Report: Police Consider Sandy Hook Shooter a ‘Deranged Gamer’ Who Tried to Outscore Other Killers

Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza maintained a spreadsheet filled with information from mass killings from the past and further alleges that it’s a major sign of how video games influenced the mindset and planning of Lanza’s terrible act of lethal violence, according to a front page story in today’s New York Daily News A law…

After His Battle With Cancer, a Fan Gets a Memorial in Total War

Shortly after his visit to get a very early preview of Total War: Rome 2 last year, a 24-year-old gamer named James died, taken by liver cancer in the prime of his life. Eurogamer reports that Total War studio Creative Assembly was so touched by the short time it spent with James that his image…

Gears of War: Judgment: The Kotaku Review

Our Gears of War: Judgment review has been updated with a multiplayer segment as well as an overall verdict on the game (finally). To sum: you might have a better time picking up Gears of War 3 instead. A good soldier doesn’t always follow orders—not if he or she wants to get the job done.…

Korean Pro Gamer Flash Has Some Deep Rituals When It Comes To StarCraft II

Among other Korean pros, legendary Brood War player Flash—already switched over to and having great success in StarCraft II—attended MLG Winter last weekend. He is usually considered to be playing the game on a wholly different level—and this video, showing him measuring the placement of the keyboard in his booth, with a ruler no less,…

Little Kid Spends All of his Dad’s WoW Gold On Pets

One of the new phrases this year in China is that property is hard to protect. Well, it seems that goes for virtual property, too. Last week, a gamer in China posted on the World of Warcraft forums about how he almost lost all of his hard-earned WoW gold in the blink of an eye.…

Japanese arcade game Gunslinger Stratos got a special anime promo. No word if this will be a TV series. Yet.

Why Cats Love Sitting on Keyboards

Any cat owner will tell you: those felines love keyboards. They love sitting on them. They love walking on them. They adore them! Over on Yahoo! Answers, the top answers state the obvious: cats want your attention. That’s no doubt true. Recently, Japanese site My Navi examined this issue that has confronted cat owners as…

Horribly Racist Arcade Machines Are Nothing New In China

Earlier today, Rocket News 24, a Japanese news site, uploaded photos of an arcade machine spotted in Myanmar. The arcade machine at first glance looks pretty much like every cheap arcade game out there—however, upon closer inspection, one can see that it’s horribly racist. Towards the Japanese. The arcade machine in question, PK918, isn’t a…

Marvel at this Japanese Nerd Dancing

If you’ve ever been to an idol (virtual or real!) concert, you are familiar with Japanese nerd dancing. It’s called “otagei” (オタ芸) or “wotagei” (ヲタ芸), which is short for “otaku” (geek) and “gei” (芸), which can mean “performance” in Japanese. In short, it’s a bunch of geeks dancing! Above, you can see some truly impressive…

Here’s a look at the newest entry in the Atelier series. It’s currently dubbed “Project A15”.

Meet WarStorm, the Unreal Engine 3 FPS Created by One Chinese Guy

The Chinese blogosphere is abuzz with excitement over a demo for a new single player first-person shooter. That’s right, there is a lot of buzz for a demo. So what exactly makes this demo so exciting for Chinese players? It’s a domestically made FPS, done by a one man studio over the course of one…

Final Fantasy Versus XIII Turned into FFXV by a Fashion Label’s Mistake

Ah, the world of fashion! The clothes. The models. The typos? According to Japanese clothing brand Roen, that’s exactly what caused a recent kerfuffle. Back in 2008, Roen announced that it would be making Final Fantasy Versus XIII threads like the game’s protagonists wear. Recently, however, something peculiar was spotted while surfing Roen’s website. On…

This Year’s Craziest Video Game Conspiracy Theory, the Uncanny Valley, and, Oh Yeah, Metal Gear

The next generation is around the corner. And with it, video gamers will get wrinkles, hair follicles, and pores like they’ve never seen before. Before we know it, the Uncanny Valley will become the new normal. But, as some are wondering online, is it already here? And did we just watch a digital game developer…

DRM-free SimCity clone Civitas’ Kickstarter has been cancelled; the studio “has been able to secure private funding.”

King Arthur’s Gold, the indie lovechild of Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft, is coming to Steam. More details here

How Do You Make Majora’s Mask Even More Disturbing? Add Nicolas Cage.

This is… I don’t even know what to say. Just watch. Sheer genius. Kudos to YouTuber Criken, who somehow managed to make the creepy The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask even creepier, Cage style. (via NeoGAF)

A Telltale Heartbeat Informs the Latest Hero of Ace Attorney

Taking a page from Matt Murdock, the latest hero of the Ace Attorney series is a lawyer who can listen to heartbeats to determine if they’re telling the truth. That said, Kizuki Kokone is not yet an expert at doing so, says the game’s official web page, in a post revealing her arrival in Ace…

Missile Command‘s 31-Year-Old All-Time Record Has Fallen [Update]

Victor Sandberg of Sweden has been playing Missile Command for more than 52 hours on a single coin, chasing a record that has stood since 1982. The all-time high world record high score of 80.5 million points is held by another Victor, in this case someone named Victor Ali. [Update] Victor Sandberg is the new…

Coder Discovers Mandatory 20-Minute Offline Timeout in SimCity

Last week, two of our writers played SimCity and deliberately turned off their Internet connections, both finding their games continued normally and then abruptly ended after 20 minutes. Someone now has posted what appears to be code for the game that orders a shutdown after a disconnection exactly that long. That allegation further punctures the…

The Week in Games: There are a Million Bricks in LEGO City …

God of War got its prequel last week; Gears of War gets one Tuesday. We’ve also been charmed by LEGO City: Undercover on Wii U, available on Monday. Monday • LEGO City: Undercover (Wii U) Tuesday • Gears of War: Judgment (360) • The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (360, PS3, Wii U, PC) • Assassin’s…