Culture

Watch Gamers Speedrun For Charity All Week Long, Right Here

As foretold by prophecy, the weeklong Summer Games Done Quick charity speedrun marathon launches today, and you can watch all seven days of speed gaming for a good cause right here. It starts today with a run through Super Mario 3D World and ends next Sunday with Final Fantasy VI. Between those two titles? Everything.…

Sunday Comics: You’re Not Helping

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published June 20. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published June 15. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…

This Week In The Business: Turn The Wii U Around

QUOTE | “I think we are right at that tipping point where we have a lot of great content that is about to be released for [the Wii U] that’s going to tempt gamers into buying the system.” – Scott Moffitt, EVP of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America, talking about how the Wii…

Gamers Are Speedrunning For Charity Next Week

Don’t miss Summer Games Done Quick, the speedrunning marathon for charity that starts this Sunday and runs throughout the week. We’ll be hosting the stream and monitoring for cool moments throughout the week, so stay tuned. The full schedule is really exciting, and part of me really wants to stay up all night watching them…

Track: The Real Slim Shady | Album: The Marshall Mathers LP | Artist: Eminem Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Track: I Could Hear The Water At The Edge Of All Things | Album: Oblivion Hymns | Artist: Hammock Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

The Witcher 3 Art Is Very Bewit-I’m Sorry

Marek Madej is a concept artist at CD Projekt, the developers of The Witcher series. In addition to his contributions to that series (and in particular Witcher 3), he’s also done card games, board games, film and album cover work. You can see more of Marek’s work at his personal site and ArtStation page. To…

Cosplay Panorama Turns Humans Into Superstars

Attendees at Sydney’s Supanova convention last weekend got to try out something pretty neat: a 360-degree camera rig just like the ones E! uses on the Oscars red carpet. The results are pretty cool. Cosplayers acting out can sometimes look a little naff, but the way this freezes them in the middle of a pose…

The Internet Reacts To The Steam Summer Sale

One of the most anticipated days of the summer is here: the Steam summer sale. PC gamers everywhere are examining their bank accounts and backlogs, wondering if they should drop some dollars on a enticing, cheap game. This means lots of people are talking about the Steam summer sale. What they’re saying depends; there are…

Track: Just One Fix | Album: Psalm 69 | Artist: Ministry Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Dioramas Are Awesome

Pavel Elagin is an Australian artist who has not only worked on games like XCOM and BioShock, but also the LEGO movie. You can see more of Pavel’s work at his personal site and ArtStation page To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them…

Where’s Waldo? Oh, He’s Dead.

French cosplayer and artist Boredman shows what happens when you give up on ever finding Waldo: he dies, rots then returns to feast on the flesh of the living. If you’re curious about the strange metal clip sticking out of his mouth, Boredman says it’s a prop to help his mouth curl into a zombie-like…

The Death Of New York City

Evan Shipard is an Australian who works at Cartel Artists, a studio that deals in the “conception and execution of cinematic art for the film, television and game industries”. You can see more of Cartel’s work at their studio site, while you can check out Evan’s stuff at his ArtStation page. To see the larger…

Metal Gear Weirdness Gets Its Own Cosplay

If there was one thing I took away from the overblown E3 trailer for Metal Gear Solid V, it was that kinda creepy part where Big Boss rubs ashes all over his face. Naturally, then, we already have cosplay of it. These pics are from Japanese cosplay superstar Omi Gibson. And before you complain about…

Some Frozen genderbending means Queen Elsa becomes King Elisar. Cosplay by keruuu, photo by Boon

Laura Sánchez as Morrigan from Dragon Age. Photo by Jesús Clares

Blizzard & Final Fantasy’s Awesome Cutscenes Have One Thing In Common

Takuya Suzuki, formerly of Square Enix, has worked at Blizzard since 2009 on the company’s famous cinematics team. Currently Cinematic Senior Modeling Artist, he’s done a lot of the background work on the trailers for games like StarCraft II, Diablo III, World of Warcraft and the upcoming Heroes of the Storm. While at Square, he…

$5 Cosplay Challenge Ends In Hilariously Awful Costumes

Four friends lay down a challenge. They walk into a dollar store, can spend up to $5 and have to make a cosplay outfit with what they’ve bought. The results are…well. You’ve got to say they’re impressive given the price cap, moreso when you look at the costumes they’re attempting. Iron Man is pretty funny,…

​Let’s Rate E3 2014 [Update: Voting Closed]

E3 is over and done with, and it’s time to sift through the wreckage. Who did well? Who did poorly? Which games look cool? Which ones were a letdown? You tell us. I’ve made a bunch of polls to see how you all felt about E3. I’ve focused on the companies that gave big press…

Want Fast Food That Looks Like The Ads? Try Asking.

There is no disappointment as widespread and meekly accepted as the true appearance of fast food versus advertising glamour shots. As MediocreFilms proves in this hidden camera video, it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s right, if you are polite and courteous and the store your in isn’t in the middle of a rush,…