Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Sexy Video Game Halloween 2.0

Halloween is 10 days away, and this lingerie warehouse’s costume series of sexed-up, dumb-as-hell ripoffs of video game characters is this week’s theme. Designed to “appeal to” gamers (if by “appeal to”, one means “titillate”), the lack of imagination behind them is still palpable. Really, no Sexy Samus? Sexy Chell? And if they’re doing sexy…

Modders Bring PlayStation’s All-Stars to Super Smash Bros. Brawl

From the moment the concept leaked around Thanksgiving last year, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale has been slapped with labels like “PlayStation Smash Bros.” So, OK, fine, here you go. A bona fide Sony Smash Bros., courtesy of four Super Smash Bros. Brawl modders. The modders—ExorcistRain, Frusciante, KTH and Kingskull95—have delivered a Smash Bros. with all…

Sunday Comics: You Can’t Look It Up on GameFAQs, Either

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. Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik published Sept. 15.—Read more of Penny Arcade Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Sept. 15.—Read more of Awkward Zombie…

BioShock Infinite‘s New Trailer Brings You the Beast America has to Offer

Here is “The Beast of America,” the latest trailer BioShock Infinite has to offer, going live moments ago via Facebook. Supposedly stitched together according to fan preference (I voted to see Songbird, Zeppelins and Handyman in the trailer’s Facebook promotion) it’s 100 percent in-game footage. The opening looks somewhat familiar, if only momentarily. Handyman features…

This Dragon Age III Concept Art Is Straight-Up Stunning

Revealed today on BioWare’s blog, this concept art is pretty spectacular. BioWare also revealed some basic (teasing) details from the next Dragon Age, which will be out in fall 2013.

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Comic-Con Cosplay Extravaganza: The Winners

Didn’t Spider-Man save J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son from an out-of-control space capsule? (Answer: Yes, in Amazing Spider-Man No. 1) So, here Arniejolt has Spidey reprising a rescue from the troposphere to lead this week’s edition of the ‘Shop Contest. Getting started, uscg_pa (10) put together a bang-up magazine cover, but … yeah, kinda misspelled…

Why Didn’t Anyone Use Facebook or Twitter on the Xbox 360? In a Word, Screenshots.

I am an inveterate Twitter-er, with the second-most Tweets of anyone on Kotaku‘s staff. I’ll interrupt a game to bash out a 140-character punchline to something that just happened or occurred to me in one. It’s just my nature. After locking myself out of my bathroom and resolving the matter by literally kicking down the…

Castles and Customization Among First Details to Emerge on Dragon Age III

Character customization will return “in a big way” for Dragon Age III according to a BioWare panel spilling details and concept art on next year’s game at the Edmonton Comic & Entertainment Expo today. Already known as Dragon Age III: Inquisition and slated for a “late fall 2013” release, BioWare said it would release concept…

North America’s redesigned PlayStation Store will not launch on Tuesday as planned. No word from Sony on when it will.

Use Your Mouth to Look Around with Need For Speed‘s Kinect Features

When you begin a game of Need For Speed: Most Wanted, your engine will be off. How do you start it? Well, by saying “engine start.” Free-look also is controlled by voice in the Kinect-supported version of the game, providing a 360-degree spin around the car to show you how far behind the fuzz are…

The next game from Super Meat Boy‘s creators “will be randomly generated, strange and involve cats.”

Guess Who Forgot to Ship Activation Keys With Their Latest PC Release

Though it recently removed its onerous always-on DRM requirements of PC games, evidently the fact people are still able to play them remains a concern for Ubisoft. That must be why the publisher shipped copies of Rocksmith in Europe without activation codes. On the other hand: Totally secure product! Yep. The publisher that can’t do…

This Week in the Business: ‘PlayStation Vita is Currently Selling More Slowly than Dreamcast.’

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “PlayStation Vita is currently selling more slowly than Dreamcast.”—Dan Pearson, European deputy editor of GamesIndustry International, talking about Vita’s weak sales in Japan and discussing with other journalists what the PS Vita needs to do to succeed QUOTE | “Sony needs…

This Nintendo Bootlegger’s Middle Name Is Success. Really.

Justin Success Brooks—yes, success is his middle name—made about £600,000 selling cartridges and discs loaded with pirated Nintendo games from 2009 to 2011. He’s now headed for the slammer, or whatever they call it in the U.K., following a guilty plea last week. From the report, it sounds as though Brooks, 41, was selling his…

Moneysaver of Honor: Dealbuyer

Microsoft seems to be having success bundling up full price releases with $20 worth of funny money on Xbox Live, so they’re doing that again this week with Medal of Honor: Warfighter. In other news, recent, solid releases like Borderlands 2, Sleeping Dogs and Darksiders 2 can all be found for less than full price.…

The Best of Kotaku, This Week

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week’s best content. This week’s best image is a mashup of Adventure Time with Yoshi’s Island, by Classy Raptor. I particularly like it because I can totally see Jake molding himself into Yoshi to take Finn on adventures. Classy Raptor indeed. Moving…

Get Three Credit Hours Toward Your Degree Playing Skyrim Next Semester

The English department at Rice University, to my knowledge the only American university established by the murder of its benefactor (true story, actually) will next semester offer “Scandinavian Fantasy Worlds: Old Norse Sagas and Skyrim.” That’s right. You get to play Skyrim for college credit. If you’re enrolled at Rice, which is a rather selective…

Video Games’ First Spoken Words Still Sound Good Today

When it released in 1980, computer voice compression cost around $1,000 per word. Berzerk spoke about 20, and it was a sensation. Gorf and later Wizard of Wor likewise used speech synthesis to heckle players. We’ve come a long way since those dark ages, as this roundup of 50 early attempts at voice synthesis, compiled…

A TV Appearance By A Man Who Saw Lincoln Get Shot

Now here’s a YouTube video you don’t see every day. In this video uploaded by GiveMeBlackandWhite, a Maryland man named Samuel Seymour, who witnessed Lincoln’s assassination, turns up on the 50’s game show “I’ve Got A Secret.” No, not JFK. Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln I swear, every time people complain about the irreverence of most YouTube…

Let This 12-Minute Video Sell You On Virtue’s Last Reward

I wrote a bit yesterday about Virtue’s Last Reward, the fantastic adventure game that has been keeping me up every night for the past week and a half Today publisher Aksys released the English version of an animated 12-minute intro video created to show off the new visual novel, which is out for 3DS and…