Some Jerks Made a Completely Tasteless Boston Marathon Video Game

It’s become the worst kind of video game cliché: Some horrible crime gets committed and a group of fools somewhere hacks out a playable turd designed to get people clutching their pearls or snickering at their juvenile lack of empathy. Most recently, there was a Doom-style knockoff after former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner went on…

The Artist Behind Dragon’s Crown Explains His Exaggerated Characters

Dragon’s Crown designer George Kamitani says his characters—including the sexy, controversial sorceress—are all exaggerated so they’ll stand out from other fantasy art. In an e-mail to Kotaku, Kamitani explained some of the rationale behind his designs, which picked up a great deal of media attention this week after the artist wrote a note to me…

Spicy Horse’s New Collectible Card-Time Strategy Looks Mighty Familiar

Coming this fall to PC, Mac, Linux and tablets everywhere, Spicy Horse’s (thankfully) tentatively-titled Hell Invaders brings collectible card games to life in full 3D real-time strategy battles. It’s sort of like EA’s BattleForge, only — okay, it’s pretty much BattleForge. While I’m sure there’ll be elements to the CCG/RTS from American McGee’s studio that…

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: contributor DamsonRhee talks about the inspiration behind her video game-inspired tattoo. It’s a great essay about how we relate to the games we love. Also, Dyram starts up a thread about video game music remixes. Go throw in your own favorites. And you can always…

There Are 31 Video Games in This Fantasy Arcade. Can You Name Them?

That is one crazy amusement hall up there, filled popular indie games reimagined as more traditional arcade fare and familiar characters. Can you find them all and show us using our shiny image annotation system? This amazing art isthe work of Asid Siddiky, who created it for Attract Mode‘s Comics Vs. Games 2 show at…

That XCOM FPS Isn’t Dead. And It Isn’t an FPS Anymore.

The XCOM we got last year wasn’t supposed to be the one leading the rebirth of the beloved sci-fi strategy franchise. No, great as XCOM: Enemy Unknown was, it was a Johnny-come-lately. Back in 2010, there was another XCOM shown at E3, a game that re-imagined the humans-vs-aliens conflict as a first-person-shooter set in the…

Persona 4 Arena: Official Design Works Now Comes In English

Earlier this week, Luke Plunkettcelebrated the work of Atlus art director Shigenori Soejima, the man behind eye-catching style of the Persona series. He recommended Soejima’s art book, available for shipping in 1-3 months from Amazon — just in time for the English release of Persona 4 Arena: Official Design Works from UDON. Let’s take a…

Blame Photoshop for Korea’s Beauty Queen “Clones”?

This week, photos of Korean contestants surfaced online. The photos all seemed eerily similar. Plastic surgery was blamed for these “clone contestants”. If only it were that simple. It was aJapanese blog, which specializes in translating Korean news, that was one of the first to upload the images. However, when said images reached English cyberspace…

Final Fantasy VII has never actually been released for the PC in Japan. Square Enix will be fixing that mistake “soon” by making the Japanese version available on their online shop.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 Takes a Step Forward and Another One Back

When One Piece: Pirate Warriors was released on the PS3, I found myself playing it and enjoying it—despite having next to no knowledge about the source material. In other words, going in, I had never seen so much as an episode of One Piece—though I seem to remember having seen one of the movies on…

Konami has announced that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will be getting its third piece of DLC in Japan on May 9. The DLC will feature a new campaign where you control LQ-84i, AKA the Bladewolf

Mars: War Logs, the sci-fi RPG from Spiders that’s a little like Mass Effect with a dash of Assassin’s Creed, Rage and Red Faction, is now out on Steam. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are coming “very soon”.

Pirate Warriors 2 Actually Made Me Interested in One Piece

Nearly a year ago, I talked about what it was like to play One Piece: Pirate Warriors without any foreknowledge of the massive One Piece franchise. In summary:everything seemed like pure, unmitigated insanity And thanks to the way it jumped through the series’ story at a breakneck speed, it wasn’t easy to follow either. Overall,…

Even Snape from Harry Potter Can Be “Cute”

Alan Rickman, the actor who plays Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies, is one handsome man. He isn’t, however, what I would call “cute”. But what if he wants to be cute? Well, there’s an app for that. In Japan (and other places, too, I imagine), there are smartphone apps that make your eyes…

China’s Microfilms Are Worth Checking Out

“Microfilms” are all the rage in China’s film-scape right now. These short films are called “Wei Dian Ying” (微电影), which mostly refers to low budget amateur digital videos hosted on streaming websites such as Youtube and Youku. Regardless of the term “micro”, these films are anything but small. Short maybe, but not small! “Microfilms” didn’t…

Ubisoft has published a trailer of what seems to be an Assassin’s Creed-themed, community-focused website featuring puzzle games with leaderboards. The catch? It’s exclusive to those who pre-ordered Black Flag, much like how access to Industrial Revolution was tied to a pre-order of BioShock Infinite

South Korea Got an Official Iron Man 3 Cake

Iron Man 3 is out in South Korea. And the country has an official Iron Man 3 cake to prove it. The official cake is from chain Paris Baguette, and the box also doubles as an Iron Man face mask. How marvellous! This once again proves that everything should get its own cake. Eat [wingspig…

Final Fantasy Tactics S, a new Final Fantasy Tactics social game, was just announced for Japan. “S”? Social? Geddit?

Chasm, when it grows up, will be a Diablo– and Zelda-inspired side-scrolling action-RPG/Metroidvania for the PC. Currently, it’s a wee demo attached to a $150,000 Kickstarter project. 15 days and a bit over $50,000 to go for this one.

Why Dynasty Warriors Games Are Perfect for Non-Gamers

The first time I saw a Dynasty Warriors game, it was when I walked into the TV room of my high school dorm. I had left my PS2 out for the others in the dorm to play (loaded with Final Fantasy X) and was surprised to see a friend playing Dynasty Warriors 2 instead. It…