How The Olympics Could Have Learned a Thing or Two From Video Games About “Cheating”

One of the more bizarre stories to come from the London Olympics so far has been the farcical conclusion to the group stages of the women’s badminton, which saw eight players deliberately try and lose in order to manipulate their knockout stage seedings, to the outrage of many. Maybe instead of blaming the athletes, though,…

Batman Sucks at Halo, But Excels at Kicking Robin’s Ass

The Dark Knight is not very good at Halo. Bruce Wayne was obviously too busy with all that money and grief as a kid to have learned his way around a control pad. He’s making up for it now, though. The only way he knows how.

The PC Franchises Some Gamers Think are Improving, and Others Think are Getting Worse

Which PC franchises are getting better with age, and which are getting worse? Before we go any further, know that this is not science. It’s just the results of a survey a single website specialising in PC gaming ran a little while ago. Like our own grand census from a few years back, that makes…

Customize The ‘Meow Mix’ Theme Song Of Your Darkest Nightmares

Tina isn’t doing the off-topic thread tonight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have cats! In fact, let’s just combine her thing (cats) with my thing (music) into one super thing I give you THE MEOWMIXER. File this one under “Publicity Stunts We Fell For,” because I fell for this one. Something about mixing my…

The Best Meat-Head Dialogue From the New Expendables Game

That’s the point of The Expendables, right? That they’re a bunch of meatheads from another era who are Back To Kick Some Ass? Even keeping that in mind, this game footage assembled by our video maestro Chris Person is some of the goofiest, most meatheaded dialogue I’ve heard in a long time. It’s practically Duke…

You’ve Met The Pyro. You’ve Met The Heavy. Now, Meet Portal 2‘s Cores.

In the spirit of the many “Meet The” videos from Team Fortress 2 comes this fan-made video by Harry Callagan. Made mostly in Premiere Pro and Photoshop (not in Source Filmmaker!), it’s an impressive showing, considering that Callagan describes it as something that “started as a very quick visual test, but grew into something a…

Who Should Star in a Real Video Game Version of The Expendables?

Duke Nukem is Sylvester Stallone. Kind of. The Rocky actor wants you to believe that he can still explode the living hell out of armies of bad guys. So does Duke. And, with the right vitamins (or developers), they both can! We hope. The meta-hook for The Expendables movies is audiences are in on the…

Midweek Moneysaver: Dogs‘ Days of August

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 • Aug. 14 release Sleeping Dogs (PS3, Xbox 360) is $47.99, free shipping from NewEgg. Next best is $60. [Dealzon] • Sep. 18 release Dead…

Shiver At The Sight Of DayZ‘s Ghostly Flying Man

DayZ is the kind of game that leaves you on edge at all times. You never know when you’re going to be ambushed and killed, or get taken for a ride to a deathcamp, or be ambushed by sprinting zombies. Or, as is the case here, when you’re going to see a totally freaky bug…

A New Look At Far Cry 3‘s Story-Based Co-Op

In addition to a big, head-trippy single-player campaign, the upcoming Far Cry 3 will feature a fleshed-out 4-player co-op campaign. It’s more than your standard “kill the enemy waves” setup; FC3‘s co-op has a story, complete with four different playable characters. There’s the hardassed chick, the goofy older russian dude, the wiseass cockney (or some…

‘Backbreaker NFL 13‘ is Now Available—From a Certain Point of View

If you’re sick and tired of Madden NFL, or if you just don’t want to wait until the end of the month to complain about it, why not get a real downloadable roster update for a sports video game really released two years ago, the way everyone says it ought to be. Backbreaker, the flawed…

Let’s Make Our Own Olympics and Not Invite All the Jocks

With the world’s eyes on the 2012 Summer Olympics, commenter GiantBoyDetective, awash in newly-discovered marital bliss, takes a moment out of his busy husbandry to ponder the perfect video game Olympics in today’s Speak Up on Kotaku. Oh man! I just had an awesome idea. There should be an Olympics for video games. They could…

Did Rush Limbaugh’s Newsletter Steal An Image From Dungeons & Dragons?

Well here’s an interesting coincidence. The image on the left is a monster from a 2002 Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual called the Nightmare Beast, drawn by artist Wayne Reynolds. The image on the right is the August edition of talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s newsletter, the Limbaugh Letter. The similarities are uncanny. So uncanny,…

Olympic Gymnast Uses Zelda Medley During Performance

Mexican gymnast Elsa Garcia Rodriguez Blancas did her Olympic qualification routine to an arrangement of music from The Legend of Zelda. Specifically, an arrangement by violinist Lindsey Stirling. Awesome, no? Read more about Elsa Garcia Rodriguez Blancas, her love of video games, and how she came to choose this piece of music for her performance.…

Origin’s Powerful 15-Inch Gaming Laptop Doesn’t Need to Dress to Impress

When Origin PC sent me their EON15-S laptop for review, time and time again they stressed that while I was getting a plain cover unit for the system, they were also available with a shiny colored plastic lid, special molded to evoke futuristic technology. To which I say hey, Origin PC, you don’t need to…

Bullet Run Is Now Available for Your Deathmatch Needs

Sony Online Entertainment’s new free-to-play online shooter comes to Windows machines today, letting you compete in gun-based bloodsport on a fake reality TV show. More info here

Load “Great Memories”,8,1

The Commodore 64 turns 30 today. Reams of copy have been written in tribute to this machine. It wasn’t the first personal computer, but it truly was one that democratized them to millions of middle-class households. Releasing in August, 1982, it stepped into the breach a year later when console video gaming, as we knew…

You can help design the next version of Sony’s PlayStation 3 controller. Head over to the PS Blog to enter the contest

The Secret World: The Kotaku Review

As it turns out, I was born to be a Dragon. In the old adage about a butterfly flapping its wings in China to cause a hurricane in Texas, the Dragon are the ones who put the butterfly into position and tell it when to flap. They are agents of chaos, slipping into and moving…

Wii U’s Touchscreen Features Prominently in FIFA 13‘s Shooting, Passing and Tackling

Touchscreen shooting, passing, tackling and free kicks lead the list of GamePad-specific features for FIFA 13‘s Wii U version, which Official Nintendo Magazine has published in its latest edition. Touching the GamePad screen will tell your players who to mark or tackle and where to pass the ball. You’ll also be able to place your…