Giving Up Control Of The New Star Wars Films Was Tough For George Lucas

We like to hold the things we make near and dear, treating them as if they were our babies. It’s no different with George Lucas and Star Wars. As you might know, Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney in 2012—and so was Star Wars. Right now, a third trilogy in the Star Wars film series is…

No, EA Won’t Ban You On Origin If You Ask For A Refund For SimCity [UPDATE]

Lately, a rumor has spread about how EA might ban users who request for refunds on SimCity. It’s bunk. This was a widely-posted chat, in which a sales rep supposedly tells someone that if they tried to dispute the refund claim on SimCity through their bank, they’d get banned on Origin. Naturally, the image scared…

Here’s Anita Sarkeesian’s First ‘Tropes vs. Women In Games’ Video

It’s been a long road for feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian. Last summer, she ran a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a new video series examining sexist tropes in video games—her goal was $6,000 and she raised nearly $160,000. In the midst of the Kickstarter drive, Sarkeesian was subjected to a brutal, organized…

You Can Play An Infinite Game of Catch With A Live Grenade In Black Ops II

Sure, shooting people is an option in Black Ops II, and that’s plenty of fun. Or, you can play catch with your enemies. With a live grenade. Don’t worry, it won’t go off. Here’s how. The folks over at defendthehouse found that, if two people have the “fast hands” perk—which allows you to throw back…

Observe Modded Minecraft Cycle Beautifully Through The Four Seasons

The four seasons are all beautiful in their own rights, even if I do want to stab winter with its own icicles right about now. So while you’re pillaging the land and creating massive structures, why not mimic the season you see outside your window inside your computer window? If you do decide to download…

Because more Rayman is always a good thing, Rayman Jungle Run is now available for Windows 8 and RT for $2.99.

Amazon Has Stopped Selling Digital Copies Of SimCity

As the disastrous SimCity launch lurches toward the end of the week, it feels like it’s been one catastrophe after another. Earlier this morning, EA started disabling features to get the game to work. And in the latest hit against SimCity, megaretailer Amazon.com has stopped selling digital copies of the game. SimCity is now listed…

Why People Love Planescape: Torment

Yesterday, a video game shattered yet another Kickstarter record: in its first 24 hours, Torment: Tides of Numenera raised $1.7 million, becoming the fastest Kickstarter to earn a million dollars Tides of Numenera is a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, a role-playing game that came out for the PC back in 1999, and it’s received…

Watch our own Kirk Hamilton talk about the status of everything video games with Adam Sessler on The Tech Feed.

Amazon’s Potential Jump Into Cloud Gaming, And Other Secrets From The World Of Video Games

A handful of recent job listings may offer some hints as to Amazon‘s future ambitions in the gaming space. One opening mentions that the online giant “is looking for a software engineer to contribute to the design and construction of next generation of distribution technology for online video games.” The listing’s copy also talks up…

I Found The Mythical Friend Zone. It’s A Sonic Level.

Guys. Guys. The friend zone is real, it exists. It’s a Sonic level. I’ve made the joke of a friendzone-based Sonic level a million times before, but artist Jake Lawrence actually drew it out for me last night. Here it is. Sonic, Amy just doesn’t like you like that, okay? It’s cool though, you can…

God of War: Ascension Vs. The PlayStation 4

Last month, Sony started trying to convince us that we will need a PlayStation 4. The system is coming out at the end of the year. This month, the new God of War for PS3, God of War Ascension, might as well be an argument that we don’t. (Before we get too far into this,…

Sega Wants to Know If We Want This Virtual Idol Rhythm Game in the West. Yes, Please.

We’ve covered Sega’s Hatsune Miku-powered rhythm game Project Diva – F for the PlayStation Vita and PS3 quite a lot here at Kotaku, but all of that coverage has been from afar, courtesy of the kindly Kotaku East crew. Now Sega’s wondering if North America and Europe wouldn’t mind a closer look. All you have…

Psyched for StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm? Check out this large Q&A with some of Blizzard’s developers.

The SimCity Disaster Continues: EA Disables Features To Try To Get The Servers Working

Hey, remember when video games came out and then you could actually play them? As we enter day 3 of the SimCity launch debacle, EA has decided to turn off “a few non-critical gameplay features” in order to let people play on the servers, which have been broken since the game launched on Monday night.…

Finally an Original Mobile Game That Plays to Sonic the Hedgehog‘s Greatest Strength

When Sega’s Hardlight Studio released Sonic Jump last year, I shook my head. Jumping is not the ability Sonic the Hedgehog is known for. This week Hardlight has released endless runner Sonic Dash on iOS. That’s more like it. How do you make a good 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game? You take a bad one…

Dead Space 3‘s Awakened DLC Brings Back Those Horrific Hallucinations

Dead Space 3 presented a pretty radical departure from the first two games in the sci-fi horror series. Too many fetch quests and co-operative play made Isaac Clarke’s third outing against the Necromorphs feel less scary and atmospheric than DS1 & DS2. But, most of all, longtime Dead Space fans missed the freaky hallucinations that…

Indie Gem To the Moon Gets A Sequel… Sort Of

To the Moon, a lovely and emotionally evocative indie adventure game released in 2011, is getting a sequel… sorta. The game’s called A Bird Story, and it’s a short adventure that will be out this summer. Creator Kan Gao likes to think of it as a bridge between the first and second To the Moons.…

SimCity: The Kotaku Review

To many fans of the original city building simulation series, the idea of an online multiplayer game that required even solo players to be connected to the internet at all times seemed like a recipe for disaster. Maxis’ latest creation is easily the most compelling SimCity I’ve played since the 1989 original. Update: Final verdict…

The Nintendo Download this week has a demo for Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity. Check out the full list.