Director Shane Carruth—the man behind cult favorite indie films Primer and Upstream Color—names Portal and Grand Theft Auto IV as influences on his work in a profile on Vulture. As video game players become creators in other mediums, this kind of thing becomes less surprising. But it’s still cool to see.

Survey Hints EA Sports’ Canada Studio is Back to Working on NBA Games

Well, this is strange. Chris Sanner of Operation Sports spotted a survey looking for people in the Vancouver area to serve in a focus group on a “New NBA Concept.” EA Canada, in nearby Burnaby, for years was the studio responsible for the label’s NBA products, right up to the ignominious cancellation of NBA Elite…

I Was Done With Three-Star Puzzle Platformers. Then Disney Gave Me Mittens.

Thanks to the low price of mobile games, I regularly download new titles without seeing as much as a single screenshot. Many of those sight-unseen games follow the Angry Birds scoring formula — smash, achieve or collect the things you need on each level, earn three stars, gems, flowers, whatever. Generally I don’t get past…

Want Your Vita Game To Be A Best-Seller? Just Don’t Tell Anyone It Exists.

Last month, the Japanese publisher Tecmo Koei released the Vita version of Japanese role-playing game Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland. They told nobody that it was out. In an e-mail to Kotaku at the time, one of Tecmo Koei’s PR representatives joked that this was a “new tactic to get the community involved and…

Navi Actually Sounds Adorable in This Catchy Zelda Music Video

A nice choice of music and some slick animation by Mélissa Goudjil make this Legend of Zelda video a cheerful way to start the week. The music is “Humbug” by Goldfish. Hey, Listen! [Mélissa Goudjil]

What video games did you play over the weekend? Go join the voices talking about video games and life in Talk Amongst Yourselves, our reader-written blog.

Witness How Much BioShock Infinite Has Changed Over The Past Few Years

(Warning: the following video contains spoilers for BioShock Infinite.) Perhaps you remember seeing BioShock Infinite at E3 2011. What you might not remember is that it looked totally different. Yes, the critically-acclaimed shooter has changed quite a bit over the past couple of years. Blame it on the rigors of development, or maybe it’s just…

After a botched debut, Marvel’s #1 promotion—which offers 700 free first issues from the comics publisher’s archives—is coming back this week. Registration ends tomorrow so hop to it, true believers.

The Estranged Creator of Dark Age of Camelot is Making His Own Damn Dark Age of Camelot

As co-founder and former president/CEO of Mythic Entertainment. Mark Jacobs introduced the online multiplayer world to the concept of realm-vs.-realm combat with 1999’s Darkness Falls. That MUD-style game paved the way for Dark Age of Camelot, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that focused on the conflict between three fantasy realms — humans, elves and…

Microsoft Sells Off Its IPTV Business, Turns TV Focus to Xbox

Microsoft will sell its IPTV platform, Mediaroom, to Ericsson, and focus all of its consumer TV strategy on its Xbox division, the companysaid this morning in a statement. “With the sale of Mediaroom, Microsoft is dedicating all TV resources to Xbox,” the company said. Originally announced as far back as 2007, Mediaroom brought cable television…

The PlayStation 3’s Really Good 2013 Line-Up Is No Fluke

I don’t know what the term is for what happens to a console in the year its successor console comes out. What is it, a lame duck session? That’s not quite right, because a system like the PS2 winds up getting support well after the year the PS3 comes out. The PS2 simply isn’t Sony’s…

The Drunken Dovahbear Of Skyrim Still Can’t Find Its Peace

After drinking too much honey mead, Skyrim‘s most ambitious bear has to rocket jump (with a dragon shout, obviously) through a mountain of enemies to earn his rest in the third part of the superb Dovahbear animation series by Bowz The previous parts are awesome as well, and there’s even a mod out there based…

Still consumed with determining which company is America’s worst, The Consumerist takes issue with EA’s assertion that they’re really not that rotten. Consumerist charges EA with shifting blame

A while back, we talked briefly about the ambitious Grimlands, a post-apocalyptic free to play MMORPG-shooter in the vein of Fallout. Well, it has found its way to Kickstarter. The Poland-based team is asking for a whopping $650,000 to finalize the game.

How That New Pokémon Is Like Frieza from Dragon Ball

Over the weekend, a new Pocket Monster was revealed. The character seemed familiar. However, that’s not because it looks like a new form of the Pokémon character Mewtwo. There’s another reason. The new Pokémon looks like Frieza, the villain in Dragon Ball. And the resemblance isn’t only in that purplish color scheme. On Japanese bulletin…

In China, You Can Pay Women To Play Video Games With You

In many parts of Asia, there is a job called “beer companion”. It’s exactly as its name implies. Young women working for a bar or a beer company dress in relatively skimpy outfits to drink with and to entertain bar guests. It’s already hit the West, but this seems this type of service is now…

Chinese University Students Turn Swear Term Into Game of “Where’s Waldo?”

Chinese is an interesting language. It has close to 5000 years of history, but modern Chinese has loads of really quirky terms that don’t really mean much taken at face value. However sometimes these strange terms can be taken literally and have fun effects. The Chinese phrase “Search? Search, your sister!” (找你妹！) normally translates to…

Laughably Bad Errors In Chinese TV Spotted By Netizens

Chinese television for the most part is pretty bad. Chock full ‘o’ rules and regulations by ridiculous State Organs, Chinese TV producers are still able to produce TV shows. However despite the producers’ best efforts, Chinese ‘netizens’ are still able to pick up inconsistencies and errors in production. First spotted on Chinese Twitter-like Sina Weibo,…

It’s That Time of Year Again. Time for Giant, Spiritual Dicks.

Every spring, like clockwork, the Kanamara Matsuri is held in Kawasaki, Japan. People flock to the Shinto fertility festival, which honors enormous phalluses like the one above. And no, it’s not actually pixelated. Note: This article contains content that some readers might find offensive. Not every Shinto shrine has fertility festivals or honors giant dongs.…

Kadokawa Games, the Japanese publisher behind the upcoming Killer is Dead, has trademarked “Demon Gaze” in the US. You may recall that Demon Gaze is the name of a rather good dungeon crawler for the PS Vita. [via Siliconera]