The Handwritten Blueprint For A Musical Masterpiece

Before music becomes music—before it’s played by musicians—it’s just ink on a page. Some compositions require a great deal of ink and a lot of pages, hundreds of carefully-drawn notes bound into massive tomes of score-paper. And yet it’s worth remembering that some of the greatest compositions of all time were born of simple ideas…

Keiji Inafune Is Taking Your Questions Right Now [Q&A Is Finished]

Mega Man. Onimusha. Dead Rising. These are just a small sample of games from Keiji Inafune. Now, he’s working on a new title, Mighty No. 9. Oh, he’s also answering your questions, right here! For the next hour, Inafune will be on hand for a reader Q&A, with Tokyo-based game localizer 8-4 doing realtime translations.…

He Forged The Meteor Sword From Avatar. Then, He Cut Stuff With It.

For a long time, young Sokka was the Xander Harris of Avatar: The Last Airbender. He didn’t have any sweet bending powers and he wasn’t the Avatar; he didn’t have a great, noble destiny. He was just a dude with a boomerang. Then, he got the meteor sword. More precisely, he met Fire Nation swordmaster…

Guns for the Call of Duty generation: here’s documentary by Motherboard about “smart weapons,” or guns with scopes that incorporate HUDs that help even novices pull off one-shot-one-kills. The gun does all the accuracy calculations for you. Fascinating stuff, and yes, they do talk about people who play games.

Maybe Avengers Alliance Can Make Sense Of Marvel’s Infinity Event

Marvel’s universe-spanning “Infinity” event is coming to turn-based social RPG Avengers Alliance, where it will hopefully make more sense. I am so lost in space right now. There’s just something about the Infinity series (“Infinity Gauntlet”, “Infinity Crusade”, “Infinity War”, “Infinity Bucket”) that makes my brain turn off. I’ve read each series and its crossovers…

Data Leak Hints At Microtransactions In GTA Online

The upcoming Grand Theft Auto Online may let you buy in-game money with real money at some point—files found on a Rockstar server hint at the possibility, and it’s an interesting one. A Redditor says he found the files, which you can read here, by trying to access the store section of the game’s pause…

2013’s Best Graphic Novel Is All About Killing in the Name of God(s)

Don’t let the appealingly cartoony look of Boxers & Saints fool you. Terrible things happen in this graphic novel. Old men get beaten up. Women and children get killed in rather heartless fashion. And, worst of all, the senseless death that happens in the 500-page opus is based on actual events. But, goddamn, is it…

Let’s Talk About Multiplayer Games

A short The Multiplayer column today, because I’ve spent the last 3 days getting destroyed by a cold. So! I’ll turn it over to you guys: 1) What multiplayer games are you playing lately? What games are you looking forward to? Feel free to talk about anything and everything multiplayer in here, think of it…

Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket: The Snacktaku Review

To make the new Smokehouse Brisket sandwich, Arby’s starts with quality beef brisket, smoked for at least 13 hours for that falling-apart-in-your-mouth texture. Then it covers it in unnecessary junk, because that’s what Arby’s does. Note that in the video I say 24 hours several times. This is because 24 is a better number than…

Rockstar Warns GTA V Players To Avoid Using Garages Until Bug is Fixed

This past weekend in GTA V, my buddy Franklin finally made some real money on a heist. The guy loves to drive, so I decided to buy him a nice new sports car. But when he got back to his house and checked the garage, the car was nowhere to be found. Had master car-thief…

Masked Reagan Suspected in GameStop Stickup

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, sometimes tragic. Kotaku‘s Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Rob One for the Gipper PALM DESERT, Calif.—A clown…

Alien Rage: Boring Name, Boring Game

The game has one redeeming quality, and that’s a completely out of place narrator that says things like “Double kill!” and “Ten headshots!” to remind you that you’re doing a good job. Thanks guy! I started the game with high hopes, but in the hour or so that I played, the game just got more…

This Is Actually The Citizen Kane Of Video Games

There’s been a lot of chatter, in recent years, about the “Citizen Kane” of video games—that one achievement that will drag the world of gaming into our collective cultural consciousness, and convince all the naysayers that video games are indeed works of art. Well, it’s here. Our Citizen Kane has arrived. Citizen Kane: the JRPG.…

Moneysaver: Monoprice Monitor, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Samsung EVO

Grab Bioshock Infinite, Brave New World, and Blacklist at deep discounts today, or upgrade your PC gaming with a Monoprice Monitor or Samsung EVO SSD. PC Bioshock Infinite ($11) | Gamefly | Use promo code GFDSEP20 Brave New World ($8) | Gamefly | Use promo code GFDSEP20 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist ($45) | Amazon…

Man, There Are So Many Ways Breaking Bad Could End Next Week

One episode left before it’s all over in Breaking Bad—you know what that means, right? It’s practically impossible not to hypothesize over how it’ll all end. Some theories are ridiculous, some theories are amazing, and if the rest of the show is any indication, almost all guesses will end up being wrong. But hey, that…

One Of Gaming’s Most Iconic Swords Got A Massive Steampunk Replica

No wonder there’s no one in these pictures wielding the massive 6.5 feet tall Buster Sword, Cloud’s iconic weapon from Final Fantasy VII. It probably weighs a ton! More specifically it’s a slightly modified steampunk version of the weapon, made by the folks at Brick Replicas There’s a cog-wheel and an indicator attached, so we…

Sonic The Hedgehog’s Latest Enemies Are An Odd Bunch

Dr. Eggman’s great and all, but he’s just not deadly enough for Sonic: Lost World, so we end up with these guys — the Deadly Six. One of them is a sullen teen. Sounds pretty deadly to me.

Even Selfies Become Awesome When You Add Space Jam

Okay, to be fair, Space Jam makes everything better—but even so, let’s not undersell the work of Gabriel Valenciano here. The fellow seems intent on souping up the selfie (aka, self-portraits) via what he calls “Super Selfies.” Basically, Super Selfies are short, condensed video clips of the man going wild on camera while a song…

Valve Announces Steam OS

Steam is getting its very own operating system, Valve announced today. It’ll be a combination of Steam’s current platform and Linux. SteamOS is a free operating system designed for living rooms that Valve says “combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen.” Valve says they’ve already got “hundreds…

No, These Aren’t Vacation Photos. They’re GTA V Screenshots.

This isn’t a postcard or a promotional shot for the Union Pacific Railroad. It’s a picture taken within Grand Theft Auto V by a professional photographer looking for the beauty of Los Santos and Blaine County instead of taking crass selfies and vulgar crotch-shots. Phil Rose, a photographer with more than two decades’ worth of…