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Sunday Comics

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. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published May 30. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published June 3. – Read more of Nerf…

By Owen Good Published June 5, 2011

Culture

This Week in the Business: “These attacks will continue to happen.”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “These attacks will continue to happen.” – Security expert and former hacker Gregory Evans makes his case for why PlayStation Network (as well as all of Sony and other companies) is still not secure QUOTE | “Sometimes it’s emotional.” – THQ CEO…

James Brightman | IndustryGamers.com Published June 3, 2011

Culture

The Desolate Video Game Art of Nicolas Ferrand

Nicolas Ferrand is a French concept artist currently working on Thief 4 at Eidos Montreal. Previously, while at Ubisoft, he contributed to franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia Today we’re looking at his pieces from Far Cry 2, Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed II, all of which are great It’s a…

By Luke Plunkett Published June 3, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The Great Gaming Franchises Locked In EA’s Dungeon

A common complaint levelled against big publishers like Activision and Electronic Arts is that they milk their franchises for all they’re worth. It’s an easy allegation to make, but in EA’s case, it (sadly!) doesn’t hold much water. Because if EA really wanted to milk its franchises for all they’re worth, we’d be drowning in…

By Luke Plunkett Published June 3, 2011

Culture

Before They Were Heroes: the Art of Team Fortress 2

Unlike perhaps any game since the 16-bit era, Team Fortress 2 has a look that is almost timeless. To get characters looking that good takes not only years of development, but years of concept art as well. The pieces in this gallery are all taken from those years of art and development, some of them…

By Luke Plunkett Published June 2, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Warhammer Games Have Rarely Been Darker, or Better, Than This

The Warhammer 40K universe has been a happy hunting ground for game developers over the years, with over a dozen games having been released based on the storied sci-fi franchise. For all their technical and story-telling advances, though, one remains as many people’s favourite 40K game of all. And it was also one of the…

By Luke Plunkett Published June 2, 2011

Culture

These Fighting Game Ladies Will Kick Your Face In [NSFW]

Dan Howard is an artist who has worked with both role-playing game companies and, a little closer to home, Udon Entertainment, they who turn Capcom artworks into coffee table books. While he does all kinds of work on all kinds of subjects, today I’m only interested in one thing: Dan’s amazing paintings of video game…

By Luke Plunkett Published June 1, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Behind the Scenes of The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past

For the past few years, Nintendo has run a series of interviews on its website called “Iwata Asks”, giving us behind-the-scenes looks at some of the company’s most important games and pieces of hardware. This interview, though, does not involve Iwata. And was never on Nintendo’s website. Because it was conducted in 1991, and involved…

By Luke Plunkett Published June 1, 2011

Culture

The Forgotten Art of the Video Game Title Screen

Back before games had cinematic intros, and many of the biggest titles were still in arcades, the video game title screen was often one of the most important “lures” for a customer. Featuring big artwork and even bigger titles, it had to capture everything the game stood for. Everything it was about. Everything it was…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 31, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Remembering Capcom’s Great Nintendo Promise / Betrayal

Capcom and Nintendo have always had a rather close relationship. In 2002, though, the pair became blood brothers. Or so people thought. That was the year the infamous “Capcom Five” were announced by the Osaka-based publisher, a range of titles seemingly designed to give Nintendo’s fledgling GameCube a shot in the arm, and which ended…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 31, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

The Origins Of Pokémon

As the creator of Nintendo’s Pokémon series, Satoshi Tajiri is one of the most important (if not well-known) developers working in video games today. Like another Nintendo legend, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, Tajiri’s most popular work has been directly inspired by his childhood experiences and hobbies. While Miyamoto’s Zelda was the product of boyhood explorations,…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 30, 2011

Culture

A Quiet Week for Games

Holiday weekends and the period around E3 typically are slow, and this coming week fits both bills. The big drops: Hunted: The Demon’s Forge; BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II comes to PSP and 3DS; PC players get the BioShock 2: Minerva’s Den and Call of Duty: Black Ops-Escalation expansions. Tuesday Hunted: The Demon’s Forge (PC, PS3,…

By Owen Good Published May 29, 2011

Culture

Sunday Comics

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. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published May 23. – Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published May 24. – Read more of Nerf…

By Owen Good Published May 29, 2011

Culture

This Week in the Business: “Soften the difficulty a smidge when you return.”

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “Put the screws to Sony in next console war.” – Panoptic Management Consultants analyst Asif Khan’s thinking that Microsoft may gain the upper hand against a PlayStation 4 next round. TWIST | Modern Warfare 3‘s big reveal came and went this week…

James Brightman | IndustryGamers.com Published May 27, 2011

Culture

The Sweet, Yet Slightly Creepy Art of Alice: Madness Returns

A PC cult classic returns (and on consoles this time, too) next month when Alice: Madness Returns hits shelves. The first game was batshit crazy, and beautiful to boot. So it’s little surprise, then, that the sequel looks to be continuing that tradition. In these pieces of concept art for the game (some you may…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 27, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

It’s OK, Everyone, It’s Time to Talk About the Wing Commander TV Series

Yesterday, we waded through a lot of painful memories talking about the awful (and mercifully forgotten) Wing Commander movie. So let’s make amends today, and cheer everybody up by talking about the awesome Wing Commander cartoon series instead. A few years before the movie, and right about the time the game franchise was coming off…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 27, 2011

Culture

When Japan Does Star Wars, Things Change

In 1987, Namco released Star Wars in Japan for the Famicom, a title that took more than a few liberties with the movie trilogy’s storyline. Sounds outrageous, but one look at the game’s manual art and everything was suddenly OK. Why? Because the lizards, scorpions and pterodactyls you’re fighting—and that aren’t exactly canon —are so…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 26, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Sorry, Everyone, It’s Time to Talk About the Wing Commander Movie

When people look back on films based on video games, they tend to skew towards the good (Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia) or the bad (Mario, Double Dragon). They don’t talk about the greats because there haven’t been any. And they don’t talk about Wing Commander because it’s just too damn painful. Wing Commander, if…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 26, 2011

Culture

The Epic Video Game Art of Young-june Choi

As you may have noticed, Fine Art is a new feature here on Kotaku where we celebrate the work of video game concept artists. Today, we’re looking at the very talented Korean artist Young-june Choi, and his work on the upcoming Kingdom Under Fire II The game, which has been in development for over three…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 25, 2011

CultureTotal Recall

Before They Were Famous: Bungie

Today is the first in a new “Before They Were Famous” series here on Total Recall, where we look at the games some of the world’s biggest developers worked on before they became some of the world’s biggest developers. First up is Bungie, creators of the Halo series. While most got their introduction to Bungie…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 25, 2011