Owen Good

Backhanded Box Quotes: No Need for Creed

Welcome back to “Backhanded Box Quotes,” a collection of measured, thoughtful criticism from the user reviews of Metacritic and elsewhere. Assassin’s Creed III Released: Oct. 31 Critic: elgringo (Metacritic) • “They pulled off Mass Effect 3 with this game.” Score: 0 Critic: Skycrimson (Metacritic) • “I thought I was actually playing AC2 again because GS…

Xbox 360 Supports 32GB USB Drives After Latest Update

Xbox Live’s latest dashboard update also delivered an increase in the size of the USB hard drives the console will support. The Xbox 360 can now save to drives up to 32 gigabytes in capacity, double the old limit if 16GB. Joystiq noted the capacity change and sought to confirm it with a Microsoft representative,…

No. 1 in the Polls Doesn’t Mean Much in Sports Video Gaming Either

Around sports video gaming’s water cooler, much is being made of NBA 2K13 clocking in as October’s No. 1 seller on the NPD charts, and it is indeed an affirmation for sports video gamers as a whole. Sports video games are, culturally, treated as an outlier in core video gaming, yet they routinely send two,…

ARC Squadron Soars in the Wild Pew-Pew-Pew Yonder

The fact I’m sitting here thinking, “Dammit, I really need to get an iPad,” explains both the general excellence of ARC Squadron and its one unfortunate shortcoming, though the game still is a highly recommendable rail shooter that shines with high production value. Yes, a larger screen would do more justice to the outstanding visuals…

Aspyr is bringing Borderlands 2 to the Mac on Nov. 20. It’s delivering the same drop-in/out co-op action as the PC.

Don’t Get Your Hopes Up for a Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Wii U Re-Release

The well regarded Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars of 2010 was probably Capcom’s least-complained-about fighting game of the past three years, probably because the Wii was absolutely useless as a DLC-delivery device. While you may still play the game on the Wii U, which has backwards compatibility with the Wii’s controllers and games library, don’t…

Did LeBron James Kill NBA 2K13‘s Competitive Balance?

It’s a year-round best seller and by all rights has never been better, but Ben Sin, writing for Kill Screen Daily, says NBA 2K13‘s competitive balance—online anyway—is completely thrown out of whack by the superteams that make the real league such a compelling story for basketball fans. “Whereas the Chicago Bulls, despite having only one…

A patch update for FIFA 13 corrects the “invisible ball,” plus other glitches and crashes folks had complained about.

Pol Who Wanted Warning Labels on Violent Games Loses Re-Election

U.S. Rep. Joe Baca, who had long wanted cigarette-style warning labels slapped on violent video games, won’t be headed back to Capitol Hill. He lost re-election yesterday in a redistricting arrangement which had him pitted against a fellow Democrat for a seat in a differently-numbered district. Baca, a seven-term incumbent, sought three times, unsuccessfully, to…

Inside Line Still Finds a Hard Left in NASCAR Country

Because of their high fidelity physics and the crude way in which a standard console controller is equipped to handle them, motorsports simulations may be the most demanding genre of any video game. When I fired up NASCAR the Game: Inside Line, rather than jump straight into my career I tried to repeat a moment…

Assassin’s Creed III (360, PS3) is $44.99 from Toys ‘R Us. This deal may not last to tonight’s Midweek Moneysaver

The Week in Games: Wake Up, John …

Halo 4 isn’t the only one coming out of hibernation this week. It’s the biggest video game doing so, as you can see by the fact the only other first-run console release is NASCAR The Game: Inside Line Also of note: anthologies for Saints Row: The Third (comprising all DLC) and Mass Effect (all three…

Talk Amongst Yourselves is where you can talk about everything you’ve been dying to say the past week. Welcome back.

Kotaku is Back—and Fully Operational

Welcome back to Kotaku The site and all of its features are now fully restored after a nearly weeklong outage brought on by Hurricane Sandy. The entire staff thanks you for your understanding and your readership as we continued our work with a different web presence this past week. We’ve imported all of the stories…

Sunday Comics: Dressed to Kill Yourself

Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Virtual Shackles by Jeremy Vinar and Mike Fahmie published Oct. 31.—Read more of Virtual Shackles Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Oct. 29.—Read more of Awkward Zombie…

Bring Wreck-It Ralph to Your 3DS With These Mii Codes

Jordan White, the founder of StreetPass NYC (a 3DS meetup organization) sends along these four Mii QR codes from Wreck-It Ralph, which released on Friday. If you want to trick out your Mii like one of the film’s characters, there’s Ralph and his adversary Fix-It Felix, plus Sgt. Tamora Calhoun from Hero’s Duty and the…

These Old Folks’ Reactions to Black Ops II Are Adorable

Gather a bunch of 50- and 60-year-olds in a focus group, show them Black Ops II‘s violent, self-regarding trailer, and ask them what they think. Recipe for incomprehending outrage and comedy gold, akin to the infamous “Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2,” stunt EA pulled, right?. Not really. Asked why the game is so popular…

Texas Patent Firm Asks Judge to Shut Down Magic: The Gathering: Online

A Texas intellectual property firm has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast-but, intriguingly, not parent company Hasbro-alleging that Magic: The Gathering‘s online version violates patents it holds on a video game you’ve probably never heard of. Given that Magic: The Gathering Online is 10 years old, and patent infringement cases are…

Is Someone Starting a League of Legends Fantasy League?

I suppose this was inevitable. When you have eSports, with all the markers of professional sports-superstars, commentators, million-dollar prizes-at some point you’ll wind up with fantasy eSports. Domain watchdog Fusible spotted three registrations on Thursday and, combined with their owner, it suggests someone’s looking to create a fantasy League of Legends league. Who knows how…

Five Bucks Buys Six Exotic Rides in Forza Horizon‘s Next DLC Pack

The “Bondurant Car Pack” for Forza Horizon arrives on Nov. 6 and offers six new rides: The 2012 Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Spyder Performante; the 2012 Shelby 1000; the 2010 BMW M3 GTS; the 1965 Shelby Cobra 427 S/C, the 1993 Nissan 240SX SE, and the 2012 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. It’s 400 Microsoft points.