Square Enix is Spying on You (But It’s To Make Better Games)

When you blindly click “agree” on Square Enix’s online terms & conditions, you probably didn’t notice that you’re saying you agree to allow the publisher to record the way you play a game. While this sounds nefarious, it’s actually part of an operation run from an office in London—and detailed in this MCV report—whose job…

We Are One Step (And Short Jump) Closer To Real Metal Gears

Terrifying robot watch update: in the video above, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) robot called “Pet-Proto” is locked in a corridor and presented with two obstacles. The first is a step it must climb onto. The second is a gap it must inch across. It’s like a video game tutorial. Only instead of…

Team Fortress 2 Gets Zombies in Halloween-Themed “Scream Fortress” Event

Just a few months after cold, unfeeling automatons came to Valve’s hit co-op shooter in Mann vs. Machine, the publisher’s unleashing waves of the undead on Team Fortress 2 According to Polygon, an update to the Team Fortress 2 website announced a two-week Scream Fortress event that will herald the return of necromancer Merasmus, who…

16 Years Later, Super Mario 64 Gets Co-op

Just when you thought one of the world’s greatest ever video games couldn’t get more perfect, along comes modder Skelux to pile more icing on top of the cake. Super Mario 64, for 16 years a singleplayer adventure (well, DS version excepted), has been modified to include a co-op mode. You can see it in…

If The Exorcist Had Been An 80s Sitcom…

It’s almost Halloween, which means it’s time to break out our ironic re-cuts of famous horror films and make them seem different than they actually were! I enjoyed this recut by Film School Rejects, though, mostly because it doesn’t just use happy images; it also uses some disturbing ones. And hey, while we’re here, let’s…

Paris, You Don’t Look so Good…

Paris, you used to be the city of romance, and beauty! Then Remember Me’s brutally dystopian sci-fi future came along and ruined everything. This piece is by Paul Chadeisson, who we’ve featured on Kotaku previously. Bonus shots below. Passage parisien [Paul Chadeisson]

It’s a Thursday, So Capcom Must Be Having a Problem With Street Fighter X Tekken DLC

Those who preordered Street Fighter X Tekken on the PS Vita didn’t receive all of the downloadable content bonuses—alternate costumes and additional characters—promised to them. It’s been three days without a definitive answer for what the heck is going on, although Capcom, via Twitter, acknowledged over Twitter that “we’re aware of the DLC redemption issues…

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D: The Kotaku Movie Review

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D opens nationwide tomorrow (or tonight at midnight in some areas). It’s the second stab at adapting Konami’s landmark survival horror franchise for the big screen. That being the case, no discussion of the sequel is complete without first discussing its predecessor. Especially since, in many people’s opinions, the first Silent Hill…

Watch Nine Minutes of the Mass Effect Anime, Right Here

It’s totally understandable to be wary of the upcoming Mass Effect anime. The track record for these kind of adaptations is…spotty at best. So it’s awful nice of FUNimation to share this nine-minute clip, giving us an extended look at how the flick is shaping up. It’s…well, it’s not as bad as I thought it…

Listen To One Of The Best Video Game Soundtracks Of The Year Right Now

Hopefully you are already hip to Hotline Miami, Cactus’ unhinged, techno-drenched top-down murderfest. It’s a wicked cool, incredibly fun game, and it sports one of the best soundtracks of the year. (If you’re not aware of the game, you can read some of my impressions here.) And now, can now listen to the entire soundtrack…

In Da Club: A Musical Moment Few Video Games Get Right

Games take us to all manner of fantastical, unlikely places. But as good as video games have gotten at accurately recreating a space-marine shootout or a mountaintop dragon battle, there’s one thing developers are still learning how to create: A dance club. Many games try to create thriving urban environments for players to occupy, and…

ChrisWarcraft’s Weekly NFL Quest, Level Seven: Repel the Pewter Plunderers of the Southern Coast

Football is a role-playing game. That’s how Chris Kluwe, the Minnesota Vikings punter and noted World of Warcraft and RPG fan, is approaching it. Each week in the NFL, ChrisWarcraft characterizes his upcoming game in terms of an MMO quest. We’re going to chart his progress and see how fast he levels up. This Thursday…

Arse Elektronika is a conference on gaming and sex. Here’s a discussion of sex in games, but it’s very NSFW.

Portal’s Still Alive, Performed Live On…CBS News

Not a headline you were probably expecting to see in 2012, since the song wore out its welcome just as 2008 was coming around, but the world is an amazing place. Jonathan Coulton performs “Still Alive” [CBS]

Is This the Face of a Heel? Debating Fighter Hayabusa’s Virtue in Nintendo’s Pro Wrestling

There were no storylines in Pro Wrestling for the Nintendo Entertainment System, beyond the ones you and your buddies would create for the six wrestlers it featured. But nearly everyone’s status—good guy or bad, face or heel—was easily interpreted in how the character was presented. Star Man was a face. The Amazon would assault you…

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria: The Kotaku Review

World of Warcraft‘s Mists of Pandaria expansion is huge. One one end, it starts at level one, with a new starting area for the new Pandaren race. On the other end, it raises the level cap from 85 to 90 and adds an enormous amount of high-end and end-game zones. Mists of Pandaria, then, is…

These Super Mario and Pac-Man Dioramas Capture the Fatal Charm of Classic Video Games

Death—or its watered-down digital equivalent—was never too far-off in the arcade classics of yesteryear. Whether it’s angry ghosts in primary colors from Pac-Man or a missed jump in Super Mario Bros, players never forgot that they were surrounded by end-of-life scenarios. Maybe that awareness is what makes these game-focused creations from California artist Senor Chips…

You’ve Been Voted In as the Sexy New President of Japan. Time To Get in Your Mech Suit and Save a Nation.

For $8 you can download a game called Liberation Maiden to the 3DS and then you can experience the probable future of the second president of New Japan hopping into a flying mech in order to shoot at the forces of an evil empire that has taken over old Japan. It’s not this premise that…

Wreck It Ralph Takes A Dubstep Dump On Modern Shooters

You can already tell that Wreck-It Ralph is going to gets lots of mileage from romping up and down the timeline of video game history. Disney has thrown in tons of cameos from iconic heroes and villains and created fake arcade machines to make their made-up retro franchise ring true to audiences. But this latest…

Ruby Blast Adds a Heaping Helping of Adventure

Ruby Blast, Zynga’s color-matching game that started life as a shameless clone of Bejeweled‘s Diamond Mine mode, has transformed itself into a shameless Diamond Mine clone with a difference, adding an extensive adventure mode on top of its regularly scheduled weekly tournaments. Ruby Blast‘s quietly implemented adventure mode (which I heard about via Games.com) adds…