Midweek Moneysaver: Call of Duty, Maybe

This Wednesday edition of Kotaku’s The Moneysaver catches all the offers, promotions and bargains that can’t wait until the weekend. The Midweek Moneysaver is brought to you by Dealzon. Software • Yesterday’s release Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (360, PS3) is $44.99 with $4.99 shipping from Daily Steals. Toys ‘R’ Us is also $50,…

Real Names in Games Mean More Money for the NCAA, Executive Argued

Five years ago, an NCAA executive said EA Sports should be allowed to use actual names of its amateur athletes—commanding a higher licensing fee as a result—because players’ likenesses were “rigged into the games now by illegal means.” Permitting their use would clear up the matter and bring more money to the NCAA, he said.…

EA says it has “no reason to believe there has been any intrusion into our Origin database.”

Splinter Cell Movie Is Happening, Tom Hardy Starring as Sam Fisher

Assassin’s Creed isn’t the only movie that Ubisoft wants to get to the silver screen as soon as possible. Rumors from earlier this year that Ubisoft was looking at making a Splinter Cell movie appear to have been well-founded, according to Variety. And what’s more, the movie’s got a star. British actor Tom Hardy is…

Judge GTA IV‘s Graphics Against GTA V’s With These Incredibly Accurate Screenshot Comparisons

Who would go through such a painstaking process to recreate the poses and action of some of Grand Theft Auto V‘s screenshots, courtesy of Game Informer? RomanBOY123 would, apparently. He put GTA IV on max settings on his PC (1920×1080 resolution, with HD tree mods) and came up with some amazingly accurate screenshots to match…

This Dog Does Not Like Skyrim‘s Dragons

When I was growing up, my dog, like most dogs, didn’t like thunder. I bet she wouldn’t have liked the dragons in Skyrim, either. This image of “Maggie,” tweeted by Skyrim-makers Bethesda, shows a dog reacting quite viscerally to, we have to assume, a charging winged beast in Skyrim Now that I’ve bumped up the…

Love Minimalist Pop Culture Iconography? Here is Your Free iPhone Game

If you look at a red and black square with two white dots and immediately think “Mickey Mouse”, then Icon Pop Quiz is for you. Reducing beloved pop culture characters, television shows and movies into simple colored squares is officially a thing, and where there’s an official thing there’s a game. In this case it’s…

I May Not Be A Fan Of Halo 4‘s Spartan Ops, But I Sure Do Love The Episodes That Come With It

So far, I only like Halo 4‘s mission-based Spartan Ops mode in theory. A new episode every week? Wait, every week? Amazing, I love the dedication. The missions, on the other hand, have so far been boring and bland and monotonous. Fortunately the episodes that come with them are, like the game itself, gorgeous. So…

Shanko Shizz Is More Excited About GTA V Than You Are

The new Grand Theft Auto V trailer seems to have gone over pretty well. Fans are happy. Very happy. They’re reciting a favorite line from it on Twitter. They’re commenting with great passion on the YouTube page for the Stevie Wonder song that was used in the trailer (“GTA V BROUGHT ME HERE SO SUCK…

Budget Solid State Drive Roundup: The Best SSD for Less Than $100

Computers relying solely on age old hard disk drive technology should be deemed a thing of the past. Mechanical devices suffer from slow response times, so if and when performance matters, spending a small amount of money on upgrading a PC’s boot drive could pay off enough to render other potential upgrades useless. TechSpot’s first…

AverMedia Live Gamer HD: The Kotaku Review

Video capture devices confuse the hell out of me. For years I’ve wanted a hardware solution for PC video capture, perhaps something I could also hook a game console up to, but after a string of ill-informed purchases and a box full of cards that didn’t do what I wanted them to do, I settled…

If You Like Comics Or Trippy Dreams, You’ll Love This Game

Glancing out the window, the boy sees a dragon-like beast—something that seems like it could only exist in the imaginative scribbles of his sketchbook. An ornate, majestic creature with jade eyes, and fins that resemble coral reefs. It’s awe inspiring. And just like that, it’s gone—was it real? The answer, I find out as I…

The Unity Platform Gets Even More Impressive With Version 4.0

Version 4.0 of the Unity platform is available for purchase and download today. This is important, because eventually every game not made with the Unreal Engine will be made with Unity. I am only exaggerating a little bit. Unity is a cross-platform development engine that allows for developers to develop a game on one platform…

Here’s the Best Way to Travel in Halo 4’s Mongoose

Pity the lowly Mongoose. It’s outshadowed by the flying vehicles in Halo 4. And it’s not even the coolest ground transportation in the game, either. This humble ATV is what you use when nothing better is available. But Achievement Hunters found a way to make the Mongoose one of the more exciting travel options in…

Wired explains why the world’s most popular first-person shooter doesn’t have a big pro gaming scene.

It Is Known, Khaleesi: Game of Thrones Returns For Season Three This March

According to the Game of Thrones twitter profile, the third season will premiere on March 31, 2013. There will be swords. A veritable storm of ’em.

The Best Street-Running, Person-Shoving Game On The Market

You may think that the pedestrian-shoving in Assassin’s Creed III is pretty good. And it is, to a point. But as much as you’ll spend that game running down the street shoving people, you won’t do it with nearly as much style as the new iOS game Shove Pro The game’s been on my radar…

In the Intergalactic War Between Apple and Android, There Can Be Only One Victor

The smartphone wars rage across the universe, the warring factions locked in an endless battle to settle once and for all which is better, iPhone or Android. But wait… there is another. From YouTube’s Warialasky, creators of Tetris: The Movie, comes a fairly accurate representation of the current state of the smartphone market, with lasers.

What’s Up With The “New” LucasArts? Plus: More Gaming Secrets.

Editor’s Note: The person known as Superanuation is back again with another haul of gaming secrets. All dug up online, all publicly available if you know where to look. What’s up with LucasArts? Proper Games? And Whore of the Orient, a successor, of sorts, to L.A. Noire? Read on. Disney CEO Bob Iger’s recent comments…

After The Credits Roll In Black Ops II, Terrible Things Happen

Needless to say, there are spoilers in both this video and post. If you don’t want to know what the post-credit shenanigans are all about, feel free to move along. Now that we’re all clear, watch the above video with the most ridiculous post-credit scene I’ve been forced to watch, where two of Black Ops…