The U.S. Military Is Developing a High-Tech Sandbox

Dubbed the ARES Sandtable, this U.S. Military prototype uses a Kinect, a projector, software, and sand to recreate real-world environments like never before. Below, via Military.com, you can see what traditional military sandtables look like: Traditional sandtables can take up hours to set up, while the AREAS table might make it possible to do the…

Richarizard Nixon And Other U.S. Presidents As Pokémon

Now that’s an unexpected combination. And if the drawings weren’t enough, artist Brandon Dayton added new pun names too for these Pokémon Presidents. Makes me wonder who the others, the ones not included here, might be as Poképrez. There’s more on the artist’s Etsy site and you can also get all of them as prints.…

Why These Chinese Sanitation Workers Dress Like Spider-Man

You might think this is just some gimmick. But it’s more than that. Much more. The Spider-Man outfits are a reminder these two men are risking their lives. Website Zhangjiakou Online and ShanghaiIst are reporting that sanitation workers Liu Jiancheng and Zhang Chengqing have recently changed uniforms from this: To this: Not just because Spider-Man…

Let’s Rank Fatal Frame, Best to Worst

The Fatal Frame series is one of the creepiest survival-horror game series out there and certainly my personal favorite of the genre. But as with all series, some games are better than others. So let’s rank them, shall we? A few notes before we start. These are not Kotaku‘s picks for the pecking order of…

Five Fallacies You Should Learn If You’ve Ever Used the Internet

PBS Idea Channel is easily among the greatest YouTube channels around. And given how much drama’s been hitting the internet recently, they’ve produced a short series of six videos that discuss some of the most common mistakes people make when arguing online. They cover the Ad Hominem, the Black and White Thinking fallacy, the “No…

DigiPen is a school famous for feeding fresh meat into the grinder that is the games industry. In this terrific story on Motherboard, Jagger Gravning takes a look at what the school’s massive gender gap (it’s 80% dudes) means for the student’s social lives.

Hack, Love, Relax, Drink Coffee, Whatever

Else Heartbreak is an upcoming adventure game for the PC Else Heartbreak is an adventure game set in the peculiar city of Dorisburg, a place where bits have replaced atoms. Follow the daily lives of its citizens, fall madly in love, and learn how to modify reality through programming. Those delicious visuals? Programming? Adventure gaming?…

And YOU Thought It Was Hard To Get To Blizzcon

Getting tickets to Blizzard’s annual fan convention is hard enough when you’re an American who lives relatively nearby. So spare a thought for Andrey “Trolden” Nolden, one of the biggest Hearthstone personalities on YouTube, who can’t even get into the country, let alone the show. Nolden, who is Russian and applied for a visa to…

You Can Play Dark Souls II In First-Person, If You Want

Someone did it for the first Dark Souls on PC, so of course it was going to happen for Dark Souls II. What you’re seeing here is a hack that “tells the game’s camera to permanently stay zoomed in, giving you a first person perspective”. Technically, aside from a few little glitches, it works just…

Here’s To You, Shadow of Mordor Orc With A Silly Name

By now, the internet’s (somewhat immature) love of any Shadow of Mordor orc named “Dush” is well-known. But few people actually go through the trouble of making a full-on emotional tribute to Dush orcs, like hoodwinkedfool does. I even got a little sad at the end of this video, too. Aww, Dush. You had an…

Mewtwo Returns To The New Smash Bros. As A Downloadable Character

The most menacing Pokémon of all is back. EDIT: to quote Nintendo on this, so there’s no confusion. “This series veteran fighter will be made available as free downloadable content in spring of 2015 for anyone who buys both versions of the game.” Apparently they’re not done building him yet! Here is an in-progress GIF:…

Ridley Is In Smash Bros. Wii U… But Not Playable

Yes, Ridley is in the Wii U version of Smash. No, he’s not playable. But! You can get him to fight for you during a match, which I suppose is an OK compromise. Ridley even has a special form… So much for being too big! Here’s the reveal in full, if you’d like more details:

Wow, Super Smash Bros. Wii U Will Have Eight-Player Battles

If you and your seven friends have always wished you could play Smash on the same television, NOW IS YOUR CHANCE. The Wii U version of Super Smash Bros. will let groups of up to eight people play together, Nintendo just announced during their live event. You can have five-player battles, six-player battles, and—crazily—eight-player battles…

Watch The Smash Bros. Wii U Event Live, Right Here [UPDATE: Over]

What’s Nintendo got in store for Smash Bros. on Wii U? New features? DLC? Ridley? We’ll find out at least some of what will be different in the home-console version of Nintendo’s mascot fighter tonight at 6pm Eastern, in a special Nintendo Direct that the folks behind Smash say will reveal 50 new things about…