Owen Good

Box Scores: Circle the Bandwagons

Alright, I confess, I’m fully aboard a soccer bandwagon that, if fate has any sense of timing, should barrel headlong into a shattering wreck this afternoon. Luke keeps bugging me to learn soccer, so I picked up 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa and toyed around with the two-button controls, just to learn spacing and…

Support Your World Cup Side in Uncharted 2 Multiplayer

Through July 12 – the day after the World Cup championship – Uncharted 2 players may choose from 16 different World Cup shirts for Drake and Flynn in multiplayer, one for each nation that advanced to the Cup’s knockout stage. Naughty Dog made the skins active last night, calling it a gesture to soccer fans…

The Moneysaver: Dealverines!!!

You think you’re tough for reading The Moneysaver every day? There’s half a million scarecrows in Denver who’d give anything for one coupon of what you got. They live on rats and sawdust bread and sometimes … on each other. Been wanting to use Red Dawn somehow since I saw Homefront at E3. John Milius…

Will a Thousand Words Do?

Hi folks: We’re aware of the problems preventing some stories from embedding images and video. We’ve got people working on a solution as we speak – we know how important these are to the stories you enjoy. Kotaku’s posting schedule will continue as planned through this outage and its swift resolution.

The Week in Review: He’s One, But Not the Same

The man’s a gamer. Maybe not one of us – we don’t run Electronic Arts after all – but this week’s profile of EA boss John Riccitiello portrayed a man who thinks earnestly about games, in ways we gamers do. It was not his gaming bonafides that started a robust discussion of Riccitiello’s place as…

Making Manhattan Chowder with Crysis 2

If you discount the static and deliberately skipping video what you have here is a blend of Crysis 2‘s trailer and its closed-doors demo, shown at E3. Spoiler alert: The MetLife building goes down, and it goes down hard. This should give you a better idea of what I was trying to get across –…

Exec ‘Severely’ Doubts Value of Some TV Advertising

In a heavy-hitter’s roundtable with an industry advertising blog, the man in charge of marketing Homefront doubts that television advertising does much for many video games, and would rather advertise on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live than CBS and NBC. “One of the bigger questions we have to ask ourselves is how important is television?”…

Friendly Reminder: Super Mario Bros. Crossover Now Featuring Ninja Gaiden

As promised, Jay Pavlina has delivered Ryu Hayabusa from the NES Ninja Gaiden as the seventh playable character in the flash sensation Super Mario Bros. Crossover. Other character-specific abilities have been included in the game’s 1.1 update. Mega Man now jumps more realistically, and can use Rush Coil to get to higher spots on the…

Mario Kart Saved My Eyesight

A British youth overcame what is called “lazy eye syndrome” thanks to a doctor’s prescription of Mario Kart DS, restoring his right eye from “near blindness” to a 250 percent improvement. At age 5, Ben Michaels was diagnosed with ambylopia in his right eye, which results in a steady decline in vision in that eyeball.…

Regardless of World Cup, EA Sports Predicts an American Triumph

Landon Donovan’s miracle goal on Wednesday did far more than propel the United States to the World Cup’s knockout stage. It’s made America the No. 1 soccer video game market on the planet. So says Electronic Arts, whose FIFA series of console games is both the biggest-selling and highest-rated sports video game in the world.…

All Hail the Stanley Cup Champs; Opening Day is, Like, Tomorrow

Jesus, didn’t we just get done with the NHL? I did a little bit of checking and, yep, of the major team simulations, it has the shortest span between crowning its champion and the release of its next video game. Chicago’s Blackhawks (figuring in all but three of these 15 screens that EA Sports released)…

Team Fortress 2, by Heavy, Age 5

The mangled syntax and childlike enthusiasm of Team Fortress 2‘s Heavy is very much reminiscent of a five-year-old’s view of the world, the obvious inspiration for this crayon drawing about his friends and teammates. The entire thing is so damned large I have to link it here. Note: Yes, we know a child did not…

NHL 11 Screenshots

Fight Brews Over Game Crazy’s Remaining Inventory

Game Crazy went belly-up earlier this year, removing one more retail alternative to GameStop from American shopping centers and malls. The sell-off of its remaining stock is on hold while two liquidators battle over who’s bidding the most for it. Movie Gallery, the parent company of Game Crazy, wants a bankruptcy court to go ahead…

Journey to the Center of a Vagina with Privates

No word if Microsoft has changed positions on Privates, the irreverent safe-sex-themed game still being produced for PC. Zombie Cow Studios has gone ahead with this trailer anyway. “Don’t touch it, you don’t want it growing all up your balls!” No word on its release either, except for the oh-so-clever signoff that it’s coming (pause)…

NCAA Football 11 Demo Impressions: Warming Up the Pre-Game

With six additional teams and a slew of custom visuals, NCAA Football 11 released an uncommonly ambitious demo last week. Football is still a results-driven enterprise, and its video games are rightly held to the same expectation of on-field execution. That’s not to say this game can’t be fundamentally enhanced by pageantry and atmospherics. This…

Medal of Honor Multiplayer Impressions: Not What’s Right, Just Who’s Left

I’ve never seen combat, but I’ve heard it said that it is hurricane bursts of life-and-death activity bridged by an indescribably tense boredom. EA DICE miniaturizes this model in an grimly realistic presentation of war for Medal of Honor What I learned from my time with Medal of Honor, both at E3 and in its…

Counter Strike: Source Hits Mac, On Sale

The rollout of Valve classics to Mac OS continues this week with oldie-but-goodie Counter Strike: Source, which in addition to getting a “major update” is on sale the next two days for $6.80. That’s two-thirds off the normal price. The update delivers new stats and game summary screens, plus more than 140 achievements. The game…

All Units: BOL for APB in KTR

That’s police-scanner speak for “Be on the lookout” for Realtime Worlds’ E.J. Moreland and Chris Collins, discussing their cops-and-robbers epic APB on Kotaku Talk Radio, available now for download. Did we mention APB’s also an MMO? E.J. and Chris were excited to talk about next week’s release of the law-and-disorder role-playing game, even teased some…

The Swiss and the Swedes Get Their Own NHL 11

Chicago’s Jonathan Toews is the global cover athlete for NHL 11 but EA Sports shows some love for other nations, putting Henrik and Daniel Sedin on the cover for the game sold in Sweden, and Mark Streit for Switzerland’s version.