- Culture
Star Wars is no Match for Some Good Concept Art by Your Side
Paul Adam is a concept artist at BioWare. No, not the Mass Effect BioWare. Or the Dragon Age BioWare. The Star Wars one. So yeah, you’re about to see some lightsabers. This art was all done for Star Wars: Old Republic, some of it as promotional stuff for the game’s website, other pieces as concept…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2012 -
UncategorizedCarrier Command Out In September, Also Coming to Xbox 360
Bohemia Interactive’s remake of the classic Carrier Command will be out on September 27 on both PC and Xbox 360. I’ve been messing around with the beta for a while now and, while it’s a little simple in places, have still been having a blast. The fact it has a proper “launch” sequence, where you…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2012 -
UncategorizedWhat’s Going On With That Crazy, Over-the-Top Brothers in Arms Game?
At last year’s E3, lots of people sat up and took notice at Brothers in Arms: Furious 4, Gearbox Studios’ radical reinvention of their earnest World War II first-person-shooter franchise. With bawdy humor and stylized, gratuitous violence, the Ubisoft-published project looked like it was going to be a vast departure from how games set in…
By Evan Narcisse Published May 18, 2012 - Uncategorized
Japanese Game Developer Apparently Harassed So Much, She Attempted Suicide
In 2009, a twenty-something female joined Osaka-based game developer Capcom. The new employee was assigned to a couple of different games before becoming a member of the team developing Dragon’s Dogma, Capcom’s upcoming big budget title. At first things were good. But by that December, things got awful—really awful. According to a recently released lawsuit,…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 18, 2012 - Uncategorized
Blizzard Release Thrilling New Diablo III Gameplay Trailer
OK, so the joke’s a little less poignant now that things seem to be slowly entering a state of relative normalcy, but so long as people encounter lag and server errors in a singleplayer game, it’ll always be relevant. Incidentally, now that the server issues seem to be drawing to a close, is anyone else…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2012 - Uncategorized
Call of Duty “Hacker” Jailed for Spreading Virus, Stealing Credit Card Numbers, Being a Thug
Englishman Lewys Martin thought it would be a good idea to to offer people “hacks” for Call of Duty Games, which not only broke the rules of the game, but also included a virus. No, Lewys, it was not a good idea, especially since it’s now got you some jail time. Martin, who is only…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallVideo Games Kickstarted the Careers of Some of Hollywood’s (and TV’s) Greats
You may have seen one or two of these clips before, maybe even here on Kotaku, but boy, seeing them all laid out in a single video like this is something else. Witness stars like Christian Bale, Jack Black and…30 Rock’s Jenna Maroney and…Paul Rudd get a big break on crappy old video game commercials.…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 17, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallA Very Sexy Introduction to an Ancient Tabletop Game
Sure, I could bang on about Caveman, a tabletop electronic game released by Tomy, and how it had a rad soundtrack and some terrific box art. But my Australian accent is, while occasionally loud, not exactly sexy. And I’ve never actually played this thing. So let’s kick back and watch the Belgians at Bleeping Relics…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 17, 2012 - Uncategorized
What Gaming Moments Would You Want to Live Out In Real Life?
