-
It Costs A Lot of Money To Shove Ads in Your Face on Xbox Live
The current version of Xbox Live sure is full of ads, huh? Why? Because ads make money. How much money? Ben Kuchera over at The Penny Arcade Report speaks to some insiders and has some figures Here is an excerpt of his findings (the one thing you need to know to set this up is…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 13, 2012 -
A Real-Life Game Clerk Is Answering Your Questions Right Here, Starting at 1pm ET
Ever want to ask a person who sells video games for a living a question? (Other than “Do you know the release date for GTA V?”) What does a person who works the register know about video games and the people who play then? What’s the worst game they ever recommended to an unwitting shopper?…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 13, 2012 -
You Should Try The New Game From the Angry Birds People
Do you like feeling smart? Do you like feeling lucky? Angry Birds lets you feel both at the same time. And so does Amazing Alex, the new game from Finnish Angry Birds studio Rovio. This too is a physics game. This too could have been designed by Rube Goldberg. And this too is good. We…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 13, 2012 -
OK, Rockstar, But What Would Niko Bellic Really Do?
Grand Theft Auto IV protagonist Niko Bellic has some hard choices to make in his Liberty City adventure. Well, you have to make the choices for him. But what would Niko have done? That’s what a fan of Rockstar Games’ 2008 epic asked the company in a recent Q&A on Rockstar’s website. With enough spoiler…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 13, 2012 -
Top Battlefield Designer Leaves Battlefield Studio
David Goldfarb, who worked at the EA-owned development house DICE as the lead designer of Battlefield Bad Company 2 and lead single-player designer on Battlefield 3, has left the Swedish mega-studio. “It was time to move on for me,” Goldfarb told Kotaku. But should Battlefield fans be concerned? “Fans have nothing to worry about.” An…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 12, 2012 -
Official Live-Action Street Fighter Series Coming From Some Very Talented People
The fans who made the terrific live-action Street Fighter: Legacy short film (see above!) have been tapped by Capcom to make an official live-action series called Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist. The series will debut next year. Here are some official details from a press release that hit as this was announced at Comic-Con: “this thrilling,…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 12, 2012 -
Good News and Bad News For Those Concerned About the Wii U’s Power
The Wii U is significantly more powerful than the Wii or the GameCube before it, but Nintendo’s next console doesn’t appear to radically surpass the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, according to conversations we’ve had with people familiar with the Wii U and the forthcoming consoles from Sony and Microsoft. But horsepower alone never won…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 12, 2012 -
Epic’s Fortnite Will Be The First Unreal Engine 4 Game [UPDATE 2]
Epic Games’ Fortnite will be the first game from the Gears of War studio made on the company’s Unreal Engine 4. So said Epic people at the Fortnite panel at San Diego Comic-Con. The game is PC-exclusive. The Unreal Engine 4 is Epic’s new graphics engine, targeted to next-gen consoles and PCs, though the engine…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 12, 2012 -
These Are the 20 Games People Want on Ouya First
The folks behind the March 2013 Ouya console—that’s the $99 hackable Android console that has generated more than $4 million (!) in pledges—have been asking people which games they’d like to see on the machine. They put up a survey and got more than 45,000 replies, according to an update on the Ouya Kickstarter page.…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 12, 2012 -
Two New Grand Theft Auto V Screenshots, And They Look Wonderful
Rockstar games slyly released two new screenshots for Grand Theft Auto V today, tucking them within an engaging Q&A posted on the development studio’s official site. You want more? It’s not clear when we’re getting more. Here’s what Rockstar says [emphasis added by Kotaku]: “What is going on with GTAV?” – received via Mouthoff We…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 12, 2012 -
Kotaku Reviews Now Running in The New York Times
The back page of The New York Times‘ Arts section was almost entirely filled with Kotaku game reviews today. Thankfully, that wasn’t a printer’s error. We are partnering with the Times to provide the majority of the paper’s video game reviews and cultural commentary. Going forward, readers of the paper can expect to see monthly…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 11, 2012 -
The 5 Best ‘Game Fails’ of June, Possibly Out of Order
Here are Game Fails’ top five video game fails of June 2012. Why does it take them this long to pick them? I don’t know. I do know that first two here are so-so. Then they get to the Skyrim one. The rest are excellent, but I think that Skyrim one should have gotten the…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 10, 2012 -
$99 Ouya Console Just Hit Its $950,000 Kickstarter Goal After Only Eight Hours
It looks like people really do want a $99 Android-based hackable console. A Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for the console that went live at 9am ET today has already hits its $950,000 goal. The Ouya console and controller are slated for a March 2013 release and, should they really be made and released, would comprise the…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 10, 2012 -
Penny Arcade Wants A Quarter Million Dollars to Start Ditching Their Site’s Ads
Sorry, Magic The Gathering banner ad atop the website for the popular online comic strip, Penny Arcade, the folks behind the site would rather you weren’t there. PA founders Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik started asking for $250,000 on Kickstarter today to ditch the banner ad, saying they would prefer to be paid directly by…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 10, 2012 -
Xbox has Summer of Arcade, and now PlayStation Has These Four Games
From July 24- August 27 Sony will showcase four new downloadable games for PlayStation 3 or Vita. They’re not exactly exclusive, but at least three of them will probably be good (Sorry, multiplatform Expendables 2, we can’t judge you yet, one way or the other. The trailer breaks it down. Buy a bunch of these…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 10, 2012 -
An All-Star Plan to Build a New $99 Hackable Video Game Console Requires $950,000 Of Your Money [UPDATE]
Julie Uhrman isn’t asking the world for a million bucks. No, she’s asking for just under it to produce a new $99 Android-based video game console called Ouya (“ooh-yuh”) that will challenge the way Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have been bringing games to you on your television for years. “We don’t think the console-makers are…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 10, 2012 -
The Schedule For the Next 10 Spider-Man Movie Reboots
For people over the age of 10, this year’s Spider-Man movie re-boot seems to have emerged rather quickly. Wasn’t it just a decade ago that we got the last “first” Spider-Man movie? It was. Well, technically, it’s been 3,714 days, which is closer to 10 years and two months. I’d like to tell you when…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 9, 2012 -
ReviewsLondon 2012: The Kotaku Review
There are few activities in life that feel sillier than playing an Olympics video game. There are fewer activities that better illuminate how ridiculous the act of playing a video game can be. You’re not running a 100-meter dash. You’re pretending to run one. You’re pretending by waiting for the signal, then—press that A-button!—you’re off….…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 9, 2012 -
Reality Check: First-Person Shooters Are Not Really Ruining Gaming
Last Friday, I heard that Activision and Terminal Reality would be making a first-person shooter out of the Walking Dead. Shortly afterward, I witnessed people (read: co-workers, folks I follow on Twitter, etc) freaking out. Why does everything have to be a first-person shooter?, people howled. This is not what The Walking Dead needs, others…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 9, 2012
Stephen Totilo
Stephen Totilo's posts