• Kotaku East

  Sega on Why Phantasy Star Online 2 Is Free To Play

  In March, Sega announced that their upcoming MMORPG, Phantasy Star Online 2 will be smart phone compatible and free to play. In a recent interview with Weekly Famitsu, Phantasy Star series producer, Satoshi Sakai, talked about Sega’s somewhat ballsy decision. Apparently, the decision to make Phantasy Star Online 2 free to play came about very…

  By Toshi Nakamura Published April 26, 2012
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  Kotaku East

  This Teenage Gothic Lolita Will Rock Your Brains Out

  Yohio, the 16 year-old Swedish musician, finally made his Japan debut. Yohio has dressed as a Gothic Lolita for the past few years, and his anime inspired looks earned him Japanese fans. This week Yohio has been appearing on Japan’s biggest morning shows to promote his Japanese language mini album, which is now on sale.…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 26, 2012
• Kotaku East

  First Look at Resident Evil Creator’s New Horror Game

  Shinji Mikami, best known for creating Resident Evil, is gearing up work on a brand new survival horror game with his new studio Tango Gameworks. It’s codenamed “Zwei”. The image above is very early concept art for the title. With Zwei, Mikami is supposedly committed to making a “pure” survival horror game. “A true ‘survival…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Nintendo Just Posted Its First Annual Loss

  Today, Nintendo announced its first annual operating loss in its history as a public company. Sluggish Wii sales and a strong Japanese yen hurt Nintendo—not to mention a rocky rollout for the Nintendo 3DS. The game maker chalked up a US$455.9 million operating loss for the 2011 financial year. “What went wrong was that sales…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  A Tetris Swimsuit is Sexier Than it Sounds

  Obviously with a ton of Tetris-inspired prints lying around the warehouse, fashion label Black Milk have added a Tetris swimsuit to its existing line of Tetris leggings While the leggings were faintly ridiculous, the swimsuit is a much more sensible affair. Relatively. Though at AUD$90 (which these days is basically USD$90), you better really like…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Lost Planet 3 Screens Star Frightened Space Jesus

  Capcom has updated Lost Planet 3’s website to include a range of new screenshots for the upcoming sequel that, let’s be honest, nobody really asked for. Scattered amongst them are shots we saw when the game was first unveiled, but most are new, showing a mix of killer snow aliens and a man whose beard…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  How Beautiful Video Game Shirts Are Made

  Japan’s King of Games are one of the finest video game clothing merchants on the planet. Anyone who’s owned one of their shirts, or even been around one, know they ooze quality, from the fancy boxes they ship in to the durability of the prints. I’ve had a Zelda shirt of theirs around six years…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Looks Like Left 4 Dead 2 is Running Officially on Linux

  When tech guru and Linux fan Michael Larabel visited Valve yesterday, he promised more info and pics than simply saying Steam was coming to Linux. Looks like he’s come through. Larabel has posted images of Left 4 Dead 2 running natively on Linux, and says a release of Steam itself – likely in the form…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Dragon Quest X Gets a Release Date for Japan!

  Square Enix‘s highly anticipated 10th Dragon Quest game has just gotten a release date! The new online RPG, Dragon Quest X will be hitting the shelves (in Japan) on August 2nd of this year. Much like the 11th and 14th incarnations of the Final Fantasy series, Dragon Quest X will be online only with a…

  By Toshi Nakamura Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  A Story About Sly Cooper, By Mark Serrels, Aged 30

  The fridge is full of energy drinks. Heads hover motionless, inches from illuminated screens. An arcade machine sits tucked in a corner. Gorgeous concept art, in various stages of completions, drapes itself on all four walls. Sanzaru feels like a place where video games are being made. The open area studio is littered with print-outs;…

  Mark Serrels Published April 26, 2012
• Culture

  The Art of Prototype 2

  Because Prototype 2 is out this week, artists involved in the game are now able to share their work. One of those is Venezuelan César Rizo, who did a lot of environment pieces for the game. Rizo has been a professional concept artist since 2005, and has worked with companies like Radical Entertainment and Relic.…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  This Map Shows All the Places Nathan Drake Has Been

  All the places he’s been since we’ve been in control of his good self, at any rate. Posted by Sony yesterday, the map contains some standard infographic stuff, but also a handy guide to just where Drake’s travels have taken him across four games. It’s…not that far, really! You should come to Australia next time,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  What a Skyrim Helmet Looks Like in the Real World

  Harrison Krix, aka Volpin Props, is someone whose work you should be very familiar with if you’re a regular Kotaku reader. His latest piece is this incredible helmet from Skyrim, which through good design and fine craftsmanship reaches into the game, grabs a Draugr helmet off someone’s head and rips it right back into the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012
• Uncategorized

  MMO Company Hacked in 2010, Just Found out About it Now

  Cryptic, the guys behind Star Trek Online and Champions Online, have found out this week that they’ve been hacked. User details have been stolen, and some “portion of the passwords” present in a database were even cracked. Which is bad. What’s worse is that the hack took place in December 2010 With Cryptic only finding…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 26, 2012
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  CultureTotal Recall

  Batman…Why so Serious? It’s Just a Video Game!

  If you’re sensitive to unnecessary amounts of drama in your video game advertisements, a word of caution: this contains an unnecessary amount of drama for a video game commercial. If anyone ever tells you the 1990s weren’t the golden age of video game advertising, you slap them, hard, and tell them they are wrong

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 25, 2012
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  CultureTotal Recall

  The Third World War Brought Clinton and Saddam Closer Together

  The Sega CD was home to some terrible things, but it was also home to some wonderful curiosities as well. And few are as curious as Micronet’s 1993 strategy game The Third World War. Let’s start with the cover art. That amazing cover art. Sadly, it was only for the Japanese edition of the game…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 25, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Bang Bang, Kiss Kiss

  Oh why hello there, Kotaku. You’ve survived Hump Day I see. That wasn’t supposed to happen… we don’t have a contingency plan for this. No one was supposed to survive hump day. Hmm, well. Guess we’ll have to improvise… Let’s start with an open thread. Go ahead and dive on in, talk about whatever you…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published April 25, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  Leisure Suit Larry Remake Makes Its Half-Million Bucks, Thanks To You?

  The guy on the left is Al Lowe, adventure game pioneer and lead creative force behind the Leisure Suit Larry games. The guy on the right is Tim Schafer, adventure game pioneer and lead creative force behind Day of the Tentacle and other LucasArts classics. When I took this photo, in February, Tim was on…

  By Stephen Totilo Published April 25, 2012
• Uncategorized

  6 Board Games That Video Gamers Should Play

  At the end of part one of this essay on analog games, I said I’d talk about specific examples of board games to show why you, a video gamer, should be playing them. “GO ON,” you shout, catapulting burrito filth from your mouth. “HOW GOOD COULD THESE GAMES POSSIBLY BE.” Well, that’s not really the…

  quintin smith Published April 25, 2012
• Uncategorized

  The Entire Universe, And Other Things That Are Awesome

  People aren’t very big at all. But at least we’re bigger than ants, cells, the X chromosome, and all the empty space between particles. On the other hand, we get tiny awfully fast. Even dinky little Rhode Island looks huge in comparison to us. At least, until you keep scrolling out… From quantum foam and…

  By Kate Cox Published April 25, 2012