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…

This Week in the Business: ‘Sony Will Drop Its Hardware Prices This Autumn, Because It Must.’

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Sony will drop its hardware prices this autumn, because it must.”—Rob Fahey, veteran game journalist, talking about why Sony needs to cut the price of both the PS3 and Vita in order to boost sales QUOTE | “If you make a…

The only game with the UEFA Champions League is Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. Konami and UEFA renewed their pact yesterday.

The Moneysaver: War for Cyberdeals

A combo pairing Transformers: Fall of Cybertron with its predecessor leads our list of 60 bargains, 35 of them digital downloads and, as usual, most of them available from online retailers. NCAA Football 13 is down to $40 about a month after its release, and the PlayStation Move game Sorcery is just $14.99. Appropriately enough…

The Best Of Kotaku, This Week

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where Tina I round up all of this week’s best content. Tina’s off this week, so I’m going to make fun of/pay tribute to her by running this image of her amazing parking job in Sleeping Dogs. Parked vertical on the wall, like a boss. And before anyone else…

A Persian Legend of Zelda? Sure, Why Not.

Artist Lenqi imagines a classic Persian take on The Legend of Zelda. It deserves a round of applause. Not just for shaking up the setting (which to be fair, has in recent years gone both “pirate” and “cowboy”), but for how well it fits. I’m getting visions of a Zelda game with the visuals from…

And Now, Annie From Community Will Gasp Over And Over And Over

It’s been a banner week for TV supercuts, so let’s close it out with this montage of Annie from Community doing her “oh!” gasp over and over and over again. The clip, first seen at The A.V. Club, does a great job of showing how this show both gives its characters signature moves and then…

Doing Battle with Fall of Cybertron‘s Bruticus Figure

Back in February when Hasbro announced it would be making a toy of the Transformers: Fall of Cybertron version of Decepticon gestalt team Bruticus, I was absolutely ecstatic. Now that I’ve got the San Diego Comic-Con variant of the toy in my hot giant hands? Still pretty ecstatic, though that doesn’t mean I can’t be…

In the Background of Video Games’ Exclusive Deals, There’s More Than Meets The Eye

They are the heroes of our childhoods. The glory of their times. Their video game comes out later this month. For the entirety of the current console generation, just one mega-publisher has solely controlled the exclusive right to immortalize their triumphs. It’s a deal that has reaped gobs of cash, and the latest edition of…

Video Game Makers Aren’t Your Friends. But If They Were …

Today, Dorkly broke down the major players of the video gaming industry into commonly understood archetypes: Your friends. Doesn’t make them any more tolerable, but it does make them more understandable. Still, I would have figured Activision for your gun-obsessed weightlifter friend who drives a 1989 Celica and listens to the Iron Eagle soundtrack, and…