- Kotaku East
The Alien from Aliens Was Originally Chinese, Alleges Flea Market Art Find
Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger is credited with designing the Alien (née Xenomorph) from the iconic movies and games. The character appeared in a 1976 work by Giger. But could it be actually much older than that? That’s what one internet user named Zhao is claiming in China. This painting, Zhao blogs, was allegedly…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 7, 2013 - Kotaku East
Corrupt Chinese Officials Gamble with Taxpayers’ Money in Arcades
Arcades in China have an unfortunate association with gambling parlors, due to the fact that gambling in all forms is technically illegal in China proper, sans Macao. Normally, arcade gambling dens are deemed low class establishments where locals gamble away their money in backrooms, however one business executive for a Chinese State-owned enterprise ended up…
By Eric Jou Published January 7, 2013 - Uncategorized
One Last Gasp of Cosplay Insanity
With a name like Comic Market, you’d think the late December event in Tokyo would be all about manga. It’s so not. While Kotaku’s Toshi Nakamura was getting an insider’s look at the event, outside in the chilly cold, fans donned colorful, creative, and often crazy outfits, bringing their favorite video game, anime, and manga…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 7, 2013 - Kotaku East
The Lonely World of Japan’s Roadside Arcades
Saitama is located outside Tokyo. And like most areas surrounding giant cities, it gets a bad rap and has earned the nickname “Dasaitama” (ダ埼玉). That’s a word play on “Saitama” and the Japanese word for uncool, “dasai” (ダサい). I’d agree if there weren’t ramshackle roadside arcades which are more than desolate and decrepit. They’re endearing.…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 7, 2013 - Kotaku East
Naruto and .hack// game studio CyberConnect2 is working on three original titles
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 7, 2013 - Kotaku East
A Gallery of Hamburger Horrors
The service you get at McDonald’s in Japan is world class. The staff is polite and prompt, and there’s still a focus on presentation. So it’s a shame that McDonald’s just screwed things up. In Japan, McDonald’s is mucking things up with a special promotion. Called “Enjoy! 60 Second Service”, the concept is that if…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 7, 2013 - Reviews
It’s A Monitor That Sits on Your Desk. And Your Lap.
Small-time peripheral company GeChic feel that there’s a place in the market for a portable monitor. A slimmer version of your desktop monitor that can run on battery power. After using one for a week I’m not so sure, even if their hearts are in the right place. With an official title of “On-Lap 2501M”,…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 7, 2013 - Uncategorized
Wonderful Lord of the Rings Art That Goes On And On
Chinese artist Jian Guo is a very talented man, and a massive Lord of the Rings fan. The gorgeous images you’re about to see are testament to this. The Hobbit piece up top is a highlight (and a timely one at that), but there are pictures from other Tolkien works here as well. You can…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 7, 2013 - Culture
Fantastic Grand Theft Auto V Art Brightens Up Your Monday Morning
Over the weekend, Rockstar collected every piece of promotional art so far made available for Grand Theft Auto V, cleaned them up, made sure each had a nice big background behind them then then scaled them to wallpaper size. Some feature the game’s main protagonists, some don’t. Some give us a good look at locations…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 7, 2013 - Uncategorized
Get a Good Look At Nvidia’s New Gaming Handheld
PC hardware company Nvidia dropped quite the CES bombshell tonight, revealing a quirky new gaming handheld that doubles as an Android device as well as a means of streaming your PC games to a portable 720p display. To go with the information from Project Shield’s announcement, here’s a gallery of images giving you a good…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 7, 2013 - Uncategorized
StarCraft’s Kerrigan Is The Queen Of Blades Cosplay
The standout piece of cosplay this week is the StarCraft Ghost photo you see above, by Jessica Dru. If you think it looks just like Kerrigan does on StarCraft II, that’s because Jessica actually got her hands on the official Kerrigan costume Blizzard used to promote the game. Some might call that cheating, but I…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 7, 2013 - Uncategorized
Oh Yeah, Nvidia Also Officially Outs the World’s Fastest Mobile Processor
So there I was, prepping a post on Nvidia’s Tegra 4 processor, the successor to the Tegra 3 with six times the graphics processing power and all sorts of nifty advancements that really seem boring now compared to the Shield portable gaming device The Tegra 4 features 72 GeForce GPU cores—at least ten times the…
By Mike Fahey Published January 7, 2013 - Uncategorized
Nvidia, Out Of Nowhere, Announces A New Gaming Handheld
Nvidia just surprised a whole bunch of people by announcing, of all things, a dedicated gaming handheld during the company’s CES press conference. Based on the new Tegra 4 mobile chip, also announced at the show, it’s code-named Nvidia Shield. There are 5-10 hours of battery life, and it’s based on a clamshell design, sort…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 7, 2013 - Uncategorized
Someone Is Re-Building The Entire Planet In Minecraft
Using a program called Worldpainter, a builder by the name of lentebriesje is trying to recreate all of planet Earth in Minecraft. At a 1:1500 scale. That is a lot of blocks. His Earth is based off this very large, very fancy 3D map of the planet, and while it doesn’t include anything man-made, it…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 7, 2013 -
UncategorizedThe World’s Newest Console Is Already Being Used For Street Fighter, Mario 64
If you were unexcited by the fact the new Ouya console runs Android games, remember: if it runs Android, it can run emulated games working on the platform. And as anyone with an Android phone can tell you, that’s a lot of games. Users on the Ouya Boards who are already in possession of one…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 6, 2013 - Uncategorized
Dishonored’s Probably Not Right For LEGO, But Here’s Dishonored LEGO Anyway
Something tells me the chances of us seeing officially licensed Dishonored LEGO are slim. Rats, murder, prostitutes… I don’t think it’s quite LEGO’s thing. But hey, where LEGO misses an opportunity, custom builders are always there to come through with the goods. Nathan Proudlove built this Dishonored “Tall Boy” walker, a unit in the game…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 6, 2013 - Uncategorized
Report: Valve’s Steam PC Getting 2013 Reveal, Runs On Linux
According to a report on German IT site Golem, Valve engineer Ben Krasnow told an audience at the recent EHSM 2012 conference in Berlin that the company’s long-awaited “Steam Box” custom PC/console/thing will indeed be running on Linux, and will be revealed in full at either GDC or E3 later this year. Meaning the PC…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 6, 2013 - Uncategorized
USB 3.0 Is Going To Double Speeds
USB data transfer is about to get a hell of a lot faster. The USB Promoter Group is rolling out SuperSpeed USB, a supplement to USB 3.0 due out later this year that should surge your speeds two-fold. SuperSpeed USB is supposed to give you 10 Gbps USB data rate, which is the same as…
By Leslie Horn Published January 6, 2013 - Uncategorized
The Walking Dead Guys Would Love To Do A Halo, Half-Life Series
Fresh off their success with The Walking Dead series, as well as experience with half a dozen other properties that belong to someone else, developers Telltale have told Red Bull (the website of… the drink) what their dream projects are. And they’re about the same as anyone else’s dream projects. “Coming from LucasArts we always…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 6, 2013