The Year of Luigi is almost over, but that won’t stop Nintendo from launching yet another Nintendo Direct, tomorrow (Oct 1) at 10am ET “focused on Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games launching later this year.” We’ll have all the news for you right on Kotaku as it happens.

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: Pika? Stormborn finally gets to the most iconic Pokemon in his daily series of pocket monster drawings. Spacegar connects indie classic Cave Story to the oeuvre of rock ‘n’ roll god David Bowie in an interesting way. writes about the joys that come with playing…

More Hands-On Impressions of Valve’s Odd New Game Controller

We’ve updated our story from last week regarding game creators’ hands-on impressions of Valve’s new game controller with new input from Fred Wester, chief of Paradox Interactive. He liked it, but he also has some questions about how mouse-and-keyboard games will work with it…

Want to pick up Destiny when Bungie’s ambitious shooter comes out next year? Here’s what the PlayStation all console versions of the game’s box art will look like. Updated with Xbox versions of Destiny‘s box art.

Attack On Titan In Minecraft Even Has A Colossal Titan

I admit I didn’t see it coming, although after the terrific stuff people did with King’s Landing, this one’s also an obvious choice: One of the towns from the popular anime Attack on Titan got a stunning Minecraft recreation by etheralcat and his friends, with a memorable moment included. The colossal titan is about to…

Odd Man In Cave: “Stop Naming Princesses Zelda”

A tradition based on a great tragedy that only seems to breed more tragedy? Awkward Spaceship has a point — maybe Hyrule needs to revisit its princess naming policy before everything explodes. There are plenty of perfectly good princess names out there that won’t cause powerful evil to arise and threaten the land. Princess Bubblegum…

In an ideal world, we could jump into this 8-bit Breaking Bad game right after the finale of the series. Sadly it’s just an imaginary start screen—a pretty neat one, nevertheless—of an imaginary game, The Legend of Heisenberg, made by Filippo Morini Dayshot is an image-based feature that runs every morning, showcasing some of the…

The Short Life Of The PS2 In China

China’s game console ban might finally be lifted, so it’s a good time to look back at the case study that was the PlayStation 2. During the course of the 13 year-old console ban, the one home console that was allowed to be sold, albeit for just a short time, was the PlayStation 2. The…

Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey has five new screenshots to its name—actually stills from the adventure game’s upcoming twenty to thirty minute vertical slice demo, which will be shown off in the coming months The shots star Kian Alvane, one of the game’s playable characters. Check ’em out below.

Haunting PS3 Exclusive Has Unlikely Inspirations

More often than not, your typical video game is inspired by movies, manga, or other video games. PS3 exclusive Rain is different. Typical, it’s not. “Initially, we were thinking about what would surprise everyone,” Rain game designer Yuki Ikeda recently told me at Sony Computer Entertainment’s Tokyo headquarters. “And we thought we hit on something…

League of Legends Fan Favorite Gets A Catchy Parody

You have to be in a League of Legends World Championship finalist team to get the attention of devoted fans and get an awesome The Offspring parody song—like this one from The Yordles on YouTube. SK Telecom T1 and its Mid laner, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok—whom this tune is dedicated to—will participate in the World Championships…

The Future of Gaming in China, According to an Industry Veteran

Richard Tsao has had his fair share of interesting stories about China. Tsao, who headed up Ubisoft’s Chengdu office, will be leaving China for personal reasons; but even as he leaves the Middle Kingdom, Tsao says China’s game industry is still the place to be. In 2007, Tsao started Ubisoft’s Chengdu office with the goal…

A cloud version of Dragon Quest X is coming to Japanese smartphones and tablets. It will be released between December 2013 and February 2014. Subscription fees are TBA.

A Group of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim Modders Are Making An RPG

An open-world fantasy RPG, predictably enough. The group, Druid Gameworks, is working on a Skyrim-esque PC RPG which wants to put more emphasis on player choice. Unwritten: Echoes of Twilight, as they call it, eschews the Elder Scrolls series’ main-quest-side-quest structure in favor of a more exploration-based system, where you basically unlock different quests and…

China Lifts Their Console Ban… But with Strings Attached

You’ve probably heard that China has a video game console ban. Over the last year, there have been rumors that the 13 year-old ban would be lifted—and last Friday evening, a sneaky online posting by the Chinese government seems to have confirmed that the ban has indeed been lifted. This past July, the State Council…

China’s Transformers Are Junk in Disguise

There’s more than meets the eye with these Transformers. You are actually looking at scrap—discarded car, motorcycle, and machine parts—that has been lovely sculpted into the iconic robots. Thank Chinese Transformers fans for that. Twenty-three Chinese diehards created Transformers robots like Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Bumblebee from junk. As ChinaNews (via ShanghaiIst) explains, some of…

Do You Love Breaking Bad Enough To Build A LEGO Mosaic?

Well, this guy does. Breaking Bad protagonist Walter White is looking quite brooding and mysterious on his LEGO portrait, done by Andy Bauch of HippoBricks.com. Bauch says constructing the portrait took 10 hours and required 2000 LEGO pieces, with the end result, a thirty by thirty inch mosaic mounted on a one-inch wooden frame, weighing…

Oculus Rift Makes Virtual Idol Handshakes Possible

The future! It’s here, and it’s brought virtual reality handshakes with Hatsune Miku. Aren’t you happy to be alive in 2013? YouTube user Netkick recently showed off a Oculus Rift tech demo which uses the Novint Falcon pistol peripheral and a rubber hand. As shown in the video below, you can shake hands with virtual…

SNL Korea Serves Up GTA V Parody Set in Old Korea

How about a Grand Theft Auto V set during the Joseon Period? SNL Korea recently did a Grand Theft Auto V parody. Have a look. When the mom shows up (and starts pounding her kid), she says, “This is why you are turning violent.” SNL KOREA 시즌4 – Ep.30 : GTA조선 [YouTube Thanks, Sang!] To contact…

Why Is It So Hard To Keep Playing Video Games?

How did I do it? When my Super Nintendo arrived I remember playing it during the Christmas holiday. Nine hours a day. Every day. For two weeks. I had no reason to stop, no responsibilities. My Mum once rattled my bedroom door making a big fuss about how I should go outside and play and…