Sunday Comics: YODO, Too.

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. Virtual Shackles by Jeremy Vinar and Mike Fahmie published Sept. 3.—Read more of Virtual Shackles Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Sept. 3.—Read more of Awkward Zombie…

The Minnesota Vikings’ Chris Kluwe—a World of Warcraft enthusiast—has the right perspective on today’s NFL opener

Talk Amongst Yourselves is where you should go to talk about games, life, and weedeaters that start on the first pull.

Valve Is Testing Out These Crazy Gaming Goggles

The New York Times has a great feature on Valve and some of the things they’ve been up to recently, including these crazy gaming goggles. Here’s how they describe the device: Every way I look, the scene shifts, the battle unfolds. I have a crazy contraption strapped to my head: a boxy set of goggles…

Metroid Returns (Sorta) in The Wii U’s Nintendo Land

There are still no full-fledged Metroid games on the horizon, but Nintendo’s top sci-fi series will at least be featured in one the main attractions of Wii U launch game Nintendo Land. The newest issue of Game Informer reveals that the collection of HD Nintendo-themed mini-games will include Metroid Blast, a fleshed out version of…

Kotaku Shop Contest: Art Restoration—The Winners

All of the art world is abuzz over Caveman Jesus, the kindhearted but totally incompetent “restoration” of a fresco in a Spanish church. Well, if the highway to Hell is paved with good intentions, we’re the road striping crew. So come in and check out Mona Croft, Grand Theft Nighthawks, Hitman Gothic and overall winner…

Pitfall!‘s Creator Likens His Fame to Being a Child Star

There were a lot of one-hit wonders in the 1980s, but David Crane isn’t one of them. The Activision programmer was behind Decathlon for the Atari 2600, Ghostbusters, one of the first great film-to-game adaptations on PC, and later, A Boy and His Blob. But he’ll forever be known as Pitfall!‘s creator, almost typecast as…

Get Your Kicks—the Ones Your Player Wears in NBA 2K13

NBA 2K has a great track record of indulging its players’ shoe fetishes, but according to IGN, it’s going even further in NBA 2K13 NBA 2K13 will add deeper customization options for your created player’s footwear, but the big new feature is its integration with the NikeID website. This means not only can you share…

City of Heroes Takes Its Case to City Hall [Update]

The City of Heroes community has called for a massive demonstration at 5 p.m. EDT in Atlas Park to protest the MMO’s shutdown. [Update] But apparently it’s already begun. That image [h/t mrKetch] shows hundreds now jamming city hall, and reports say the gathering already is large enough to bring down servers. [Second Update] With…

Yeah, So, About That ‘Easy Mode’ for Dark Souls …

The biggest thing Dark Souls (and spiritual ancestor Demon’s Souls) has going for it is that it’s hard as shit. Suffering through countless deaths to the end is a serious badge of honor. So when the series’ director said earlier this week “I am thinking about whether I should prepare another difficulty that everyone can…

Madden NFL outsells NFL 2K5 for the eighth straight year.

This Week in the Business: ‘No Sex Please, We’re Gamers.’

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “No sex please, we’re gamers.”—GamesIndustry.biz’s Matt Handrahan talks to Miriam Bellard of No Reply games, who explains why she thinks their erotic game Seduce Me was removed by Steam Greenlight QUOTE | “For all we know, social games are a fad.”—Chris…

Spammers and Gold Farmers are Trying to Hack Into Guild Wars 2 Accounts, Says ArenaNet

Hackers armed with email addresses and passwords stolen from other sources are probing Guild Wars 2 accounts to see if they can break in and use the accounts for botting or spamming gold sales, ArenaNet confirmed earlier today. The statement came after many users were notified of attempted logins to their account from locations in…

Borderlands 2‘s site has posted skill trees for all classes, so you can spec out yours before the game’s 9/18 release.

NFLer Snubbed by Wrong Photo in Madden Now Gets One Slightly Less Recognizable

Ten days ago, Marcus Thomas decided he’d had enough of being identified by some other Marcus Thomas’ mugshot in Madden NFL and took to Twitter to complain about it. Two days later, he was released by the New York Giants. Well, not only is he looking for work, he’s looking for a face, too. Madden…

The Moneysaver: Major Release Mayhem

As the major-release machine spins up for its September-to-November finishing kick, NewEgg is guaranteeing $12 off preorders with a coupon good through Sunday, and Toys ‘R’ Us is trying to clear shelf space with a twofer sale on console titles. Borderlands 2, the most pre-ordered game in 2K Games history, is $48, 10 days before…

The Best of Kotaku, This Week

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week’s best content. This week’s best image is a print inspired by Skyrim that you can buy for $65. Or you can get the original for a cool $1,000. Thanks to XombieDIRGE for the find. Moving on to our Best Of content…

Treyarch—the studio making Call of Duty: Black Ops II—is only advising on story, not gameplay, for the Vita tie-in

They Don’t Make Music Videos Like They Used To. They Make Them Way Longer, And Artier

Remember when music videos were just sort of five minutes of a band standing in a warehouse lip-synching to their own song intercut with footage of a hot girl making out with the lead singer? Good times. This “video” is really more of a short film. I’m not complaining because I guess it’s pretty cool—it’s…

I Just Bought My First Wii Game in More Than a Year. Then Tragedy Struck.

I didn’t play The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. To a role-playing game player like myself, that seems particularly wrong, but I just didn’t feel like digging out all my Wii stuff and going through the motions. My Wii has been hooked up for years now, even managing to survive the theft of nearly everything…