Your Skylanders Are the Most Important Resource in Lost Islands

Build things to harvest things to build more things—the resource management genre is huge on mobile, thanks to its simple click-based gameplay and the ability to play for minutes at a time and still get things done. Activision takes that winning formula and layers another one on top—the ability to transfer real-world collectible figures into…

PlayStation Plus—and Six Free Games—Come to the Vita Next Week

The best thing about PlayStation Plus is the Instant Games Collection, a feature that offers up free, top-shelf titles to the online service’s paying members. PS3 owners have been enjoying those perks for a while and now they’re coming to Sony’s gaming handheld Next week, six free games—including Gravity Rush, Jet Set Radio and Final…

Hey, n00b, You Can Help Pure Pwnage Become a Movie

Back in 2004, way before Twitch.tv, The Guild or million-dollar e-sports purses, Pure Pwnage let gamers seee themselves represented with humor and a little bit of painful truth on the internet. The web series was successful enough to get turned into a TV show in its native Canada but things have been very quiet in…

This Week’s iPhone Charts: Oh Look, Angry Birds Star Wars

A trend that began with last week’s iPad charts and will continue until the Windows Phone charts on Thursday, the newly-released Angry Birds Star Wars force pushes its way to the top of this week’s iPhone charts. Everybody look surprised! You are not looking surprised. Look, this only works if we cooperate. Otherwise the news…

How to Get a Sword in Black Ops II

Call of Duty isn’t exactly Skyrim, but it does include a sword. You can get it in a campaign mission (maybe more than one) to slice bad guys up. The video above shows where we first found it. We captured this footage from “Old Wounds”, the third level of the campaign. The sword is really…

Watch These Black Ops II Players Put Everyone To Shame With Scoped Weapons

The latest Call of Duty title has been out for less than a day, but people are already rampaging their way through the multiplayer and quick-scoping enemies to death. Check out the montage above, courtesy of AmazingFilms247, where you’ll see snipers and an ACOG-attached weapon shred the opposing team. Black Ops 2 First Ever QUAD…

This Game is Called The Adorables. Our Resident Adorable Expert Weighs In. [Update]

The first internally-developed game from mobile publisher Thumbstar Games, The Adorables is a dazzlingly colorful pachinko-puzzle sort of game, coming on Thanksgiving to iOS and Android, but is it indeed adorable? Update: getting cuter. It’s certainly pretty, and my predilection for raccoons and raccoon-ish creatures has me gaga over Sneaker, the obviously leader of the…

PC Version of Call of Duty: Black Ops II Comes With… Mass Effect 2?!

Some PC players of Call of Duty: Black Ops II report that disc 2 of their recently-purchased game is the wrong sequel entirely. Players on the Call of Duty forums, the Steam forums, and Reddit are reporting that when they insert disc 2 as prompted, they receive a Mass Effect 2 read error. The video…

If you shop at Old Navy early on Black Friday, you could win a Wii U or a New Super Mario Bros U game

DayZ’s Creator Has Only Killed Another Player Once

Zombie survival mod DayZ is rife with player-killing, and even though it’s an integral part of the game’s experience, most people nevertheless tend to frown on it, seeing as survival is the name of the game, not murder. But once in a while, you run into a problem that can only be solved by violence.…

Evangelion 2.22 is a Film That Plays On Your Expectations

We are now less than a week out from the Japanese release of Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo. Over the past few weeks we have looked at my personal history with the Evangelion franchise in general and the first film in the Rebuild of Evangelion series, Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone, in specific.…

All-You-Can-Eat Burger King? This Is Madness, Japan.

To mark the fifth year of Burger King’s return to Japan, the fast food chain is once again offering a special deal for a limited time: an all-you-can-eat burger buffet. Between November 17 and 21, those who order a large black burger meal deal between 2pm and 11pm get to stuff their faces with as…

Report: Pleas for Japan’s Most Infamous (and Frightening) Blogger To Stop

Japanese actress Aki Higashihara writes a blog—a blog that has been nicknamed the “Death Blog”. It’s called the “Death Blog” after Japanese manga Death Note, because her track record has not been good. Well, it’s been good at causing bad things, such as the death of the Nintendo Wii. As previously noted, here’s a round…

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Will Be Unleashed Next March, Says Battle.net

The upcoming StarCraft II expansion, Heart of the Swarm, now has a release date. According to Battle.net (first spotted by Eurogamer), it will be out on March 12, 2013. The digital deluxe edition of the expansion is priced at US$59.99 and comes with Wings of Liberty There were hopes that Heart of the Swarm would…

The Bravely Default Browser Game is Deeper Than I Expected

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is not the only game to bare the Bravely Default moniker. There is also a tie-in browser game called Bravely Default: Praying Brage. We’ve already had a look at some of the game’s… less than stellar artwork but luckily these character portraits do not reflect the overall art style of the…

Here’s How You Build a Giant Z.O.E. Statue

Ever wondered how Konami built that large Jehuty statue and then put it on a building in Tokyo? No? Well, here’s a photo montage that might clue you in. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from…

Japan’s Traditional Seals Get Very, Very Nerdy

In Japan and most of Asia, documents require a seal. The Japanese word for these stamps is a typically “hanko” (判子) or inkan (印鑑), and they’ve been used for over a thousand years. People’s names are carved onto them, and take the place of a signature when doing things like opening a bank account, getting…

You’ll Need to Clean Out Your Ears to Watch This Game in Action

Over the course of this generation in gaming, more than a few Nintendo-published Wii titles have never made it outside of Japan—despite it being the best-selling console of the generation. One of these unfortunate titles is Kiki Trick, a video game based completely around listening. Somewhat resembling music title Rhythm Heaven in both style and…

This Guy’s Geeky Latte Art Will Blow Your Mind

Meet Kazuki Yamamoto. He’s a latte artist. You’ve probably seen the work of latte artists before and how they can draw things like hearts or leaves in steamed milk. But you’ve probably never seen anything like this. Yamamoto draws anime, manga, and video game characters in latte—as well as celebrities and animals. Whether it’s Pokémon…

According to a Chinese newspaper, Apple will apparently start trial production next month for the iPhone 5S.