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To Be The Joker On The PlayStation 3
At a Sony event earlier this week, I was the Joker on the PlayStation 3. This was no laughing matter. For no cost, PS3 purchasers of next month’s Batman: Arkham Asylum will be able to download some bonus challenge rooms that will let them pit the Joker against swarms of enemies. These are ethically-flipped versions…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 30, 2009 -
Assassin’s Creed II More Vicious, Less Predictable Than Predecessor
This fall’s Assassin’s Creed hero isn’t just a better killer than his predecessor. He lives in a world in which he can swim, the sun sets and thieves can become allies, the game’s executive producer, Jade Raymond, showed Kotaku yesterday. During a demo of the game in New York played on the PlayStation 3 E3…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 30, 2009 -
Hard To Resist Flinging The PSPgo, For A Good Reason
I wielded a PSPGo again yesterday and, I must confess, only will power, professionalism, and the fear of the Pottery Barn rule kept me from tossing the machine in the air. If I did toss the PSPgo, I would not have tossed it in anger. I have nothing against the system, even though Sony does…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 29, 2009 -
Uncharted 2 Update: Beta Lessons And Welcome Omissions
Uncharted 2 is four weeks from completion and, thanks to those of you who played the game’s June beta, the development team from Naughty Dog learned a couple of things. Adding a jet-ski level was not one of them. Sony was showing its full holiday line-up for PS3 and PSP in New York yesterday, including…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 29, 2009 -
Peter Jackson: Halo Game “No Longer Happening”
At Comic-Con last week, Lord of the Rings director and never-to-be Halo movie producer Peter Jackson told Joystiq he was no longer making a Halo game. The Jackson project had been announced in September 2006 but never a screenshot nor gameplay detail was released in the three years since. The proposed Halo movie which Jackson…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 28, 2009 -
PS3’s EyePet Hits This Holiday, We Take It For a Virtual Walk
Here, in the dulcet tones of our very own Stephen Totilo, is a narrated glimpse at the EyePet, the Playstation 3’s camera-based augmented reality… pet? These two videos show the beta version of the game which is being shown off today in New York. The game is set for a holiday release, Sony Computer Entertainment…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 28, 2009 -
Trophy Support For Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Will Precede Tatooine
The PlayStation 3 version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, released last September will receive a patch for Trophy support, a LucasArts rep told Kotaku yesterday. The Trophy patch will be issued prior to the release of the next downloadable level for the game, one set on Tatooine and introducing Boba Fett to the game’s…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 28, 2009 -
Borderlands Preview: It Shoots Rockets!
Coming this fall is a game that surprises even itself, a shooter that will make you say “WoW.” Maybe “wow” as well. But definitely: “WoW.” Diablo and World of Warcraft would co-win the award for games most frequently name-checked by game developer Randy Pitchford as he explained his team’s October game Borderlands at a recent…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 28, 2009 -
Nintendo Breaks Its Silence About Silence
Nintendo’s lead characters are rare among modern gaming heroes in that they seldom talk out loud. But rarer still is a Nintendo game that does include recorded speech. Punch-Out Wii did, and its creators explained why. “Nintendo’s tradition is that the hero or central character never vocally speaks,” the game’s producer, Nintendo’s Kensuke Tanabe, told…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 28, 2009 -
How To Get To Hoth, If You Already Finished Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Veteran players of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed may have mixed feelings about a new Hoth level coming only to a new disc release of the game. But there’s a twist. A positive one. The new Hoth level, which brings one version of the game’s branching plot beyond a new downloadable Tattooine level to an…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 27, 2009 -
Reviews
Little King’s Story Review: So Creative, So Hostile
At last, a Japanese role-playing game on Wii that can spark thoughts of Pikmin and Psychonauts. But it’s also the first game to make this mild-mannered reviewer angrily throw his controller in about a decade. Shall we thank the people who make us the most creative games, for which there isn’t yet a mold? But…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 27, 2009 -
Something Assassin’s Creed-y Set For Next Year
Fans of Assassin’s Creed like to decode riddles, right? Then they’ll enjoy the cagey way the CEO of Assassin’s Creed publisher Ubisoft described his company’s line-up for next year. On a call to address the company’s financial performance and explain the delays of four upcoming games, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was asked to describe his…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 27, 2009 -
Punch-Out Devs Talk Graphics, Difficulty, Nixed Princess Peach Idea
Few Wii games have been designed to please long-time Nintendo fans as much as the recent Wii Punch-Out!! Developers on the game recently explained to Kotaku just how the game came together, who did what, and what got left out. Punch-Out on the Wii was a collaboration between Nintendo’s Japan home office and Canadian studio…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 27, 2009 -
Notebook Dump: Rare Visit, MotionPlus Question, Nutcracker
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? This was a tricky week, as two of our finest, McWhertor and Fahey, were off to Comic-Con and working odd hours because of it. So I wrote more posts and…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 24, 2009 -
Best Loosely Video-Game-Related Quote Of The Day
“It’s not about killing … It’s about eating. We’re respecting the natural balance of nature. We don’t give boys PlayStations here; we give them guns.” That is from Daniel Esparza, the former mayor of a French village called Saint-Laurent de la Cabrerisse, uttered to a reporter filing a story that is partially about about Esparaza’s…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 24, 2009 -
Yankees Pitcher Goes For Old-School Video Game Baseball
With a seven-year, $161 million contact, New York Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia could afford to play any expensive modern game during a rain delay yesterday. But he didn’t. The New York Times reports that Sabathia spent part of an almost three-hour rain delay at Yankee Stadium yesterday playing RBI Baseball. That would be the classic…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 24, 2009
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