Owen Good

Add WWE 2K14 to the list of sports video games with no announced Wii U version. (NBA 2K14 is “TBA,” says Take-Two.) No Madden, no FIFA, no NCAA, no NHL. Will the Wii U see any sports titles?

Current Pros Give the Old College Try in NCAA Football Ultimate Team

There will be real football players, using their real names, in the debut of NCAA Football Ultimate Team this year. They just won’t be anyone suiting up on a college football field this fall. A deal with the NFL Players’ Association gives NCAA the rights to use up to 2,500 current NFL stars, pictured in…

Police Blotter: Man Avoids Prison, but Is All Out of Bubblegum

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, but potentially tragic. Games and consoles are currency, objects of dispute, sometimes even weapons themselves. Kotaku‘s Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. Put On These Glasses, or Start Eating That…

Call of Duty‘s Nuketown Map Recreated in Real Life for Paintball

If you camped in the top floors of the Nuketown houses long enough that you wanted to change its hideous government-issue curtains and carpet, then this video is for you. An Illinois paintball field and (paintball) arms supplier Tippmann Sport recreated the map in real life this past weekend. The nuclear clock tower, the school…

Some wild quantum powers, including the ability to “blink” or teleport out of harm’s way, arrive today with Origin Crisis, the seventh DLC extension for DC Universe Online. Operations, raids and time travels explore such possibilities as evil Batman and good Luthor. This post explains how it all fits together.

If you’d rather watch video games than play them on your console, Twitch.tv has the app for you, available for Xbox Live gold subscribers today. The app makes the top 300 live channels available for spectating. No streaming from the 360, only viewing. There’ll be more at the next Xbox reveal in a week.

See Four New Pokémon in Action in the Newest Gameplay Trailer

Pokémon X and Pokémon Y got a new game trailer this morning, and shed more light on the game, including four new Pokémon, when it arrives in October for the 3DS. Say hello to Fletchling, Pancham, Helioptile and Gogoat. The game will take place in an entirely new region, named Kalos, whose central hub is…

Filming begins in Macon, Ga. on the Need for Speed movie, which this local TV reporter says is “a great moment for Macon, for Fountain Car Wash, and for all of the community.”

Want to take classes from Professor Warren Spector? The University of Texas has created the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy. Spector will guide its curriculum and Paul Sams, Blizzard’s chief operating officer, is also an instructor. Admitted students pay no tuition and get a $10,000 stipend.

ESRB Tells Browser Game to Quit Bragging That It Was Rated AO

The ESRB has asked the Chinese maker of a browser-based game to quit advertising it as rated Adults Only, reports GamesIndustry.biz, largely because the game has never been rated by the ESRB. Even if it had, Wartune would likely run afoul of ESRB policies against making a marketing spectacle of acquiring such a notorious rating…

The Week in Games: Metrospecial

THQ’s bankruptcy couldn’t kill it. Now, Metro: Last Light finally arrives for the big three—PC, PS3 and 360. Manhunt resurfaces on PSN and Zen Studios’ awesome pinball simulator debuts on Steam. The Week in Games is brought to you by Dealzon Tuesday • Metro: Last Light (360, PS3, PC) • Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton…

It Seems Easy, But Tiger’s Greatest Feat is Damn Hard in a Video Game

In no rec league could I ever throw a no-hitter. Alone on a basketball court I’d need half an hour to score 69 points—and a trampoline to dunk. But I can do all of those things in my living room. If video games give us the conceit of doing the impossible, only now has one…

Tim Schafertells Game Informer that his studio, Double Fine, still is trying to buy back the rights to Stacking and Costume Quest from the dissolved THQ, and also Brütal Legend from EA and Iron Brigade (formerly Trenched) from Microsoft. “We can still make more of those games,” he says.

An enterprising Grand Theft Auto IV modder just added the Millennium Falcon to the—wait … wait … Oh, my! What have you done? Oh my! It’s BACKWARDS! You flea-bitten furball! Only an overgrown mop-head like you …

EA Sports’ former executive producer on NCAA Football testified that the game “generally tried to make the players perform as their real life counterparts, short of their name and likeness.” EA and the NCAA are defendants in a potential class-action suit over the unauthorized use of college players’ likenesses.

Real-Money Profit from Diablo‘s Fake-Money Exploit Going to Charity

The illicit, real-money profits made from a gold-duplicating bug in Diablo III have been confiscated and will be given to charity, the game’s publisher said yesterday. Blizzard says that just 415 players—all of whom have been sanctioned—used the exploit in this way. Earlier this week, a glitch in Diablo III‘s latest patch update allowed players…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Ridiculous Rift

Well, the big idea I had was already grabbed up midweek. That would be the mashup of Electronic Arts and Star Wars. So I’ve got to pull the ripcord on Plan B: People looking ridiculous while being guillotined in or riding a roller coaster with the Oculus Rift. The two exploitables I have to offer…

Watch a Dishonored Designer Explain His Job to His Proud Mom

We hope your mother has enjoyed her Mother’s Day so far, and if you’re a mother, that you have as well. In the spirit of the day, Bethesda offers this video of one of Dishonored‘s developers explaining to his mom what he does for a living. No, no, this isn’t uncomfortable like, say, a porno…

Sunday Comics: Tama-Gotcha

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics, chosen by our readership. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon in the lower right corner. Nerd Rage by Andy Kluthe. Published May 10. Read more of Nerd Rage Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Published May…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Rasta Banana: The Winners

Yes, that’s a banana in his pocket and no, Henry Gribbohm is not happy to see you. He drained his life savings, all $2,600 of it, in his vain pursuit of an Xbox 360 grand prize at a carnival game. He did take home this swell dreadlocked banana, the source of our latest ‘Shop Contest,…