Kinect 2.0 Sees Your Face, Muscles and Soul. Maybe Not That Last One.

At-home motion capture. Heart rate detection. Compatibility with smaller spaces. Microsoft has been promising impressive things about the new iteration of Kinect, which they kind of have to do seeing as how they’ve made it a mandatory part of buying an Xbox One. Now they’re trying to show you how the motion-sensing sensor will be…

Yup, The Stuff In Games Can Hurt Men, Too

The unfortunate reality is that society has a certain impossible if not destructive ideal of masculinity that affects both men and women alike. PBS Game/Show here takes the time to talk about what some hurtful and problematic stereotypes video games present of men, and it’s stuff that is definitely worth keeping in mind when we…

Retired Pilot Stuffs a 767 Cockpit Simulator Into His Bedroom

Even after Michael Black retired from his gig as a commercial pilot, he took his work home with him—in the form of a partial Boeing 767 cockpit and flight simulator packed into a bedroom in his Oregon home. Black built his homebrewed simulator from authentic Boeing aircraft parts, supported by five computers and four flat-screen…

Grand Theft Auto Online Launch Woes Put Microtransactions On Hold

The makers of Grand Theft Auto V warned that the game’s online component would probably have a rocky launch. And that turned out to be true. But they’re letting folks know what some of the issues are. And, until things get better, players won’t be able to spend real-world money in the game. An excerpt…

Zynga Boss Proves He’s Totally Out Of Touch With Games

“Right now, I’m pretty bored with all games.” That’s Mark Pincus, founder of Farmville company Zynga, as he spoke with an assemblage of tech entrepreneurs in Israel last night. Bored? More like not paying attention. It’s an incredibly exciting time in game development now, Mr. Pincus. All you need to do to see that is…

Okay, Maybe The High King of Skyrim Can Be A Nice Guy. Sorta.

Just because the High King of Skyrim mod lets youorder people and do whatever you want doesn’t mean you have to be an absolute jerk to your subjects. You can use your limitless power to do good, too! Uh. Kind of. Here’s what trying to be a ‘nice’ High King of Skyrim pans out like,…

How Often Does a Player Get Paralyzed in Madden?

This is the rara avis of outcomes in Madden NFL—the career-ending injury. It is the sports video game equivalent of permadeath, and yes, it’ll actually happen in your living room, although I have never seen this myself. EA Sports’ Madden NFL Twitter retweeted that image earlier today. A fan named Tyler said he’d “played madden…

Stardock deals itself in to the mobile market. Dead Man’s Draw, a rather spiffy-looking card game for iOS, marks the developer’s debut on mobile platforms. You can get it here.

Video Game War Crimes Should Be Answered For, Says The Red Cross

The International Red Cross isn’t against allowing players to go against the established laws of armed conflict in their video game battles — it just wants to make sure those violations don’t go unpunished. One might expect an international humanitarian organization to look down on video games featuring realistic depictions of modern-day military conflict, but…

35 Ways To Die In Grand Theft Auto V

There are the usual, boring ways you can die like in car crashes and getting shot by the police, and then there are a few spectacular ones. Like sharks. And sometimes vehicle combos. My favorite might be simply: wall, in which you smash your forehead against a wall. Hey, it’s possible. Thanks for taking one…

A Music Video That Combines Ghosts ‘n Goblins With Drinking

Have you ever been on your way to a show, been attacked by spooky ghosts and compensated by chugging energy drinks and beer? Sure, we all have. The video above for Ghostbuster by Italian duo Blatta & Inesha is more or less that. It’s like watching Mario and/or Luigi’s weirdo grandkids that are way too…

Leaked Images Show Off Pokemon X & Y’s Version of France

We already know that Pokemon X & Y’s world is based on France—earlier this year, Junichi Masuda, Game Freak founder and director for the latest Pokemon, explained that the games picked up on France’s love of fashion and beauty. We’d even seen an artistic rendition of the game’s map, pictured above, which seemed to feature…

Deals: Destiny Beta, Rayman Legends, Elder Scrolls, Borderlands 2 GOTY

You cannot deny your Destiny. Join me, and we can buy a majority stake in the galaxy together. Update: 32GB Vita Memory Card for $45 back in stock. Leaderboard Pre-order Destiny and get Beta Access I don’t know about you, but Destiny is that one next-gen game I know I’m getting. Pre-ordering will grant you…

Kotaku Editor-in-Chief Here. Got Any Questions? [Q&A’s over]

We haven’t done this in a while, so let’s do it now. For the next 90 minutes or so, I’ll be answering reader questions. Want to know stuff about Kotaku, about what we’re covering, what we’re hearing, which Zelda is the best and so on? Want to complain about stuff you don’t like and ask…

Grand Theft Auto V Almost Killed My Watch Dogs Buzz…But It’s Back

Grand Theft Auto V is so well-made, so visually impressive—even on my creaky old Xbox 360—that it could crush any excitement I might have for any other 2013 open-world action games that are set in big cities and let you steal cars and cause mayhem. There is that risk. And there I was, yesterday, with…

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: What exactly should we be calling a hardcore game? ElijahTheWeathered has some thoughts on the matter. Zarnyx offers a glimpse of Halloween in her Animal Crossing town. With colder weather a few months away, Sam G wants to know where the hell snowboarding games have…

A Free-To-Play RPG with a Dark Souls Twist

Ascend: Hand of Kul is a free-to-play RPG on Xbox 360, and it’s surprisingly fun. Sure, you do have to look past all the HEY BUY THIS but it’s a decent hack-and-slash where you can peek into other players’ worlds and banish some of your enemies for them to deal with. Not a bad gimmick.…

The Bureau Adds New XCOM Missions Next Week, but Only for Xbox 360

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified regroups on the Xbox 360 with its first new downloadable missions, which will be exclusive to that platform. In it, players will explore events before the extraterrestrial attack on Groom Range that kicked off the main game’s story. They’ll be doing so with Agent Nico DaSilva, as “Hangar 6 R&D” takes…

EverQuest II Can Sell You A High-Level Character With A Flying Horse

Who needs power-leveling when you can just spend $35 on a developer-sanctioned level 85 character? Bypass those pesky levels with EverQuest II‘s new Heroic Characters feature. Launched yesterday, the Heroic Characters feature allows past, present and future EverQuest II players to jump directly into the shiny boots of a level 85 character, complete with weapons,…

Your First Look At Next-Gen Deus Ex

Deus Ex is going next-gen, and although the next game in Eidos’s popular sci-fi series won’t be here for a while, at least we’ve got some concept art. You can see a 16:9 version above, or the whole thing in high resolution right here “Deus Ex is coming to next-gen,” writes Eidos Montreal boss David…