They Bought Dead Island: Riptide But Got Dark Souls Instead

It’s like the universe was trying to tell them something. This week, some British gamers found that the retail Steam codes they redeemed for Dead Island: Riptide instead unlocked Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition The jokes really make themselves, don’t they? It’s easy to say, “Hey, you’re better off! One of those games is…

Just a heads up: the Wii U Virtual Console is now live in North America.

Cliff Bleszinski: Pirates Can Be Paying Customers

Ever since he left Epic Games, Cliff Bleszinski’s been letting his opinions fly fast and unfettered. At this week’s East Coast Game Conference, he talked about where the future of games might be heading. During the 25-minute talk—spotted on GamersNexus—he offers up opinions on the folks who pirate games and the heavy-handed top-down approach protecting…

Congrats Devoted Fans, The Swimming Anime Is Now Real

A month ago, the fandom around the “Swimming Anime” was based on an anime that wasn’t real. Fans didn’t care. They gave the characters identities, backstories, fan-art and more—all based on a 30 second clip! Some dismissed these efforts as ridiculous, but it seems it has paid off: the anime is now becoming a reality.…

Here’s a new rumor to add to the ever-growing pile of whispers about the next Xbox, which will be announced on May 21. Polygon says their sources tell them that the machine, code-named Durango, will be able to capture and share video; that it will have some form of always-on requirement (that may ring a…

Watch Some of GLaDOS’ Best Moments in Poker Night 2

Poker video games aren’t usually done well. They’re historically cheap, flavorless games without a lot of personality. Telltale’s Poker Night 2 does not suffer from those problems, particularly when it comes to its dealer, GLaDOS. In the video above, watch some of the psychotic AI poker dealer’s cruelest one liners. It almost makes the humiliating…

Is Rare Working On A Launch Title For The Next Xbox? Plus: More Gaming Secrets.

Editor’s note: Superannuation is back this month for more not-so-hidden secrets dug up from the Internet. Amongst the handful of gaming whispers, it’s no surprise to see mentions of a possible Next Xbox launch title with the reveal of the new console looming… A number of recent job postings on Activision’s career portal seem to…

I Will Never Doubt the Power of Archery Again

Oh Hawkeye, where do I begin? For years I’ve ridiculed you for being the guy with the bow among gods. Now I’ve played a game where I shoot a bow with such power and precision the gods tremble in fear at the sound of my bowstring pulling back. If you ever learn to shoot like…

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”.