Now We’ve Heard It All: Minecraft Blamed in School Violence Case

A nine-year-old Orlando, Fla. boy—”so tiny … he could barely see the judge over the podium”—was sentenced to home confinement by a state judge after he brought “multiple weapons to school.” The video game being blamed? Minecraft. Mine-bleeping-craft The unnamed student had “an unloaded handgun, a magazine with six bullets inside, a steak knife and…

Sounds Like Aliens Will Invade Your Base in XCOM: Enemy Within

The 30 new achievements for XCOM: Enemy Within—the expansion for last year’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown—slipped out to Steam a couple of weeks ago, but only now have I noticed what they describe. From the list, we can assume that a Base Defense mission is returning to the series. XCOM diehards lamented Enemy Unknown‘s lack of…

The Art of Fighting, an event mustering the charitable spirit of the fighting games community to raise awareness of and money for the treatment of fatal birth defects, is underway now. The tournament just began, and you can watch it here. The story of the father who organized it may be read here. To contact…

NY Library Discovers Timothy Leary’s Stash of Experimental Video Games

You may not remember that Timothy Leary, the psychologist renowned for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs and a key figure of the 1960s counterculture movement, dabbled in video games development in the 1980s. Now a trove of games discovered inside hundreds of discs in Leary’s archives will be playable at the New York Public Library.…

Whac-a-Mole’s Inventor Linked to Weird Experimental Fuel Explosion

This happened in Florida, of course, where Aaron Fechter, creator of Whac-a-Mole and Chuck E. Cheese’s “Rock-a-Fire Explosion” animatronic band, owns a warehouse. On Thursday, it went kaboom, and cops say an experimental fuel called “Carbohydrillium” is to blame. No one was injured in the blast, but it shook downtown Orlando and shut down train…

Someone’s Attempting to 100 Percent GTA III and Vice City in 24 Hours

Pedestrians of Liberty and Vice cities, beware. World-class speedrunner AdamAK is attempting to 100 percent both Grand Theft Auto III and GTA: Vice City over the next 24 hours. That means carnage on the sidewalks and beaches for sure. You may watch the run below—he’s about four hours into it as of posting time, playing…

Incumbents Rule in Sunday Comics’ Latest Elections

The votes have been counted and your lineup for Sunday Comics is set. All eight of the existing features will return. ActionTrip, which ran from Sunday Comics’ debut in 2009 until last year, returns. Life in Aggro is the only totally new strip readers chose. These are the final results. Comics will appear in this…

This Week in the Business: ‘Wouldn’t Touch Mobile with a 10-Foot Pole’

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “If I was starting again now from a blank slate, without an existing fan base, I wouldn’t touch mobile with a ten foot pole.”—Paul Johnson, indie game developer, talking along with others about how indies are moving back to PC and…

The Best of Kotaku, The Week of September 23

Can you believe September is almost over already? In the week post-_GTA V_ launch, we’ve still had lots to say about the massive game, and we’re just about to experience a hell of a lot more with GTA Online approaching next week. In the meantime, read back on all our best stuff over at Kotaku…

Valve’s Controller Has Been Tested. Here Are Some Impressions. [UPDATE]

Game creators who have tried Valve’s unusual new game controller tell Kotaku that the device holds a lot of promise. But make no mistake, they also say it feels pretty different from what we’re used to. “We’ve been at Valve this week and only used it briefly, however, you immediately notice its increased responsiveness.,” Sega’s…

U.S. President Barack Obama pressed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani today over the detention of three Americans in Iran, including one-time game developer Amir Hekmati, who has been jailed on espionage charges since late 2011. The discussion occurred over the phone during a conversation that largely focused on the status of Iran’s nuclear program. It was…

A Photobomb Master: Ain’t nothin’ wrong with liking PDA…it just so happens that you might find yourself in a photograph with the ever-serious DrewPhillips, a man who keeps a Tumblr featuring pictures of himself standing next to couples who make out in public. (Via Buzzfeed)

Sickest Way To Get Around In GTA V? Shredding On BMX Bikes!

Oh, the places you can go and the tricks you can land while on a BMX bike in Grand Theft Auto. It’s the kind of thing that almost makes riding around in a car seem boring. Kirk vouched for going around in GTA on a bike recently, but it’s watching YouTubers like Ready Up Live…

We’ll Learn More About The ‘Piston’ Living-Room PC On Monday

Xi3, the company making the mysterious Valve-backed “Piston Console,” says that it will be revealing more information about the product this Monday. In a brief update to the Xi3 site, the hardware makers say that “the wait is over,” and that they’ll have more info on the modular PC on Monday 9/30 at 11AM Mountain…

Will Infinity Ward Continue to Support Competitive Call Of Duty?

With Activision publicly announcing their support of eSports at the recent Call Of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer reveal it’s become evident that this growing community has a chance to become a long-term fixture of the scene, but a lot of that is dependent on the efforts of Activision, its studios and Major League Gaming. Most recently,…

Game Console Colors, Ranked

30. Beige 29. White 28. Coral 27. Black 26. Metallic Rose 25. Green 24. Yellow 23. Black 22. Pearl 21. Turquoise Green 20. Grey 19. Translucent Red 18. Teal 17. Pink 16. Platinum 15. Clear 14. Orange 13. Translucent Blue 12. Smoke 11. Wood 10. Piano Black 9. Royal Blue 8. Silver 7. Purple 6.…

A JRPG-style game set in modern times—and you’re Vice President of the world. Citizens of Earth, currently asking for $100,000 on Kickstarter, looks pretty promising.

Neal Stephenson Says His Dream of Making a Video Game Isn’t Dead

People are mad at Neal Stephenson. So mad that there’s talk of launching a class-action lawsuit against one of the greatest living science-fiction authors. Stephenson is viewed as one of the sharpest speculative thinkers in the world today. The idea that the man responsible for classic, challenging literary works like Snow Crash, Anathem and REAMDE…

One Of These Will Be Mighty No. 9‘s Heroine. You Decide.

Every spiritual successor to Mega Man needs a spiritual successor to Roll. In Mighty No. 9‘s case, it’s a girl named Call (shush), and she’ll look like one of the nine sketches above, based on your vote. You don’t have to back the Kickstarter project to determine the look of the girl robot in Keiji…

The Internet Reacts to Valve’s Steam Controller

Valve is not the type of company to go unnoticed—it shouldn’t be surprising, then, that online gaming communities everywhere are buzzing about the newly-announced Steam Controller. And with good reason, too: not only is having Steam optimized for the living room experience potentially game-changing, the controller itself is…well, it’s kinda funny lookin’. Which is why…