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Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Preview: Competitors, Take Notes
The 30 minutes I spent playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on the first day of the Tokyo Game Show left me with the best first impression I’ve ever had of a game on the PlayStation Portable. I may have rolled my eyes when Konami’s Hideo Kojima started telling the press this past summer that…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 24, 2009 -
Square-Enix: The Next Gaming Innovation Will Be Billing
The next breakthrough in games will involve how you pay for what you play, the president of Square-Enix said today. Yoichi Wada made the declaration during the traditional state of the industry Tokyo Game Show kick-off panel here in Tokyo. “What’s going to be important for the next five years is not going to be…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 24, 2009 -
Dante’s Inferno Lust Impressions: Breast Bosses And Phallic Walls
EA offered hands-on with its second circle of its interactive Hell in Japan on Wednesday, allowing me to try the Lust level of 2010’s Dante’s Inferno. It was more disgusting than it was sexy, I hope we can all agree. Beware: Lots of words for body parts are used in this post. As it has…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 23, 2009 -
Onion’s Beard Plucked Rhythmically In Tokyo
Nintendo never brought Rhythm Tengoku, the superb Game Boy Advance predecessor to Rhythm Heaven, to the U.S. But they did let Sega bring it to Japanese arcades. I played it in Tokyo on Tuesday. McWhertor filmed the action. Rhythm Tengoku Arcade, which was introduced to Japanese arcades a couple of years ago, appears to include…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 22, 2009 -
Reviews
Halo 3: ODST Review: The More Vulnerable Edition
Halo games are mighty productions, but Bungie’s latest offers intentional and unintentional weaknesses, allowing the studio to experiment and excel. All this while showing rare vulnerability. Bungie’s fourth Halo game, Halo 3: ODST, will officially be released for the Xbox 360 this week. A side story of a campaign that leads into the events of…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 22, 2009 -
A Development Studio That Doesn’t Put Out Many Games Might Be Busy
Do you ever wonder why some of gaming’s top development studios put out so few games? I know, I know. Making games is hard. But here’s what happens when you ask the Metroid Prime developers that question. (For context, you need to know that Nintendo-owned Retro Studios, with involvement from Nintendo Kyoto-based producer Kensuke Tanabe,…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 22, 2009 -
Pokemania Still Running Wild In This Tokyo Store
See the Pokemon Chopsticks. Pokemon Play-Doh. Pokemon dolls. Pokemon Lanterns. Pokemon Toy Cars. Pokemon Magic Tricks… The Pokemon Chair…. and more. We have images and videos here of the intense amount of Pokemon in Tokyo’s Kiddy Land toy store. The last two thumbnails in this gallery are videos. Watch them. They are key to understanding…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 22, 2009 -
Apparent Internal Sega Document Describes Plans For Game Line-Up
A document that appeared on Sega of America’s official press site recounting an Aug. 5 company meeting with Sony representatives covers everything from Aliens and Bayonetta to Sonic and something called Vanquish. The document had been accessible early Tuesday morning. It appears to contain meeting notes, many of which detail Sega’s games. It seems to…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 22, 2009 -
Tokyo’s Video Game Toys And Final Fantasy Jewelry, Of Course
The Tokyo Game Show hasn’t started here in Japan yet, so half of your Kotaku team has been left with time to visit toy stores. We found a horde of video game toys and at least one other curious thing. All photos from Kiddy Land, a toy store in Tokyo’s Harajuku district.
By Stephen Totilo Published September 21, 2009 -
Metroid Prime Team Discusses Their Decade Of Samus, Ponders Series’ Future
Following the recent release of Metroid Prime Trilogy, members of Nintendo’s development teams in Texas and Japan answered Kotaku’s questions about what the Metroid Prime series got right, what it missed and more. They even hinted at Prime’s future. Our interview was conducted over e-mail, with questions sent to Nintendo a few weeks ago and…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 21, 2009 -
Notebook Dump: Maximum Greg And Patrice, This Clip, And An Unseen Photo
There comes a time in the week to reflect on what got into my reporter’s notebook but didn’t turn into Kotaku blog posts. Shall we? I wound down my coverage this week in preparation for going to Tokyo tomorrow. On Thursday I had my first day of not posting any original stories on Kotaku since…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 18, 2009 -
Drawn To Life: The Next Chapter Preview: Improved DS Scribbling
When is a Scribblenauts story not about Scribblenauts? When it’s about the other ambitious game development studio 5th Cell is releasing on the DS this fall. Before their most recent game became the talk of E3 and the most buzzed about release of the past week, Washington-based 5th Cell was best known for making Drawn…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 18, 2009 -
Old News ’00: Maybe Games Can Be Made In Four Months And Maybe Bungie Can Make Them
The path to the episodic game was being paved at least a decade ago and someone wanted us to have the impression that Bungie might be on that road. You are reading Kotaku’s once-weekly (sort of) journey back to yesteryear. This week, I wanted to find some old news about Halo and found this gem.…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 17, 2009 -
PSP Minis Will Be Single-Player Only
The new downloadable games launching next month for the PSP won’t support DLC or network play, according to Joystiq’s report of a Sony presentation from this week’s Austin Game Developers Conference. Slides photographed by the site show that Sony is recommending developers “target single player stand-alone content.” They also indicate that the Minis won’t support…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 17, 2009 -
Spike Showing Halo Legends Anime Clips Tonight
The Halo Legends won’t be out for months. Spike will be airing up to seven minutes of it tonight. The shot above is clipped from that clip. Spike’s Halo 3 ODST Countdown To Launch special airs at midnight tonight, Eastern and Pacific, featuring host Geoff Keighley and a trio of Halo-minded experts, Bungie’s Joe Staten…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 17, 2009 -
Kotick’s “Skepticism,” “Fear” And “Pessimism” Make Cameo At Modern Warfare 2 Event
File this in the category of a company able to have some fun at their own expense, even the mighty Activision. A sharp-eyed commenter on NeoGAF noticed an overlap between comments from Activision CEO Bobby Kotick that were widely quoted in the gaming press earlier this week and some custom classes set up by the…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 17, 2009 -
Mario’s Voice Actor Recalls His Rambling Audition
While speaking to The Press of New Zealand recently, long-time Super Mario voice-actor Charles Martinet only occasionally slipped into his Mario voice. But he did so long enough to re-create the lines he spoke that won him Nintendo’s top role.: Hello, ima Mario. Okey dokey, letsa make a pizza pie together, you go get somea…
By Stephen Totilo Published September 17, 2009 -
This Week In Video Game Comics [UPDATE]
Clearly getting out of the way of the release of Executive Assistant Iris #3, comic publishers are releasing just two four video-game-themed comics today. Sorry for skipping last week and not getting to post about this Dead Space Extraction comic. Click the thumbnails for more details. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #45 ……
By Stephen Totilo Published September 16, 2009
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