A Great-Looking Game with a Beautiful Soundtrack to Match

Earlier this week we took a look at the stunning visual beauty of the backgrounds and enemy sprites of Arcadias no Ikusahime (The Warrior Princess of Arcadias). Of course, visuals are only half of the presentation package. Thankfully, Arcadias no Ikusahime has a quality soundtrack to match. Honestly, the soundtrack of Arcadias no Ikusahime seems…

New Transformers Are Less Annoying With Bad Engrish

Yes, this is based on the Michael Bay Transformers. So there are silly sharp robot designs and stupid humans. But relative to those handicaps, this shooter still looks like a blast. By Sega, it’s called Transformers Human Alliance. It’s an old-fashioned arcade on-rails shooter, but again, relative to that genre, it’s looking impressive and sounding…

The Queen Thinks Kids Play Too Many Video Games

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926. She grew up during the Second World War. So it’s perhaps understandable that, given the fact her own kids grew up without them, she’s a little wary about the effects of playing video games at a young age. Author Joanne Harris, who was presented with an…

Let The Xbox One Pranking Begin

You can turn an Xbox One on (and off) using voice commands. Handy for the home, but in the workplace? There’s room for pranks. These tweets by Andreas Fredriksson, a senior engine programmer at the freshly-multiplatform Insomniac, are hilarious, because you don’t need video to imagine exactly how it goes down. Andreas Fredriksson [Twitter, via…

This Man Designed The PlayStation 4

Tetsu Sumii would in most circumstances be a man you’d never hear of. So it’s nice that Sony have given him a shout-out on the PlayStation blog. Why? Because he designed the PlayStation 4. Not the guts, of course, but he is the main man responsible for its appearance. You know, the box that so…

Pokémon Family Portraits Are The Best Family Portraits

This is a family portrait. So in thirty years time, this kid will look on her parent’s wall, see this weird picture and realise that, in 2013, her parents were awesome Note: if you’re wondering why a cosplay portrait, the Bulbasaur is Lindze, who we’ve featured here on Kotaku a few times previously. Pokemon [Benny…

Grand Theft Auto V Is A Bunch Of Movie & TV Homages. Here They Are.

From vehicles to locations on the landscape of Los Santos, Grand Theft Auto V is, like other games in the series, a collection of tips of the hat to works that its creators have been inspired by, or at least enjoyed. You might have seen one or two of the more obvious ones yourself in…

Which One Of These Images Is A Photo, And Which Is A 3D Render?

The answer? Well, they’re both renders, actually. For real. Dan Roarty is a lead character artist at Tomb Raider developers Crystal Dynamics. Before that, though, he worked on the ill-fated Star Wars 1313, modelling and texturing the game’s main character. As you can see below, his 3D modelling skills are off the charts. That old…

Blizzard Thinking Of Charging $30 For Diablo III Expansion

A survey sent out to Diablo III players, as seen by Polygon, talks about pricing for the game’s upcoming expansion, Reaper of Souls. And how it’s not going to be cheap. “Consider two versions of the expansion: a Standard Edition for $29.99 and a Collector’s Edition for $49.99”, the survey says. “The Standard Edition includes…

Valve has confirmed to Maximum PC that Steam Machines won’t only use Nvidia graphics cards, despite that being the only brand announced to go out with their recently-announced prototypes. Valve says Steam Machines will be commercially available with AMD, Nvidia and Intel graphics hardware.

Breaking Bad, Battlefield Edition: so this Indonesian version of season 5 of Breaking Bad posted by SilentNinjaMick on Reddit may not be legit, but boy is it kind of hilarious. And you gotta admit, it’s certainly more epic this way.

Track: Karma Slave | Album: Possibilities / Titan A.E. Soundtrack | Artist: Splashdown Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Indie Developer Tried To Convince Valve and Nintendo To Work Together

Let history designate Martijn Reuvers and his team at Dutch indie studio Two Tribes as an ambitious lot. They recently tried to convince Nintendo and Valve to work together—specifically, to let their Wii U game talk to their Steam game. And that went… kind of okay? Sadly, not okay enough. But pretty well, Reuvers told…

The New Fables Game Is Cool, But Something’s Off

It’s a killer setup for a mystery: Hundreds of storybook fables have relocated to New York. One man—the Big Bad Wolf—is in charge of keeping order. And now, someone is murdering fables. That’s the premise for The Wolf Among Us, a new game based on Vertigo’s popular Fables comics. And while the game is often…

Lorde’s ‘Royals’ + The Legend of Zelda = A Sweet Love Song

Ah, young love. Check out this adorable mash-up by Nerdist of the ridiculously catchy ‘Royals’ by Lorde and Zelda—not only is the result charming, but it’s also chock full of references to the Nintendo franchise. I apologize if this gets stuck in your head the rest of the day. At least, the original song—which is…

A Committee Of Five People Decides Which Pokémon Live And Which Die

Five silhouetted figures sit in a smoke-filled room, sipping brandy as they vote upon the most important issues of our era: which Pokémon will make it into the next Pokémon game. Every few minutes they make the decision: who will live… and who will die? That’s how I like to imagine the Pokémon Selection Committee,…

Your Space Battles Shaped The Stories In The New EVE Online Comic Book

EVE Online is known for being a video game universe where players come first. Their alliances, decisions and protests change the shape of the fictional galaxy and the huge multiplayer game it lives in. And starting next year, the player-driven sagas of CCP’s hit MMO will be providing the fuel for a new comic-book series…

Oh Prime, What Has The New Transformers Movie Done To You?

Last night during its annual pre-New York Comic-Con party, Hasbro unveiled the first toy tie in for 2014’s Transformers: Age of Extinction. It’s Leader Class Optimus Prime, and he makes me sad. This isn’t general Michael Bay-bot bashing. After three movies I’ve learned to appreciate what he’s done to bring my childhood heroes into the…

Three More Pokemon X & Y Mega Evolutions Leak

Though we’re rather close to the official release to Pokemon X & Y, there are still new snippets of information that are bubbling up. Today, for example, CoroCoro magazine scans that showcase three new Mega Pokemon appeared on Serebii. Obviously, if you don’t want these Pokemon spoiled, you should probably stop reading now! Otherwise, you…

In An Era Of Online Launch Fiascoes, Gamers Deserve Some Rights

On October 1, President Obama took the stage at a press conference and did something unusual for the leader of the free world: He explained why a website wasn’t working. Specifically, Obamacare’s overloaded online service healthcare.gov, which hadn’t had a particularly smooth launch. For a moment, the president sounded indistinguishable from a PR rep for…