The Week in Games: Worlds in Conflict

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive arrives on PC/Mac and the PS3 and Xbox 360 this week, along with Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, from High Moon Studios. New Super Mario Bros. 2 hit shelves today. Today •New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) Tuesday • Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (pS3, 360, PC) • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (PC, PSN) •…

Sony says most LittleBigPlanet costumes will be cross-compatible with LittleBigPlanet Karting and LittleBigPlanet Vita.

Did OnLive Gut Its Employees’ Stock Options to Make Itself Cheaper to Buy Out?

In the aftermath of OnLive’s not-really-bankruptcy, not-really-restructuring comes this rumor from TechCrunch, which may explain why the cloud-gaming service would want to, effectively, terminate itself as a company, but not its services, nor offer up any of its assets for liquidation to settle its mounting debts. OnLive, suggests TechCrunch, opted for its technical “form of…

The Nintendo 3DS XL: The Kotaku Review

Who are you? Are you a person who has a 3DS? You should think about upgrading to the 3DS XL. Are you a person who does not have a 3DS at all? You should get one. The $200 3DS XL is a very good gaming machine, possibly the best portable gaming device ever, which, yeah,…

At SummerSlam, THQ revealed the WWE 13 roster. More than 70 performers span the Attitude and modern eras. Full list here

League of Legends Wins Fight Against Porn Site

Apparently when GoDaddy was hawking .co domain registrations with Danica Patrick and bodypaint, some Colombian outfit snapped up LeagueOfLegends.co and redirected gamers who forgot to type that last “M” to a porn site. Considering the overall popularity of LeagueOfLegends.com, this was a shrewd bit of cybersquatting. Well, now their cynical pornmongering has come to an…

The more people who preorder the “Wizard Edition” of the latest Ni No Kuni, the more freebies it gets. Details here.

New Super Mario Bros. 2: The Kotaku Review

Now here’s the story of a guy named Mario. It’s an old story. You’ve probably heard it before. Princess is lounging around, minding her own business. Giant turtle jumps out of the sky. Drags her away. Sticks her in a cage and waits for Mario to follow. The specifics might change every now and then—a…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Raising Excitement

We’re kind of late on this one, but there was a major game announcement back in July: Farming Simulator 2013 arrives in October for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, in Europe, of course. Now, I can’t understand why they don’t release Farming Simulator every two or three years, with the latest and greatest genetically modified…

Would It Change Your Mind to Know Curt Schilling’s Beautiful “Copernicus” MMO was Supposed to be Free-to-Play?

Though the studio’s founder himself said the game wasn’t even fun—no one internally was playing it—“Project Copernicus” was one of the most lamented casualties of 38 Studios’ collapse, primarily because its screenshots looked so damn good. Not at all like a free-to-play game. But that was the plan for “Copernicus” from the get-go, said Curt…

Sunday Comics: Death Be Not Proud

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 Aug. 15.—Read more of Penny Arcade Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Aug. 13.—Read more of Awkward Zombie…

Talk Amongst Yourselves is where you should go to talk about games. And life. And hot dogs from Gray’s Papaya.

Star Wars’ Intro Eaten Alive By 30 Rock’s

The classic opening to Star Wars gets a little shorter and a lot more contemporary when it’s smashed together with the intro to comedy series 30 Rock. You can see this clip and the original running side-by-side here. Just in case you needed to check how well it’s been done. It’s only seeing them like…

In case you haven’t already noticed, every Steam account now has access to the DOTA 2 Spectator Client

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: The Kitchen Sink Winners

A grab bag of images last week served you everything from NBA superstars to prom couples and hovercrafts. There’s no real unified theme here, except for the funny. We’ve got all the finalists above, plus overall winner kaploy9! Zombie-Hunter (19) came through with the strong execution of a picture a lot of people were expecting…

The 2012 Saxxy Awards should get plenty of entries thanks to Source Filmmaker. Any Valve game may be used. Details here.

Someone’s resumé says something completely unsurprising: Black Ops 2 will release a Wii U version.

Trust No One in DayZ—Especially Those With a Helicopter

It’s tempting. You’re in an ultra-realistic, post-apocalyptic fight for survival, and some helpful human players show up in a goddamn helicopter of all things, blow away the zombie menacing you, and invite you aboard. And why wouldn’t you join them? It’s great to have friends with aircraft. Except these aren’t your friends. If you’re playing…

Weak Traffic, Low Subscribers Meant Something Had to Happen—but OnLive Employees Didn’t Expect the End

All of OnLive’s 200 employees worked daily with the cloud gaming service’s traffic numbers, and knew that something big had to happen for the company around this time of the year. That’s not to say everyone expected to lose their jobs together on the same day, no severance, no benefits, no nothing. That’s according to…

Borderlands 2‘s Official Rating Description is Outstanding

Back at E3 I was dismayed to learn that, thanks to prudes overseas, Borderlands 2‘s darkly humorous death animations would have to be toned down from the original’s, which included eyeball-exploding electrocutions. Well, if the official ratings description handed down by the ESRB is any indication, I needn’t have worried. Borderlands 2 went to gold…