The Kotaku Mixtape Vol 4: Nobuo Uematsu

When you talk to people about game music, Nobuo Uematsu is gonna come up. It’s just going to happen, and with good reason: the guy is the John Williams of the Final Fantasy series. The sheer volume and quality of work the man has produced is pretty staggering, and I can think of a number…

Kotaku Melodic Starts Here

Greetings, and welcome to Kotaku Melodic, your one-stop-shop for music, video games, and musical video games. For the next two hours, you’re all mine. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the sounds.

Street Fighter Producer Stepping Down Over Health Concerns

Following a recent health scare, popular Street Fighter series producer Yoshinori Ono and his favourite Blanka action figure have announced they’re taking a step back from their jobs. “I’ll be out of the limelight as fighting game series for a while”, Ono posted on Twitter. “I’ll think about the new future of fighting game after…

March Madness Hits Hockey as NHL 13‘s Cover Goes Up to a Vote, Too

News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming: • With every cover for every game coming out of EA Sports Tiburon being put up to a vote, now their siblings in EA Sports Canada are getting in on the act. NHL 13 will also choose its cover star through a fan-voted contest.…

Wait, Why Isn’t The PGA Championship in the PGA Tour’s Video Game?

This is something that always confounded me. In the career mode of Tiger Woods PGA Tour, the fourth major championship is not The PGA Championship, but the “EA Sports Championship.” Now, The British Open does not appear either (it is simply “The U.K. Open”) but that I can understand and chalk up to licensing. But…

Why Are We Still Hating on Activision?

Why is it still so fashionable to hate on Activision when there’s so many other publishers worthy of our scorn? That’s the question commenter Spacerac poses in today’s Speak Up on Kotaku. Do we really still hate Activision that much? All they’ve really done is milk Call of Duty, which is what people have demonstrated…

I Wish My Schools Had Walls Like These

Look at what covers the walls of this Redditor’s school in Sweden. None of my schools were cool enough to incorporate that kind of artwork, or appreciation for games. Even NYU (my alma mater), with their Game Center and relatively new game design master’s program, can’t boast walls like these. I thought r/gaming would appreciate…

Metronome Screens and Concept Art

Come On, Video Games, Let’s See Some Black People I’m Not Embarrassed By

I’ve never played as a black video game character who’s made me feel like he was cool. Worse yet, I’ve never played a black video game character who made me feel like I was cool. Instead, I’ve groaned and rolled my eyes at a parade of experiences that continue to tell me video games just…

You’ll Want This Triforce Lamp Until You See The Price Tag

This thing is beautiful turned on or off. You can display it proudly on your desk, or hang it up to stand in the air using the secret door on the top. According to the Etsy creator’s page: Built with a Poplar frame, birch face, and acrylic yellow plastic triforce. The sides of the lamp…

Playing Video Games for a Living is Just as Terrible as It Sounds

Game testing and QA positions can be really rough jobs, as previous lawsuits and even a webcomic attest. Though the testing process is vital to good game development, not all developers or publishers necessarily consider their testers to be vital employees, it seems. IGN spoke with several, recently, seeking to discover where, on the spectrum…

Looks Like There Might’ve Been a Rampage Reboot For Kinect in Development

Remember Rampage? The old-school arcade hit let players control giant monsters that unleashed havoc all over fictional cities, most memorably by climbing buildings and punching them into rubble. When Warner Brothers acquired Midway after the publisher declared bankruptcy a few years ago, it also got the company’s intellectual property portfolio, which included Rampage. It’s been…

The Kotaku Game Club Joins the Mass Effect 3 Galaxy at War Effort!

Welcome to the final Kotaku Game Club meeting on Mass Effect 3. We’ve spent the last three weeks talking about this game as the culmination of a gameplay promise established years ago, judging the its merits versus the two that came before for it. Today we’ll be doing something a little different, venturing into an…

He’s a Video Game Video Star, And He Wants Out

YouTube user KSIOlajidebt doesn’t know how to pronounce my name, but he figured out my Twitter handle and has convinced dozens and dozens of his fans to send me a video. KSIOlajidebt, I’ve learned, has a problem. He’s a hotshot video producer for Machinima, the online juggernaut that has partnered with some 4,000 other video-creators…

Soccer Fans Use Awesome Pac-Man Mosaic To Support Their Team

Yesterday’s Champions League quarterfinal pitting AC Milan against Barcelona resulted in some light-hearted support from the Milan fans in the San Siro stadium. Seen above is an AC Milan-supporting Pac-Man chasing after the ghost that sports the Barcelona colors. Although the good vibes and fun Pac-Man demonstration didn’t result in any points—as the game ended…

Weekly RPG Series Wants To Be ‘Lost Meets Final Fantasy‘

Could a role-playing game like Final Fantasy work as an episodic series like Lost? That’s the driving question behind Tempus Chronicle, an upcoming Facebook RPG by a group of developers called Tista Games who say they want to make a game with characters compelling and relatable enough to keep you coming back week after week…

Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Goes Single-Player as Layoffs Hit Relic and Vigil

The fate of the Warhammer 40,000 MMO has been revealed: It’s no longer a Warhammer 40,000 MMO. THQ has announced Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium has been “refocused” as a single-player action game with multiplayer elements, a change that brings with it substantial layoffs at developers Vigil Games and Relic Entertainment. Originally thought canceled due to…

Peter Molydeux Game Jam Adds Even More Locations, Begins Tomorrow

What would Molydeux? We’re about to find out. The hour is nearly upon us—Molyjam 2012 begins tomorrow. Molyjam 2012 is, of course, the game-design jam based on the wacky ideas of Peter Molydeux, the twitter evil-twin of famed game developer (and real human) Peter Molyneux. I’ve already shared which of his ideas I think would…

Hackers Can Steal Credit Card Information From Your Old Xbox, Experts Tell Us [UPDATE]

You might not want to sell or give away your Xbox 360 any time soon. Not without taking a hammer to the hard drive. Even restoring your console to factory settings won’t remove some of the data it stores, according to an ongoing study from researchers at Drexel University. And with a handful of common…

Kellee Santiago Is Leaving ThatGameCompany

Kellee Santiago has announced that she is leaving ThatGameCompany, which she co-founded six years ago. Santiago helped guide the studio’s creative vision as they created FlOw, Flower and Journey