Naughty Dog Made “Some Stupid Mistakes” Moving from PS2 to PS3 But Feel Ready for PS4

The guys responsible for Nathan Drake’s adventures have made some of the PlayStation 3’s best games. But the excellence of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted franchise came after a lot of hard lessons. Just as a probable reveal for the next PlayStation looms, a new interview on Eurogamer reveals that the development studio had a rough time…

Modders At Last Launch the “StarCraft MMO” Over Battle.Net [Updated]

Remember StarCraft Universe? The mod was called the “Starcraft MMO” that kicked up a brief fuss in 2011 but was smoothed out, eventually, with Blizzard’s blessings. Ryan Winzen, the project’s creative director, is happy to share news that SCU: Chronicles of Fate is now available, and will be going out over Battle.net. Originally called World…

Cowbell Hero Takes the Joke Way Too Far

I admire Digital Hero Games’ dedication. Over a decade after Christopher Walken and the cast of Saturday Night Live hilariously introduced the phrase “More cowbell” into the modern vernacular and years after the first cowbell-fueled parodies of Activision’s Guitar Hero franchise appeared on the internet, the developer released a full-fledged mobile game based on the…

The Pirate Bay Threatens to Sue for—Get This—Copyright Infringement

Yeah, I had to rub my eyeballs when I saw this report on TorrentFreak, too. Evidently a Finnish group set up an antipiracy site (above) by ripping off The Pirate Bay’s symbols and site code. TPB took the bait, threatening to sue if the site didn’t stop using its symbols. The Pirate Bay is the…

Playing Dance Dance Revolution on Your iPhone Isn’t Exactly Dancing, Now Is It?

I’m all about seeing my favorite franchises represented in the mobile gaming space, but Dance Dance Revolution seems like a series best left to controllers that won’t shatter if you stomp on them. Maybe Dance Dance Revolution: Dance Wars will prove me wrong. The iTunes reviewers seem to approve of the new free-to-play game from…

Report: Police Want To Know If Sandy Hook Shooter Was ‘Emulating’ A Video Game

The Hartford Courant has published a long profile of Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who shot and killed 27 people at Sandy Hook Elementary last December. One particularly interesting tidbit: Lanza owned “thousands of dollars worth” of violent video games (no word on which ones), and police are looking into whether the shooter was “emulating” a…

Nine More Surprising Hours With Assassin’s Creed III

I admit that I’ve had my doubts about Assassin’s Creed III in the three months since I had last played it. I had my doubts that the game, buggy and rough-edged as it was, deserved the very positive review I gave it last October. I had my doubts when my colleagues Luke and Kirk, representing…

Assassin’s Creed Liberation beat out Halo 4 and, uh, Assassin’s Creed 3 to win the WGA Videogame Writing Award. Awkward?

It’s Super Mario As An Endless Runner, With Rabbits.

If Nintendo made games for mobile phones, an endless running Super Mario platformer would be a no-brainer. Since Nintendo does not make games for mobile phones, HeiGames is making Super Bunny Land, which is close enough. Don’t worry Nintendo, we’ve got this. That’s the message indie developers are sending with games like Banana Kong and…

Bungie’s New Destiny is Coming Soon. This is What We Know So Far.

Bungie lifted the curtain yesterday on its new game, Destiny, a sci-fi “shared-world shooter” that once again pits humanity against a grave extraterrestrial threat. It’s coming later this next year for PS3 and Xbox 360. Kotaku‘s Tina Amini traveled to Seattle to see what the studio had to say about its new Destiny with Activision.…

Here is a new trailer for the upcoming third-person ARPG Soul Sacrifice. The game is coming to the Vita this spring.

This Lady Has Awful Timing for Buying Game Hardware

Hours ago in Japan, Sony slashed the Vita’s price tag. Good news for gamers who haven’t purchased a Vita yet! Bad news for gamers who just purchased one. After learning of the Vita’s price cut, Voice actress Hitomi Harada tweeted, “Wha…” This was followed by her writing, “I bought a Vita three days ago…” This…

“A new era of deep, immersive, high definition gaming.” This time, Sony remembers the PlayStation 3.

The Art and the Beauty of Studio Ghibli

My Neighbor Totoro. Howl’s Moving Castle. Princess Mononoke. These aren’t only classics, they are stunning. Studio Ghibli is responsible for some of the most loved and best looking films in the past few decades. It’s no accident why. Here are some production drawings and watercolors from over the years, courtesy of BuzzFeed. They’re not new,…

These Aren’t Dragon Ball Space Pods, But Hell, You Can Buy Them Anyway

Japanese retailer Tokyu Hands has an array of interesting products. Its latest could be the most interesting yet: survival pods that look straight out of Dragon Ball Z Last fall, numerous tech sites, including sister site Gizmodo and Japan’s Gigazine, covered “Life Armour”, which are Japanese survival capsules for those worried about another devastating earthquake.…

My Creepy Valentine With Barbie

Over the last 53, soon 54 years, Mattel’s Barbie has done everything from being a doctor, to going to space as an astronaut, however Barbie’s accomplishments are only found within the realm of the “fantastic plastic” world. Despite being a fictional “embodiment” of women, Barbie has hit the real world with different forms of media…

New Chinese Movie Either Rips Off or Pays Homage to Asura’s Wrath [Update]

Stephen Chow, the guy behind Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle has a new movie out this month in China. It’s called Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, and part of it will look very familiar to gamers. Very. As numerous Chinese websites point out, a scene in Journey to the West: Conquering the…

Colonel Sanders Dressed in Dragon Ball Z, Doesn’t Unleash a Kamehameha

So good! In Japan, KFC is teaming up with the new Dragon Ball Z anime film, offering DBZ goodies when you order special meal deals. But that’s not all. As previously mentioned (here, here and here), Japanese KFCs usually have Colonel Sanders statues out front. And now, at seven locations across Japan, the Colonel is…

Dragon Quest X‘s Wii U version goes on sale March 30 in Japan.

How a Japanese Death Superstition Could Impact the Next PlayStation

Sony is working on a new PlayStation machine. According to the story Kotaku broke, it’s called Orbis. That could be a codename—it also might be the console’s final name. There are some reasons why Sony might not choose to call its machine the PlayStation 4. In Japan, four (四) can be read as “yon” (よん)…