• Kotaku East

  Is It Possible to Make Pokémon More Adorable? More Beautiful? Yes, It Seems.

  Because, let’s face, it: Pokémon are already pretty damn cute. Yet, Japanese artist Ginger Ale is turning up the adorable meter up to ten (eleven?) for this series of Pocket Monster art. Love the pastels, and the whole watercolor look. There’s a nice children’s book vibe going on that really doesn’t exist in the games…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published August 21, 2012
• Kotaku East

  Man Arrested for Being King of All the (Fake) Pirates

  Tokyo police arrested a 21 year-old Chinese man for violating Japanese copyright law. The man, a student at a Japanese vocational school, was taken into custody for selling phony One Piece figurines. Since February 2011, the man allegedly sold approximately 1,300 fake One Piece figures via online auctions, earning ¥5 million (US$63,000). The man got…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published August 21, 2012
• Uncategorized

  EA is Working to Shut Down a FIFA “Hack” Loophole That Made The Company Millions

  Last year, a ton of Xbox 360 owners began complaining that they’d been “hacked”, and because much of the money stolen ended up being spent on EA’s FIFA 12, it was believed the game was somehow responsible. It wasn’t, of course. The truth, at least in some small part, was far more complicated than that.…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
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  A Pretty Little Game Trailer to Finish Off Your Day

  Or, depending on where you are in the world, start it! This clip is for Toybox, an interesting combination of a puzzler and a shooter that can best be described as the video game equivalent of trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. It looks fun, but part of…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
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  An Arcade Cabinet That Looks as Good as it Plays

  Tom Goodfellow’s custom arcade cabinet, christened the Replay, isn’t here for the games inside it, or the things it can do. It’s here because it looks terrific. Call that vain if you must, but that’s the point. It’s a designer arcade cabinet. Goodfellow sums it up as: A design of simple clean lines that has…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
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  Pokémon vs Zombies: Now With “Gameplay” Footage

  No doubt inspired by these recent gifs on the very same topic, reader Steve has gone and made a video with “gameplay” footage of the greatest game that never existed: Pokémon vs Zombies. What makes it great isn’t just the fact it’s combining two blockbuster series. It’s that it’s combining two series that, as you…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
• Culture

  The Art of Paul Chadeisson

  Frenchman Paul Chadeisson is a concept artist who has worked on games like Shootmania, card games like Star Wars Galaxies and cartoons like Tron: Uprising. You might have seen his name last week, though, for the work he’s done for Dontnod on Capcom’s upcoming Remember Me, which we once knew as Adrift You can see…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
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  CultureTotal Recall

  Racism, Violence & Madness Make This Awful Hong Kong Game One to Remember

  Sleeping Dogs has been one of the most pleasant surprises of the year. Part of the game’s appeal is the fact it’s set in Hong Kong, which raises the question: why aren’t more games based around one of the world’s most iconic and populous cities? The answer may well be that this old thing scared…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
• CultureTotal Recall

  Not All Sega Mega Drives Were Made Equally

  While these days the release of a new model of hardware is kind of a big deal, signifying as it does important changes in components, capabilities or even a complete redesign, back in the day some companies used to be able to flood the market with different versions of their console and nobody even noticed.…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Incredible Star Wars Posters Are The Good, The Bad & The Ugnaught

  Artist Timothy Anderson has combined two of mankind’s greatest creations – Star Wars and spaghetti westerns – and combined them in this series of posters, in which George Lucas’ sci-fi trilogy is shown off like they were the kind of movies Clint Eastwood would star – and squint in – a lot. The bad news…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
• Uncategorized

  This Game Lets You Show Cammy Your Thailand

  Did you know that, over the weekend, there was an indie game get-together called Jean Claude Van Jam? And that it was all about making games based on Jean-Claude Van Damme? And that it happened only a few days after Van Damme gave perhaps the greatest Street Fighter-related interview of all time? What an amazing…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
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  A Cat Sings The Game of Thrones Intro

  The first five seconds are absolute terror. You reach for the stop button. But then…then you find your foot tapping. Your head nodding. And damn it, for the 1000th time, you’ve enjoyed a cat-related nerd video when you know you should know better. [via Topless Robot]

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 21, 2012
• Uncategorized

  No, Your Scissors Probably Can’t Run Crysis 3 Either

  Julius Perdana has built a replica model of a Crysis nanosuit that manages to look better than a professional, factory-made action figure Which is remarkable, given Perdana’s is made out of paper Yes, believe it or not, this is papercraft. Originally designed to coincide with the release of Crysis 2, he’s now produced an updated…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 20, 2012
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  Command & Conquer Generals 2 is Launching Without a Singleplayer Campaign

  Just in case the words “Command & Conquer” and “free-to-play” hadn’t got you wary enough for the upcoming C&C Generals 2, there’s now this: the game is releasing without a singleplayer story mode. While acknowledging that one could come later, Bioware Victory general manager John Van Caneghem told PC Gamer that his team “really want…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 20, 2012
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  Ray, When Someone Asks You To Play The Ghostbusters Theme On Floppy Drives, You Say Yes

  Okay, yes, it’s actually not that hard to program a bunch of floppy drives to play a song. But Il ove the way that YouTuber MrSolidSnake745 does it—this is the same gent who did the hhTalk Amongst Yourselves forum. Have good chatting, see you on Friday.

  By Kirk Hamilton Published August 20, 2012
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  Beautiful Portraits of The Men And Women Who Made Uncharted

  By day, Iki Ikram works as an artist at Uncharted developers Naughty Dog. By night, he’s a keen photographer. In this gallery of images, which he calls simply “dogs”, Ikram manages to combine the two. Each portrait is a developer at Naughty Dog. There are programmers, and there are artists. There are people you’ve never…

  By Luke Plunkett Published August 20, 2012
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  So Many Possible Dishonored Assassination Targets, So Little Time

  A little while ago at QuakeCon, Tim Poon had a go at a new level in Bethesda’s much-anticipated sneaking/killing game Dishonored. Back from Gamescom. the fine folks at VG 24/7 have posted this video in which Dishonored co-creative director Raf Colantonio walks players through that level, in which they must identify the right “Lady Boyle”…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published August 20, 2012
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  Cybertron Falls Tomorrow. You Might Want to Wear a Hat or Something.

  The official launch trailer for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron signals the end of the planet of the robots, at least for a few million years, depending on the continuity you follow. I can’t tell you if Fall of Cybertron is good or not; not until tomorrow morning, when our full review of the next game…

  By Mike Fahey Published August 20, 2012
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  These Awesome Shoes Are What You Get When You Mix Glitter With Gaming

  There have been a lot of very neat gaming shoes in the world before, but these ones are my new favorite. Not only because, as flats, they are something I could theoretically actually wear someday, but because they please my inner first-grader with their sparkles. I like shiny things, okay? Clearly, so does this Etsy…

  By Kate Cox Published August 20, 2012
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  I Never Thought Driving On The Left Would Be So Much Fun

  As I played Sleeping Dogs this past weekend, I kept getting into car accidents. Every time I’d hop onto my motorcycle or into a car, I’d find myself getting into head-on collisions with the residents of Hong Kong; I couldn’t keep a car in good condition for thirty seconds of driving, and I couldn’t manage…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published August 20, 2012