Throat-Slashing Blamed on a Gears of War Relationship Gone Bad

A 14-year-old admitted to slashing a 13-year-old’s throat in an assault Scottish authorities blamed on a soured online friendship developed over Gears of War. Of course the game itself is blamed but when the 14-year-old already is a father, you’re not talking about someone with good decision-making and impulse control. The Daily Mail is all…

This Week in the Business: What Have You Done For Me Lately?

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “If your latest game doesn’t do well that’s probably the end of it for you no matter whether you’re big or small.”—Dan Paladin, developer of Castle Crashers, talking about how unstable the industry is for both large and small developers QUOTE…

What’s that you say? Today is Free Comic Book Day? Why yes, I’ll have that copy of Tales to Astonish #27 then. Oh, so some are free, but that one isn’t. OK. Well, then why don’t you call it “Free Comic Book Other Than Tales to Astonish #27 Day”? (Find your nearest participating store.)

The Best of Kotaku, The Week of April 29th

There were some exciting video game happenings this week! Grand Theft Auto V got three new trailers—one big trailer?—for the three protagonists you get to control in Rockstar’s next game. Bossman Stephen Totilo checked the game out for the very first time, and came away with a ton of details written with a ton of…

This Is No Ordinary Thor’s Hammer Prop. It’s Actually Electric.

Making Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, as a prop is one thing. Lots of people have one of those. hackaday wanted to go further than that. From the YouTube description: I worked with Staci Elaan to build this hammer that has a solid state tesla coil inside. When you push the button, 80,000 volts of electricity arc…

You Can Do Special Fusions Via StreetPass In Shin Megami Tensei IV

Shin Megami Tensei games have typically always let you collect demon minions which you can then use in battle, ala Pokémon. You can “fuse” these demons to make new ones, but that’s typically a solitary affair. In the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei IV, other players will allow you to perform special fusions via Streetpass. Streetpass…

How Many Games Made It Into Apple’s Top 100 Apps of All-Time?

With the iTunes App Store quickly approaching the 50 billion downloads mark — that’s about six or seven apps for every person on the planet — Apple is showcasing a list of the top 100 free and paid iPhone and iPad apps of all-time, or as I like to call it, 47 gaming apps and…

35 Minutes With The Next Game From The Makers Of Heavy Rain

David Cage was nervous last Saturday night. And with good reason. There he was, about to unveil a sizable chunk of Beyond: Two Souls in front of a packed house at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. This was only the second time that a video game was shown at the annual celebration of cinema founded…

A Video Game Where You Walk Through A Graveyard And Look At Graves

Some games are all about shooting. Some games task you with exploring new worlds and embarking upon crazy adventures. And some games… let you walk through a graveyard. Boon Hill, a new Kickstarter project created by a guy named Matthew Ritter, wants to be that game. There’s no way to win or lose in Boon…

A Visual History of Attractive Video Game Characters: The 10s

The past few years produced a huge amount of great games and a surprisingly decent amount of them have well-developed characters that are hard to forget. And, of course, some of them look really attractive. We’re going to wrap up our series on the hottest, most attractive video game characters with the 10s, starting with…

I’m Too Old For This Week in Gaming Apps S**t

You kids get off of my lawn! Damn, that really does feel good. I turned 40 on Wednesday, so excuse me if I didn’t play as many gaming apps this week as you young people did. These old eyes aren’t what they used to be. Okay, not an excuse. If anything I should be playing…

In celebration of Surgeon Simulator 2013 and the indie sensation that it has become: the most disgusting cake you have ever wanted to eat. Mmmm disgustlicious. Uncensored image follows. (Surgeon Simulator 2013 via Reddit) To contact the author of this post, write to [email protected] or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini

Booker DeWitt Really Should Learn Moderation When It Comes To Eating

The thing about healing via food items is that characters start seeming like gluttons every time you want to restore your health in a game. In BioShock Infinite’s case, what with most food being stuff like cotton candy and popcorn, the situation seemed particularly ridiculous. Here’s an amusing and well-produced video by HapstanceFilms which makes…

How Are You Supposed to Enjoy Animal Crossing?

I know how to have fun playing a Mario game, a Zelda game or a Metroid game. I get Pikmin. I get Fire Emblem. Hell, I got Cubello. But I never got Nintendo’s Animal Crossing series. Help me understand! I’ve tried the GameCube version, the DS one and the Wii one. Nintendo kindly sent me…

Better (At Playing Dead) With Kinect

I was looking through my computer for an Animal Crossing image and found this image entitled Animals_PlayDead.jpg. From June 2010, via the good people at Microsoft. I had to share, because, well, this picture is just great. Really sells how…. special… the Kinect is/was. Feel free to annotate it.

Fans Angry Might & Magic Heroes VI Has Been Unplayable for 24 Hours

Over the last day or so, complaints have cropped up from players who’ve been trying to play the latest installment of the long-lived Might & Magic series. Users have turned to the game’s official Ubisoft message boards and Steam forums to vent, citing missing music, corrupt installation files and game freezes that prevent them from…

Snoop Dogg’s New Game is Essentially PaRappa The Rapper but Broken

Did you know that Snoop Dogg (né ‘Snoopy’) has a game out today? It’s true! Its also doesn’t work half the time! Way of the Dogg is a downloadable game out today for XBLA. In it, you play a blacksploitation stereotype named America Jones (let that one really sink in) whose girlfriend is shot (it’s…

FYI: Butts Are Off-limits in Nintendo Games, But Penises Aren’t

I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf lately, in preparation for a review next month. One of the staple features in the Animal Crossing franchise is a store run by a fox. The store sells rare items and art. Like, say, this fine statue here. Let’s take a closer and uncensored look, shall we? (NSFW…

She took her calculator to prom according to The Mary Sue. Because who needs a date when you’ve got a sharply-dressed calculator? More pictures here. I wonder if anyone has ever taken a body pillow to prom?

JRPG Censorship Is Such A Silly Thing

For as long as there have been Japanese role-playing games, there has been censorship. Since the NES days, Nintendo and other big Japanese companies have been quick to stamp their big black bars on anything that might be considered offensive to American sensibilities: alcohol, religion, sex, octopus statues, whatever. And JRPGs have been the biggest…