This Shenmue Statue Won’t Be Looking For Sailors

Next year, collectible company First4Figures—who basically do nothing else but specialise in video game statues—will be paying tribute to a Dreamcast icon, Shenmue’s Ryo Hazuki. While it doesn’t look like it comes with a forklift, it does have his trademark jacket and band-aid. No word on price or specific release date just yet.

The PlayStation 2 Ceases Shipping In Japan, Begins Well-Deserved Victory Lap

We’ve joked about its refusal to die before, but today, finally, the console begins its march into the history books. Having sold over 150 million units since its release in 2000, the PlayStation 2 has today ceased shipping to Japanese retailers, meaning once remaining stock is gone, it’s gone The console was first released in…

The Nintendo 64 Finally Gets A Pro, Dual-Stick Controller

Oh boy, don’t get me started on the Nintendo 64 controller. I hated it. Hated the weird layout, hated the fact the analog stick would always get loose. These days, Nintendo wisely offers alternatives to their “wacky” controllers in the form of Classic and Pro pads for the Wii and Wii U respectively, but we…

Play The World’s First Proper RTS Game, Right In Your Browser

Snobs will try and bring up Herzog Zwei, but really, the RTS genre as we know it starts with Westwood’s classic Dune II, which, while playing a little rough around the edges these days, still looks amazing. Being so old, though, many of you might not have played it. Not to worry. Here’s a version…

Maybe The WarZ Is More Fun If You Use Cheats…

It’s easy to lose sight of it amongst the politics and apologies, but The WarZ isn’t a very good video game Its inspiration/competitor DayZ is an exercise in tension and mood. The WarZ, on the other hand, is an exercise in boredom and broken code. Making things worse, my first five games all ended in…

14 Years Later, Unseen Footage Of The Nintendo 64 Kid’s Freakout Emerges

As part of an interview with Mashable, Brandon and Rachel Kuzma—the kids at the centre of the famous “Nintendo Sixty-Fooouuurrrr” Christmas video—have shared some extra footage of that infamous morning that until now hasn’t been seen. It shows Mrs. Kuzma revealing that, to go with the system, two games have been hired for the kids…

The Year In Kotaku

When you look back on all that’s happened in the gaming world—games released, scandals unveiled and surprises unleashed—it’s been a long, long year. Let’s take a look back at what that year has been like for Kotaku Pretty soon after I was hired here at Kotaku, I started doing weekly round-ups of our best content.…

This Second Life Water Birth Is Practically A Miracle. A Wonderful, Horrifying Miracle.

Via our lovely video editor Chris Person comes this absolutely baffling video of a ‘birth’ in Second Life, an MMO. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be beautiful, weird or funny. Maybe a bit of all three. Someone out there thought it was a good idea to record this, though. The real question…

The Year in Sports Video Games

What’s up, buttheads. It’s me, Biff. Look, I know my sports betting advice this year didn’t play out so well. Sorry if you bet your adjustable-rate mortgage balloon payment on one of my lead pipe locks. How was I to know I had a printer’s error? Really, that stuff was the Gray’s Sports Almanac from…

This Five Year Old Kid Accidentally Got A 3DS Full Of Porn For Christmas

The dangers of buying used, people. According to 9News, this Christmas, the Giles family found themselves horrified after their five year old son, Braydon Giles, found racy pictures on his refurbished 3DS. Presumably, the pictures came from previous owners who utilized the system’s camera function. (…who the hell DOES that? For porn, I mean.) The…

Learning To Love Easy Mode

A couple of months ago, if I started a new game—no matter what it was—I’d start off on a high difficulty. At the very least, I’d go for normal, but only if it was clear that normal would provide a challenge. I reasoned that nowadays ‘normal’ is geared toward a more general audience which may…

Clementine was probably the most powerful, emotional experience in The Walking Dead. This is how she was developed.

New posts from Kirk Hamilton and Jenn Frank continue The New York Times’ review of games this year.

Born And Raised A Game Developer

You might know the name Victor Ireland—the outspoken ex-head of Working Designs was responsible for translating and publishing a number of beloved Japanese games, like the Lunar series and Alundra But you might not know his son, Broderick Ireland. Broderick, an 18-year-old designer who just released his first game on the Xbox Live Indie Marketplace,…

This Motion-Tracking Portal Turret Uses Your Webcam To Keep Intruders Out

Actually r4di0fly3r’s motion-tracking turret probably won’t keep intruders out. But it will startle them. And it will probably keep cats and dogs out from sheer terror of “OH GOD WHAT IS THAT.” You can download the software for your PC or Mac, or just run it off of the deviantART page since that didn’t seem…

War Z Creator Apologizes: ‘I Became Arrogant And Blinded By The Early Success And Quick Growth’

The man behind The War Z has apologized to his fans for some of the controversies that have entangled the much-maligned survival horror game over the past couple of weeks. In an extensive letter that tackles some of the game’s well-publicized issues—like misleading Steam descriptions and community mismanagement—War Z boss Sergey Titov says he’ll be…

Want To Make Far Cry 3 More Realistic? Check Out This Mod.

Sometimes what you need is a little realism in your power fantasy. If you feel that Far Cry 3 is missing some crucial realistic bits, maybe this mod is for you. Here is the “extremely in-depth Realism Mod” by Ubisoft forum user Panzerjager1943. According to the creator, this mod includes: -Damage is based on actual…

Blizzard Axes Diablo III‘s ‘Team Deathmatch’ PVP Mode

Diablo III‘s Team Deathmatch mode—shown off at a number of conventions and promised for the months following the game’s launch earlier this year—has been axed, Blizzard says. The player vs. player feature just wasn’t good enough, Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson writes on Battle.net today: So, our core problem is that our Team Deathmatch…

The Year In Zombies

I didn’t notice how fairly quiet a year it’s been for zombies until doing this round-up of all the flesh-eaters this year’s media has to offer, but there were definitely some highlights that more than fill those gaps. Some duds, too, but you can’t expect such a watered down narrative to always go over so…

According to research, women show twice as much skin as men do… on Second Life avatars.