Hi there, Kotaku! Another crazy day has left me without a list of fun and random links for the open thread. So, taking the cue from another reader who’s written in, we’ll do another optional theme for tonight’s OT. Scott asks, “What memorable video game moments would you live out first-hand, if you could?” I…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 17, 2012 - Uncategorized
New Blade Runner Movie is a Sequel, Features Same Writer & Director [Update]
While we’ve known for a while that Ridley Scott was working on a new Blade Runner movie, the project got a lot more exciting today with word that he’ll be joined on the project by Hampton Fancher – who wrote the 1982 original – and that this will be a sequel. I don’t know which…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 17, 2012 - Uncategorized
Uncovered Vehicle List in Max Payne 3 Reads a Lot Like a Grand Theft Auto Fleet
Someone on GTAForums.com pried apart the files inside Max Payne 3 and found a vehicle list shot through with callbacks to past makes and models from the Grand Theft Auto series. There is an enormous thread going on both there and on NeoGAF, about the subject. Noting that this isn’t the first time Rockstar Games…
By Owen Good Published May 17, 2012 - Uncategorized
BioWare… Still Wants You To Tell Them What You Want in Dragon Age III
BioWare has been going back to the drawing board on Dragon Age III for a while now. Dragon Age II, as you may recall, received a mixed critical reception at best— I sure didn’t care for it though of course, not everyone hates the game including some thoughtful folks who work here Bioware wants you…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 17, 2012 -
UncategorizedActivision’s “Sphere”: The Most-Used Unusable Piece of Video Game Music Ever
In the middle 1980s, my brother and I both had Commodore 64s. Our next-door neighbor was the electronics buyer for a catalog showroom—a breed of variety store brought to its knees by Walmart before Best Buy and e-commerce finished the job. Our neighbor was in charge of buying computer hardware, and software. That meant we…
By Owen Good Published May 17, 2012 -
UncategorizedJesper Kyd’s Darksiders II Soundtrack Mixes Assassin’s Creed With Danny Elfman
You know what? I think that Jesper Kyd is a darned fine composer. He’s best known for his work on the Assassin’s Creed series, and his work has come to embody that series for me—that piercing, odd solo female voice, driving electronic beats, and wide-open string arrangements. He captures the series’ fixation upon flight and…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 17, 2012 - Uncategorized
I’ve Gone And Injected Wub Into All This Beautiful Video Game Music. Sorry.
Usually, around this time each week, I throw a video playlist together for the Kotaku Mix Tape, but this week I was a little distracted by The Wub Machine The Wub Machine is an online app that will automatically generate a Dubstep, Electro or Drum & Bass remix for any MP3 that you throw into…
By Chris Person Published May 17, 2012 -
UncategorizedMark Zuckerberg: The Musical
Most of us have seen The Social Network, and an equal number of us are probably tired of hearing about the Zuck, Mr. Z, Mark Zuckerberg. But there’s always room for three talented women singing about his life to re-lyric’d versions of famous show tunes! Enter Zuckerberg: The Musical!, a very fast-moving musical produced by…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 17, 2012 -
UncategorizedIt’s a Beautiful Bluegrass Zelda Jamboree
The Zelda music has been performed so many times, and by so many instruments, but I do not believe I’ve ever heard it performed so beautifully on a piece of carpentry equipment. Here’s Michigander bluegrass duo Frontier Ruckus with a beautiful Zelda medley performed on banjo, melodica, and the common household saw. The two musicians…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 17, 2012 -
UncategorizedDiablo III Has The Best Installation Music I’ve Heard in Years
I’ve been giving Blizzard and Diablo III a lot of crap for the game’s disastrous launch, but I don’t mean to give the impression that I don’t like Diablo III as a game. In fact, I like it quite a bit! All of the little touches Blizzard has included are splendid and hugely enhance the…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 17, 2012 - Uncategorized
The Sworcery Guys Will Be Making Beautiful Music for Sound Shapes
Just like an all-star music festival where awesome acts keep announcing that they’ll be showing up to play, upcoming PlayStation Vita game Sound Shapes keeps pulling in top-notch talent to its creative roster. Game-loving celebrity DJ Deadmaus is contributing to the game and now he’ll be joined by some bonafide indie gaming superstars. Two of…
By Evan Narcisse Published May 17, 2012 - Uncategorized
This Chiptune Album Is Also a Graphic Novel
Video games and comics go together like, well, like video games and comics. I seem to see them coming together more and more—the latest fusion of the two media is “Adventures in Pixels,” a cute music/comic hybrid by musician Ben Landis. You can read the whole album here, clicking through the chiptune-y tracks along with…
By Kirk Hamilton Published May 17, 2012