want the thing sounding like a porn movie. That would be “Super Chargers” – not exactly marching band stuff as you can hear…

Going Out Of Style

To: Luke From: Owen Re: Hasta La Vista You may have noticed this past week that I stopped italicizing video game titles. Though I strenuously profess my innocence, and vow I read of this requirement in our online style guide, apparently that is not the case. I don’t know why this is upsetting. It’s definitely…

This is Either ‘What If?’ or ‘Marvel Team-Up’

I’d love to know which common foe it is that united these arch-nemeses. Picture by longtime Kotaku reader and former comment ombudsman Shiraz Malik at San Diego Comic-Con 2010.

FIFA 11 Takes a Personality Test This Year

This year FIFA 11 strives to make its players, especially its superstars, more identifiable not only by their physical appearance, but also by their style of play. To that end, “Personality+” has been built in to EA Sports’ top seller. According to EA Sports, Personality+ draws from a database of 36 attributes and 57 traits,…

The Week in Games: Zerg Rush

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – a sequel following its predecessor more than 10 years later, and officially under development for the past three years, finally launches on Tuesday. So does the online racing MMO Need for Speed World. Today, July 25 Napoleon: Total War – The Peninsular Campaign (PC) Monday, July 26 Dive: The…

Kotaku’s Top Five 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. •Eight Ways to Improve Red Dead Redemption [EgoTV] How about “Press Y to Skin Human.” •Video Gaming’s Greatest Mustaches [OC Weekly] A bit surprised that…

Why Aren’t There More Video Game Sand Castles — In Our Sand Castle Contest?

Are you fired up for StarCraft II? Do you like novels good for beach reading? Do you have ready access to a supply of sand? You still have time to enter our sandcastle contest, which ends tonight! As part of our Summer of Gaming week, Kotaku’s giving away 10 hardcover copies of Heaven’s Devils by…

FIFA 11 Personality+ Screenshots

Ashley Cole, Chelsea. Didier Drogba, Chelsea. Samuel Eto’o, Inter Milan. Nicolas Anelka, Chelsea. Ashley Cole, Chelsea. Samuel Eto’o, Inter Milan. Andres Iniesta, FC Barcelona Thomas Vermaelen, Arsenal David Villa, FC Barcelona Carles Puyol, Barcelona

DC Universe Online to Release Nov. 2

At Comic-Con yesterday, after showing that epic six-minute trailer setting up the game’s story, the eminent artist and writer Jim Lee said that DC Universe Online will launch on Nov. 2. Furthermore, playing the console MMO will not require a PlayStation Plus subscription. There hadn’t been any suggestion that it would, but the assurance brought…

Chad Ochocinco Gets a Head Start on Madden

When last we heard from Bengals receiver/game enthusiast Chad Ochocinco, he was offering season tickets for an early copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops. Now he’s enjoying Madden NFL 11, 18 days before release. Ochocinco, who last year had difficulty configuring his Xbox 360’s wireless connection and inadvisedly tweeted his Gamertag to the world,…

Nine More Tracks Confirmed for Rock Band, Dance Central

Harmonix, as promised, yesterday rolled out a list of six new songs for Rock Band 3 and three for the upcoming Kinect game Dance Central. The tracks are, for Rock Band 3: • “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (Tears for Fears) • “Rock Lobster” (The B-52s) • “Foolin'” (Def Leppard) • “Beautiful People” (Marilyn…