Bring a Little Middle Earth To Age of Empires

Tales of Middle-Earth is an ambitious mod that seeks to bring the world of Lord of the Rings not to some modern strategy game like Total War, but to one a little older, one that’s definitely earned the title of a classic: Age of Empires II The mod’s called Tales of Middle-Earth, and while it’s…

Valve Fans Create Gear So Good It’s Officially Going In A Game

Like it’s done with Team Fortress 2, Valve recently reached out to members of the Polycount forums to see who could make the best gear for its DOTA 2 game. The winners were announced over the course of last week, with the very best not only set to appear in the game’s next update, but…

Forget Fantasy Lands, Normal Cities Look Awesome In Minecraft As Well

There’s a tendency to go straight for the fantastical when designing Minecraft worlds, to castles and islands in the sky, but just like we see with LEGO and its City sets, the mundane can be just as good. These images are from a fictional Minecraft city on rikkuness’ server, which while not available for download…

Halo 4 Players Are Getting (Sort of) Banned For Downloading a Halo 4 Map Pack

The farce surrounding the release of Halo 4’s Crimson Map Pack has got a whole lot more farcical, with some users complaining that those who downloaded and began playing the pack for free—like Microsoft told them to—are being banned from certain portions of the game. The game’s official forums are full of people saying that,…

God of War Was Very Nearly an Accidental Diablo Rip-Off

Kratos’ red body paint is about as iconic a wardrobe option as any character we’ve seen this console generation, but it an interesting reveal over the weekend, former God of War lead David Jaffe has told how this very nearly wasn’t the case. The picture you see above was, according to Jaffe, what Kratos looked…

The Best Jokers Are The Old Jokers

It’s been a good week for cosplay, in part because there are actually some men to feature this week, but also because of what those men are dressed as. A humanoid Wheatley from Portal 2? The Joker from the 1989 Tim Burton flick classic TV series? Well played, gents, well played. As seen on Callesto…

Oh, Turns Out One Can Simply Walk Into Mordor

What was once a throwaway line in a 3.5-hour long movie has, thanks to the slow burn of Sean Bean’s amazingness, become one of the most memorable quips in all three Lord of the Rings flicks. Mostly because he has a point! One does not simply walk into Mordor. Or… can they? Kerry Shawcross and…

Square Enix’s Next-Gen Engine Sure Makes Eyeballs Look Pretty

We may know nothing official about the next generation of consoles, but we do know what Final Fantasy overseers Square Enix hope their games will look like on them, courtesy of its 2012 debut of the Luminous engine These two videos give us a closer look at the tech demo first shown at E3, zooming…

One Real Good Incentive To Work At Blizzard For 20 Years

If you thought the glass controller Sony employees got after five years of service was a nice gesture, wait til you see what Blizzard employees get for twenty years service. They get one of the helmets pictured above. It’s inspired by Diablo III’s Archangel Imperius, with custom tweaks made by its creator, Blizzard’s Vice President…

When Only 42 People Are Playing Madden on the Wii U, It’s Not a Sports Console

Around halftime of a game on an NFL Sunday is a good time to take the temperature of the Madden NFL crowd. It’s like the water department analysis that shows everyone flushing the john when the Super Bowl goes to the break. In this case, online gamers, many of whom have their consoles running and…

The NASDAQ-100, an index of that exchange’s top non-financial companies, is booting out Electronic Arts on Dec. 24.

The Week in Games: Little Things Mean a Lot

Small things stand out the most in December, when games publishing comes to nearly a dead stop in observance of the holidays. Tomorrow sees Street Fighter X Mega Man, a free, fan-developed crossover observing the 25th anniversary of the Blue Bomber. Tuesday offers downloadable content drops for Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Battlefield 3.…

It’s been a week, must be time for another Battlefront leak. Here’s concept art for Battlefront Online, axed in 2010.

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Sons of Throttle

Kurt Sutter was right. Sons of Anarchy, which wrapped up its fifth season two weeks ago, should be a video game—and not some slapcrap browser-based one, either. But with the publishing industry generally averse to doing licensed adaptations right now, it doesn’t appear that such a game is going to be done any time soon.…

Reacquaint Yourself with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas—The Introduction

Eight years and one month ago, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas released on the PlayStation 2. It begins rather abruptly—C.J. in an airport, saying that after five years on the east coast, it was time to return to San Andreas. The game’s official soundtrack included a DVD of “The Introduction,” a 20-minute in-game cinematic explaining…

Tell Us the 10 Comics for Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics Makeover [UPDATE]

Last week we opened up nominations for new additions to our Sunday Comics feature. Seven candidates satisfied the standards we put down for inclusion, so I am delighted to present them to you for your consideration in our 10-comic weekly feature. UPDATE [Dec. 16]: Voting on our new Sunday Comics page has concluded. We’ll announce…

Please Quit Photoshopping Horns Onto Bobby Kotick. It’s Bad for His Dating Life.

Today’s New York Times profiles Bobby Kotick, the boss of Activision Blizzard and longtime bête noir of many a longtime gamer, many of whom have created unflattering portrayals of him quickly found by Google Image search. Well, he wants you to know this doesn’t help his game. See, he’s divorced and on the prowl. “Think…

Sunday Comics: If a Tree Falls …

Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Legacy Control by Javis Ray published Dec. 11.—Read more of Legacy Control Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Dec. 10.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by…

Connecticut shooter Adam Lanza liked Dynasty Warriors, says Reuters. Still don’t know what he played at LAN parties.

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: VGA Presto Magix: The Winners

A grab bag full of silly exploitables from the 2012 Video Game Awards, from Snoop Lion to Cliff Bleszinski to our own Stephen Totilo and, of course, Samuel L. Jackson, supplied the grist for this week’s edition of the Kotaku ‘Shop Contest. We’ve got the exclusive world premiere of a dozen finalists inside, including overall…