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Cooperative Multiplayer with the Devil You Don’t Know
New Super Mario Bros. Wii released a week ago, and even its lighthearted cartoon environment and four-player cooperative mode still manage to bring out the worst in multiplayer behavior – if you don’t know your partner, that is. “Being granted the opportunity to be friends or adversaries, games allow us to act out the worst…
By Owen Good -
The NIMF is No More
The National Institute on the Media and the Family – whose annual report cards were more fair and reasonable than such an Orwellian name might imply – will close at the end of 2009 after 14 years of watchdoggery. The closure is apparently tied to the end of funding from a primary NIMF source, Fairview…
By Owen Good -
No Less of a Memory — The Human Drama of Video Game Sports
Some video game sports moments are so indelible we remember and narrate them the same way we do the ones from real life. I’m not saying we confuse the realities, necessarily, although anyone who’s completed his third season of a dynasty in any simulation can be forgiven for wandering into an alternate reality. “My star…
By Owen Good -
Weekend Coupons: Home Stretch
This Friday won’t be the death of Internet specials, but you can bet retailers with a physical location will be trying to drag you in there for values, rather than ship ’em to your door. Online shops will be trying to keep up, too, but come Nov. 27, everyone’s gonna try to make both their…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku Originals: Review to a Thrill
The releases of Assassin’s Creed II and Left 4 Dead 2 dominated this week’s news cycle, with McWhertor and Totilo supplying immediate reviews of what both offer. The end of Pandemic, as a studio anyway, was the big headline. Kotaku Talk Radio Top Stories Confirmed: EA Closes Pandemic Studios, Says Brand Will Live On Rumor:…
By Owen Good -
Valve Bans Gray-Market Modern Warfare 2 Keys
Some who bought CD keys for Modern Warfare 2 – no physicial media in other words – from import resellers have seen their access to the game vanish, as Activision has apparently asked Valve to ban such keys. A poster in Valve’s official forums complained that a key he bought through G2Play.net no longer lets…
By Owen Good -
Child’s Play Drivers Pile Back on the Bus
Take a seat and don’t stand forward of the yellow line – Desert Bus for Hope kicked off its third marathon o’ masochism, and looks to top the $70,000 it raised last year for the Child’s Play charity. Online sketch comedy team LoadingReadyRun is back behind the wheel, promising to play the most boring video…
By Owen Good -
Gameloft Cuts Android Efforts, Says It’s Not Alone
The French mobile games developer Gameloft has scaled back its development on Google’s Android platform, complaining that the Android application store is “not as neatly done” and offers little enticement to buy games offered there. This is interesting because, as MacWorld points out, smaller developers had welcomed Android as an alternative to the sometimes inscrutable…
By Owen Good -
Lacrosse Title Debuts on Xbox Live Indie Channel
Absolutely, it’s an exciting and physical sport. But even lacrosse fans admit the game has a niche following. But lacrosse does have its own video game now, which just went up on Xbox Live yesterday. Suck on that, water polo! Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 hit the Indie Games channel. While it does not feature…
By Owen Good -
Free-to-Play Madden Alternative Inks Four More Celebs
Quick Hit Football, the free-to-play online fantasy sports/RPG hybrid Kotaku profiled two months ago, has signed agreements with four more coaches to use their likenesses as opposing AIs within the game. Marty Schottenheimer, Jerry Glanville, Marv Levy and Herm “You Play to Win the Game” Edwards join the opposing cast in Quick Hit, which focuses…
By Owen Good -
So, the Haystacks of Assassin’s Creed II – Are They Any Bigger?
Doesn’t look like Ubisoft learned their physics lesson. Matt M., who helped the Kotaku Bureau of Weights & Measures calculate the cushion Altair would need in reality, thinks the haystacks are bigger in ACII. They still look puny to me. Remember, for one of the shortest jumps in the original (Dome of the Rock), we…
By Owen Good -
Dev Alleges Some Deceive ESRB to Get Lower Ratings
The CEO of Artificial Mind & Movement – the studio behind WET and the PSP build of Danté’s Inferno – said at a development conference that the ESRB is easily manipulated and that publishers take advantage of it. Speaking at the Montreal International Game Summit, Rémi Racine of A2M said: As a developer who has…
By Owen Good -
American League’s Best Pitcher is a Warcraft Player
Kansas City’s Zack Greinke locked up Cy Young Award, as the American League’s top pitcher, but he never gave much thought to his shot at the hardware. “I’ve been playing this World of Warcraft game,” he told the hometown paper. “The quote is classic Greinke – honest, surprising, funny – and probably as good a…
By Owen Good -
BioShock 2 Rated M for Intense Violence, Wirty-Dords
No surprise BioShock 2 picked up an M from the ESRB, but that’s not to say its newly minted rating certificate isn’t interesting. The writeup says we can expect F-bombs, mother F-bombs, the C-word and the past tense of “tweet.” There are some minor spoilers in the writeup, I suppose, so I’ll let you venture…
By Owen Good -
Bayonetta’s Torture Moves — Press B to Summon Guillotine
Look, beheading’s one thing. Getting kicked repeatedly in the ass by a woman in high heels, on the way to your own execution – that’s the torture. Good thing Bayonetta’s “torture moves” – which summon all sorts of unpleasant mechanisms to more artfully render a foe’s demise than mere boots or bullets – can’t be…
By Owen Good -
Here’s That Mario Mention in Assassin’s Creed II
Earlier today, Stephen Totilo’s review of Assassin’s Creed II referenced the game’s homage to Mario. Here’s video of the third wall-breaking inside joke, which is so mainstream it’s not inside. And it doesn’t really break the third wall, either. Well, never mind. I don’t think it rates a spoiler alert, as no major plot devices…
By Owen Good -
Microsoft Kindasmashes Natal Launch Rumor
Microsoft’s U.K. boss dismissed a report last week that Natal will be ready to go in November 2010, saying claims of pricing and available shipments were based on inaccurate rumors. Neil Thompson, the U.K.chief, told GamesIndustry.biz that “We’re still very much in the baking on Natal and there’s a lot of things to get decided…
By Owen Good -
8-Bit Left 4 Dead De-Make Arrives in January
Here I thought all the flashing corpses meant we were watching the Australian version of Left 4 Dead. I kid, Luke! I kid!!! No, this is a bona fide playable 8-bit “demake” of L4D, available soon for PC. Now, that’s not to say this is exciting. I kept waiting for a crescendo event and then…
By Owen Good -
Original World 1-1 Recreated in New Super Mario Bros. Wii
New Super Mario Bros. Wii has barely been out 48 hours, already there’s a level editors for it, and already someone’s rebuilt World 1-1 from the original Super Mario Bros. This might be played through a Wii/GameCube emulator, not on the console itself. There are a few flaws in the re-creation – how many can…
By Owen Good -
In College, the Party Never Stops — for LAN
Last week, more than a million users flooded Xbox Live to play Modern Warfare 2. Here’s something just as impressive: In January, nearly 300 gamers will meet in person to play a game released in 2000. Though one is obviously dwarfed by the comparison, both figures are impressive in their own right. And both speak…
By Owen Good
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