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Weekend Timewaster: Elevator Fart, the Game
The great thing about working weekends is I can blast gas with impunity in the Kotaku Tower elevator, and then on Monday when the car smells like Donkey Kong’s taint, Fahey gets blamed for it once Crecente comes in. Here’s a delightful little flash game that trivializes a serious problem faced by millions of Americans…
By Owen Good -
PS3: It Only Does Kidnapping …
A Florida teenager says he was kidnapped at gunpoint, driven to a Walmart and forced to buy his captors a PlayStation 3 for the new super-low price of $299.99. Cops have arrested one suspect. The Naples, Fla. teen says two guys in a white pickup truck blocked his car as he tried to enter a…
By Owen Good -
Totilo, Talk-Show Star, Visits Fox News
This doesn’t qualify as shameless self-promotion because, well, it’s not about myself. Kotaku’s own Stephen Totilo went on Fox News‘ “Strategy Room” on Friday to discuss Modern Warfare 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and other hot topics. Totilo, who was earlier a guest on MSNBC, joined Seth Porges of Popular Mechanics and the NPD’s…
By Owen Good -
At Activision Customer Support, Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You
Bernard, a customer support rep for Activision, proclaimed that if he got more Twitter followers than his colleague, Randolph, by Friday, he’d pie Randy in the face. Bernard came up short but carried out the attack anyway. That’s customer service. Bernard lost by 1,400 to 340. I know cowardice when I see it and I…
By Owen Good -
Jersey GameStops Break Street for Assassin’s Creed II, L4D2
Three GameStops in Jersey City, N.J. put Assassin’s Creed II and Left 4 Dead 2 on sale today, calling in customers to pick up their preorders. Clerks said corporate authorized the move, blamed on a rogue independent breaking street first. The stores involved were nos. 4627, 4260 and 6005 at the Hudson Mall and Newport…
By Owen Good -
Mass Effect 2’s Elusive Illusive Man is … Martin Sheen?
Shepard confronts the behind-the-scenes puppeteer “Elusive [sic] Illusive Man” who blends the habit of Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files with the look of Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock – and the voice of President Bartlet from The West Wing. Exclusive Ellusive Man Gameplay [GameTrailers]
By Owen Good -
The Importance of Asking ‘Why’
In film or literature, the creation of acclaimed work is sometimes attached to a personal event, or reaction. “That doesn’t show up often in game development bios,” says one dev. Finding that “why” might save games from a “cultural ghetto.” As reported by Gamasutra’s Chris Remo, Chris Hecker (formerly of Maxis, now an independent developer)…
By Owen Good -
World Store Launches New Super Mario Bros. Wii This Afternoon
Friendly reminder to those in the vicinity of New York City – Nintendo’s World Store is throwing a launch party beginning in a couple hours (3 p.m. US Eastern time) for New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The shindig is more than just a line-up for an early purchase. Nintendo says it’ll deck out the store…
By Owen Good -
Maybe the Greatest of All Time, but not In Its Time
Of the major game-of-the-year awards given out each year, no sports title has ever taken top overall honors. And yet five years later, there is one still talked about in ways that year’s winners are not. That would be ESPN NFL 2K5, the last and best of an uncommonly good crop of football games in…
By Owen Good -
Weekend Coupons: ‘Twas the Week Before Black Friday
That means this is the last guilt free week you can drop disposable income on yourself. By U.S. law, once the Holiday Shopping Season officially opens, you have to buy a bunch of crap for other people. Hardware • Hey, remember that new Xbox 360 Wireless-N Adapter? Yeah, well, it’s out, and A/B/G & N…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku Originals: News that’s Hot, Spot or Not
Modern Warfare 2’s release was the big news everyone could see coming; a bloodbath at Electronic Arts, and GameStop deliberately breaking a major street date, was not. Huge developments marked an unusually newsy week, even for this time of year. Top Stories The Story and Gameplay of Final Fantasy XIII Modern Warfare 2 Sells Nearly…
By Owen Good -
Ubisoft: All Our Games Will Do This UPlay Thing
Ubisoft’s freebie-dispensing UPlay community will launch alongside Assassin’s Creed II, and ultimately will incorporate all games under the Ubisoft banner, the publisher’s CEO said on Thursday. Gamasutra, reporting Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot’s remarks at yesterday’s BMO Capital Markets conference, said Guillemot is betting that UPlay “will allow us to get a lot closer to our…
By Owen Good -
Here are the Madden NFL Arcade Rosters
Yesterday, Madden NFL Arcade announced its Thanksgiving Week launch. Today we get the full 10-man rosters for every team in the five-on-five shootout. Pasta Padre has the full list of all 32 teams. Everyone gets 10 players, five on offense and five on defense. On offense, each team gets a quarterback, running back, wide receiver,…
By Owen Good -
More than 50,000 Snap Up the Free Unreal SDK
Epic Games announced more than 50,000 downloads of its Unreal Development Kit in the first week the publisher started offering it for free. “We are very excited to see the uptake of UDK cross over the 50,000 mark in only one week, and we’re looking forward to seeing amazing games and applications come out of…
By Owen Good -
Xbox Live Sets Record with 2 Million on at Once
Likely driven by the nearly 5 million copies Modern Warfare 2 sold on its launch day, Xbox Live set a record Thursday with two million people logged into the service at once. Community guru Major Nelson tweeted the news about noon U.S. Pacific time, with operations manager Eric (“e”) Neustadter following with word of his…
By Owen Good -
Madden Arcade to Release Thanksgiving Week
IGN reports that Electronic Arts announced its five-on-five Madden NFL Arcade will release Thanksgiving week, a time of the year that already blends pigskin with parking one’s self on the couch for extraordinarily long stretches in front of the tube. Madden NFL Arcade will release Nov. 24 (Tuesday) on the PlayStation Network, and Nov. 25…
By Owen Good -
EA Will Hire Back Some Positions It Cut
Also at today’s Digital Entertainment Conference in New York, Electronic Arts‘ chief financial officer, Eric Brown, said the company will be hiring back some of those positions it axed earlier this week. But it sounds like just the cheaper ones. “We will be hiring back positions in low-cost locations to maintain capacity,” Brown said at…
By Owen Good -
Wii-Bowling Drug Cops Get Off Lite
A-member them law enforcement perfesshunals down in Florida who killed time on a raid by bowling up big scores on a drug kingpin’s Wii? Well, 11 of them got sanctioned for their conduct, but not too hard, now. All of them, whose names aren’t being published because they were working undercover, got nastygrams and retraining.…
By Owen Good -
Extremely Rare Atari Cartridge Sells for $5,000
A sealed-in-the-box copy of “The Music Machine” – rated “Unbelievably Rare” by Atari Age – just went for $5,250 on eBay. The game, sold only in religious bookstores, is prized by collectors. “The Music Machine” was based on a line of other products, including albums – back when they were, in fact, albums. The seller…
By Owen Good
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