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Balky Internet Almost Ends StarCraft Champ’s Tournament

An Internet outage in the Austin, Texas area nearly sank a world-class StarCraft II player’s bid to advance in the game’s world championship tournament. His uplink stabilized in time for him to gut out two match victories and advance, however. GameSpot reports that Choi “Polt” Seong Hun—the reigning North American champion of the StarCraft II…

Wheelchair-Using Man Arrested in Xbox Deal Gone Bad

Here’s one that can’t wait for the next Police Blotter roundup. Cops in the Philadelphia suburb of Upper Darby say a man who uses a specialized wheelchair was trying to sell an Xbox, “started talking like a gangster” and then stabbed his potential buyer five times when the man reneged on the purchase. Andrew Hinson,…

What Do You Get When You Combine a Speeder Bike and a Pinball Table? You get a rather slick sub-level in Return of the Jedi, (at 1:00 of this gameplay video) due sometime this fall in the next set of three tables for Zen Studios’ Star Wars Pinball.

NBA 2K14: The Kotaku Review

It’s possible that basketball fans have been spoiled by the NBA 2K series, which over the preceding four titles has churned out some of the most conspicuous year-to-year improvements from the brutal treadmill of annual sports video games development. Looking back, the highly polished gameplay and presentation that other series would kill for seems almost…

Masked Reagan Suspected in GameStop Stickup

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, sometimes tragic. Kotaku‘s Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Rob One for the Gipper PALM DESERT, Calif.—A clown…

No, These Aren’t Vacation Photos. They’re GTA V Screenshots.

This isn’t a postcard or a promotional shot for the Union Pacific Railroad. It’s a picture taken within Grand Theft Auto V by a professional photographer looking for the beauty of Los Santos and Blaine County instead of taking crass selfies and vulgar crotch-shots. Phil Rose, a photographer with more than two decades’ worth of…

Nintendo Is Shockingly Honest About a Recycled Sequel

This is … remarkable. Well, that’s my view of it anyway. Nintendo published a news release this morning that described FIFA 14 on the 3DS in just about the worst terms you can apply to a new sports video game. “FIFA 14 Legacy Edition delivers unmatched authenticity that reflects the current football season with updated…

Though Albert Penello, Microsoft’s director of product planning, did say you could run a PlayStation 4’s video out feed through an Xbox 360, it’s not optimal when it comes to actually playing PS4 games with the 360 as a pass-through. “HDMI latency is fine for video feeds, but not great interactive,” he said on NeoGAF.

Towing Cop Cars, Stabbing Sharks and Other GTA Myths Put to the Test

YouTube’s DefendTheHouse put out a Mythbusters-style video for Black Ops 2 earlier this year, and now returns with some sage advice for managing Grand Theft Auto V‘s bigtime threats—from sharks to police choppers. My favorite protip is lighting a gasoline trail with your turbocharged sedan’s backfire. It’s such a passive-aggressive way to blow up a…

In a Sports Video Game, There Are No Second Acts

Trailing four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, it was apparent the Yankees were already thinking about room service. Koji Uehara, the Boston relief pitcher, barely needed the free-swinging help to extend his personal equivalent of a perfect game from 11 innings to 12 on just nine pitches. The 37 straight batters Uehara…

Every Single Hat in Team Fortress 2, Worn by a Single Character: This is only a tiny snapshot of all forty-lebem-sebemty-thirteen TF2 hats that Spy has equipped, all at once, in a drawingby DeviantArt’s AshleyLange. Trust me, the stack goes up way, way, higher than this. Can you identify them all? This guy tried.

Manhunt‘s Publisher Fails to Retake 10-Year-Old Promo Site [Update]

This is weird. valiant-ent.tv was a bogus VHS snuff-porn site Rockstar established way back in 2003 to promote the infamous Manhunt series until it let the registration lapse. Last month someone took over the domain and they’re using it to flack a petition for a sequel. Now Manhunt‘s publisher is trying to regain control of…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Canine Countenances

Alright, I’m back from vacation. I didn’t say it was a vacation because when you publicly state you’re out of town, people tend to come over and borrow things. Permanently. But thank you all for the impromptu ‘Shops of my activities while I was away; it’s always nice to be missed. This may not be…

Users of Older Xbox 360s Say Grand Theft Auto V Crashes Their Console

It seems the launch week of a hotly anticipated game can’t pass without a problem keeping some folks from playing. Several tips and complaints we’ve received, and a long forum thread backing them up, allude to a specific problem facing Grand Theft Auto V: the game appears to crash on older models of the Xbox…

Sunday Comics: The Best Medicine?

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. Remember to vote this week in our annual remake of the page. We need at least two new features, and you get to choose them. Nerd Rage by Andy Kluthe. Published Sept. 20. Read more of Nerd Rage Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins…

College Footballers Show Support for Those Suing EA Sports and NCAA

Several college football players yesterday showed support for the National Collegiate Players Association, writing the initials of the group’s slogan—”All Players United”—on parts of their uniform. It’s a show of solidarity with those suing over the use of player likenesses in the NCAA Football series.

Those who have Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 might want to jump in at some point this weekend to take advantage of the double XP boost in online matches, and the free trial of the game’s Uprising DLC, which offers four maps, plus the “Mob of the Dead” mode.

NBA Live Dribbles Out a First Look at Actual Gameplay

NBA Live 14 announced its launch date earlier this week—Nov. 19, which is curious, as that is four days after the PlayStation 4 launches and still there’s a PS4/NBA Live 14 launch bundle (currently sold out) due to drop on Nov. 15. OK, well, while we get that sorted out, here’s the first look at…

The Legend of Zelda’s abysmal CD-i adaptation from 20 years ago—Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon—were KGB’d out of Hyrule Historia, the series’ canonical volume. MTV Multiplayer asked series director Eiji Aonuma why, and got a rare comment from Nintendo about one of the worst games of all time.

Yep. Madden‘s Eyebrow-Shaving Bet Was B.S. After All

We said we’d keep any eye on this nutball wager between Madden endorsers Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson, who met last week. Looks like no one lost anything, thanks to the magic of digital editing. Check out the comments on that YouTube video. Some folks are seriously hacked off that Kaepernick didn’t do the deed…