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The Designer of the Next NBA Jam Hopes Two Million People are Curious
Trey Smith was showing off the new NBA Jam, subtitled the On Fire Edition at a recent EA gaming showcase. People were playing the new version near him while we chatted about how the new game will have better artificial intelligence. He seemed even more excited that the game is downloadable for Xbox 360 and…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 27, 2011 -
After a Year of Natural Disasters, A Game that Lets Us Fight Back
From Dust is a very good video game that starts badly. It’s dull, at first. Pick up dirt. Drop dirt. Pick up water. Spill water. You’re a god! Re-shaping the land. And you’ll be forgiven for feeling drowsy. From Dust creeps up on you. Mounds of dirt become mountains. Volcanoes crack the surface. A tsunami…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 27, 2011 -
Why Video Game Cats Might Throw Up
I have a cat. She often throws up. Why? Sometimes she gorges herself. Sometimes she’s chomped on the houseplants too much. Sometimes she’s just angry at me or my wife. Cats in this fall’s The Sim 3: Pets also sometimes throw up. As both the owner of an adorable yet barf-happy cat—and as someone who…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 27, 2011 -
Ridiculous Video Game HealBot Turns World of Warcraft Into a Dream
HealBot is a video game that you are supposed to play in order to get better at another video game. Imagine that. People debate whether video games can train people to be better soldiers and worse drivers in real life. How narrow their imaginations! Let us explore this idea that games can make us better…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 27, 2011 -
How Deepak Chopra’s Kinect Game Works
How do you make an Xbox 360 game out of Deepak Chopra’s spiritual beliefs and practices? You don’t, not exactly. You make Leela which is half a collection of motion-controlled mini-games associated with different chakras—points of spiritual energy located in a person’s body—and half a training tool to meditate better. I recently tried Leela and…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 26, 2011 -
Where Are the 3DS Games?
If you go hunting for new 3DS games you don’t have to worry about running out of bullets. This is one scarce safari. A couple of weeks ago, after I noticed that the Nintendo 3DS had sold just 143,000 units in June, the month when its two big problems were fixed, my colleague in Japan…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 26, 2011 -
The Risk of Ignored Excellence Threatens the PlayStation Vita
It used to matter whether a portable video game machine could fit in your pocket. The Game Boy was a brick, but you could jam it in your jacket pocket. The Atari Lynx was a small log, but ridiculous ads on TV showed it too could fit in a coat—probably as well as a smuggled…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 26, 2011 -
This is Kinect 4, for People Who Believe that Connect Four Isn’t Physical Enough
We can’t blame or credit the new, more physical version of Connect Four on Microsoft’s Kinect sensor. No, the TV show Hasbro Family Game Night is responsible for that. That’s where the basketball version of Connect Four came from. The basketballized version of Connect Four has simply been ported from the world of real game…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 25, 2011 -
Our Intern Max Will Now Play an Entire Video Game Before Your Eyes
Platformance: Temple Death is a $1 downloadable indie game for the Xbox 360. Max Abrams is an agreeable Kotaku intern. I think the Platformance games are cool. They look great (you’re seeing the entire game up top), but they’re tough. How best could I share this game with all of you? I asked Max to…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 25, 2011 -
The Warts of Old Video Games Look Beautiful in this New One
Our technology has progressed past the age of TV monitors that curve the corners of our video game graphics. Scan lines are a thing of the past. But how beautiful a modern game looks when it takes the visual flaws of 80s arcade games and celebrates them as artistic effects. Take a look at the…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 25, 2011 -
The Next Hope for Fun Four-Player Gaming is Ratchet & Clank
Are you, like me, still waiting for a great, modern four-player action game? I’m not talking about four-player shooters but more of a platformer. A colorful game that anyone can play? There have been experiments: Some people loved four-player riff on Super Mario Bros. that Nintendo introduced in 2009’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 25, 2011 -
Need for Talk Amongst Yourselves
Stop what you’re doing. Start talking about video games. Right here. In the comments. Thanks. And thanks to reader Halfbeast for today’s image. You too can create a featured Talk Amongst Yourselves image. The instructions to get on that path to glory are in our #TAYpics thread right here
By Stephen Totilo Published July 25, 2011 -
It’s 2011 and Someone is Putting a Lot of Effort into a Wii Game
Nintendo’s still making a Zelda and a Kirby for the Wii. Ubisoft is still seeping Just Dances the way a man produces sweat on a hot summer day. But it seems these days that most companies making games just don’t care about making Wii games anymore. What a shock it was last week to find…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 25, 2011 -
This is Skulls of the Shogun. You Should Be Aware of It.
Some people have called Skulls of the Shogun the best strategy game of E3. I’ve called it a “Wu-Tang Advance Wars.” Let’s here how the game’s lead creator, Jake Kazdal, describes the game in this exclusive developer documentary provided to Kotaku by Kazdal and his crew. Enjoy the video which is stuffed with gameplay clips.…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 22, 2011 -
The New Marvel uDraw Game is a Preview of our Wii U Future
Ever since I played the Wii U last month at E3, I’ve been running through my memories of the surprisingly abundant Wii U-ish experiences I’ve had with other gaming hardware, some of which I’ve written about It’s happened again. Last week, I got an early look at—get this—the new Marvel Super Hero Squad game on…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 22, 2011 -
Bulletstorm Didn’t Make Money, But it Was Worth It
Mike Capps, president of Gears of War development studio, doesn’t regret Bulletstorm. That game got a lot of hype—and some extraordinarily odd press coverage—when it was released earlier this year. It was an odd first-person shooter that was vulgar in tone and creative in execution, rewarding players for, well, being creative in how they executed…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 22, 2011 -
The Captain America Video Game is Better Than It Should Be
Not only is the Captain America movie better than it should have been (or so I read), but the Captain America: Super Soldier video game, released in conjunction with the movie this week, is better than we usually get from super-hero movie games. I wish I could say it’s as good as the last Batman…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 22, 2011 -
The New Captain America Game Includes This Perfect Captain America Moment
I consider Captain America to be a bit boring. I mean, what’s he got… a shield and some steroids? Still, I respect the Marvel hero’s popularity and I think I know what makes Captain America who he is. So I was happy to see, early on in the new Captain America: Super Soldier video game,…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 21, 2011 -
Freddy Krueger Coming to Mortal Kombat
The next downloadable character for Mortal Kombat is Freddy Krueger, the dude with the knives on his fingers from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Where’s Jason? IGN reports that Freddy will be downloadable on August 9 as part of a multi-character bundle (…as a standalone downloadable character; my fault for the error, folks, not IGN).
By Stephen Totilo Published July 21, 2011 -
What I Thought I Knew About Assassin’s Creed Revelations Was Partially Wrong
Darby McDevitt told me last week that the lead characters of Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2 aren’t related. I’ve played a lot of each Assassin’s Creed game. I thought I knew the important stuff about Altair and Ezio, the series’ two heroes from the past. But Darby McDevitt, writer of this fall’s Assassin’s Creed Revelations…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 21, 2011
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