- Kotaku East
When Sony Products Get Weird, the Weird Go Pro
The craziest product of 2011 meet the craziest workstation of 2012. Computer engineer Shigeki Morimoto’s desk at social networking company Mixi is a mismatch of pulleys, pipes, and rope all designed to support his Sony HMZ-T1 headset. Or something. When Morimoto started using the Sony HMZ-T1 headset at work, he quickly discovered that the headset…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 18, 2012 -
Kotaku EastIt’s True, Japanese First-Person Shooters Do Exist
After finding out about The Legend of Alfur, a Japanese indy-made FPS for the PC, it struck me how weird it was to hear the words “Japanese-made” and “FPS” in the same sentence. While typically thought of as “overly violent games from the West” in Japan, they have recently grown in popularity here in Japan.…
By Richard Eisenbeis Published May 18, 2012 - Kotaku East
Please, I Beg You, No More Tekken Movies
When the Tekken film was released, it was so bad that Tekken‘s video game producer Katsuhiro Harada publically distanced himself from the project. He might have to do that again. For reasons unbeknownst to man, Hollywood is keen to make another Tekken flick. Crystal Sky, one of the production companies on the first film, is…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 18, 2012 - Kotaku East
Married Couple Arrested for Pirating One Piece
One Piece is a very popular manga and anime about pirates. Takuyuki Machida, 47, and his wife were apparently pirates. How fitting. From July 2011 and March 2012, the two supposedly sold 38 pirated DVDs that were procured from a South Korean website. The DVDs were then resold online. According to authorities, the couple made…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 18, 2012 - Kotaku East
A Totally Safe for Work Look at that Persona Porno
On May 25, Japanese role-playing game Persona is getting a porno parody called Perofella. The suspense must be killing you. Japanese website Asagawo Blog watched a screener and posted a handful of screen caps on its site. Since, well, Perofella is a dirty movie, many of the screen caps are dirty. Screw dirty! Let’s look…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 18, 2012 - Kotaku East
Beat Takeshi Compares Gay Marriage To Bestiality
One of Japan’s best known creators and comedians, Beat Takeshi, is catching heat for remarks he made about gay marriage. When shown footage of people celebrating President Obama’s recent gay marriage remarks, Takeshi quipped, “Obama supports gay marriage. You would support a marriage to an animal eventually, then.” Um… Takeshi is, first and foremost, a…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 18, 2012 -
UncategorizedCapcom Tries to Fix Street Fighter X Tekken, Breaks it Instead
In updating the console versions of Street Fighter X Tekken to fix a few bugs, Capcom has accidentally introduced a new one, which completely breaks the game. Whoops. Anyone updating to 1.04 and using Rolento’s knife to attack a projectile will find that the results are not exactly desirable, in that it locks the game…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2012 -
UncategorizedWhy Grown Men Make Things Out of LEGO
We feature a lot of LEGO here on Kotaku, for good reason: it’s awesome. But the spaceships or Star Wars dioramas we show you are rarely made by kids, or Danish engineers. They’re usually made by grown men. Why would they devote so much time and energy to expressing themselves using what for many is…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2012 -
UncategorizedPlease, Stop Torturing us With These Metal Gear Rising Torture Videos
There’s a simple rule publishers need to adhere to when it comes to live action marketing: either do it right, or don’t do it at all. Skimp on the quality, even just a little, and what you end up with will probably be a bit shit. Ubisoft know the rule pretty well. Konami? Konami don’t…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2012 - Uncategorized
This, Ladies, is How You Cosplay Zelda
Spicy Seasoning andRikku Grape, playing Midna and Zelda respectively, are winning hearts, minds and thumbs up here with some amazing Nintendo cosplay. Photography is by Kindra Nikole and Angie Chuu Princess Zelda & Midna Cosplays [Geek Girls, via Fashionably Geek]
By Luke Plunkett Published May 18, 2012 - 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