• Culture

  This Wonderful Mass Effect 3 Art is Full of GIANT SPOILERS

  Matt Rhodes is one of my favourite concept artists in the business. Why? Because his style, using bright, colourful cartoon characters for games that are often very dark and serious in tone, is a breath of fresh air in an industry where a lot of art ends up looking exactly the same. We’ve featured his…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 13, 2012
• Uncategorized

  It’s Insane How Many People Read Gaming Wiki Pages Every Month

  Signalling just how radically the way we read and learn about video games has changed over the past decade, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales now says he has the world’s biggest network of gaming sites on the internet. Which is a bit of a stretch; unlike his commercial rivals, Wales’ Wikia system for games – which…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 13, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  There Won’t Ever be Another Mojang Game Called Scrolls

  While Minecraft developers Mojang have put a legal dispute with Elder Scrolls publishers Bethesda (well, Bethesda’s parent company Zenimax) to bed, the settlement has come at a slight cost: there won’t ever be another Mojang game called Scrolls The terms of the settlement mean that the trademark Mojang has for the game won’t cover any…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 13, 2012
• 

  CultureTotal Recall

  George Washington & Ben Franklin, as Seen by Video Games in 1993

  Two of America’s founding fathers, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, will be starring in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed III. It’s not, you know, their first time in a video game. They’ve been in plenty, some serious, some less so, but my favourite in both cases is 1993 adventure game classic Day of the Tentacle, in…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 13, 2012
• Culture

  How to Look Like C-3PO. Or Mark Hamill. Or a Stormtrooper.

  Collector Jason Liebig has uploaded six of the greatest Flickr images you’re likely to ever see: cereal box scans that include giant masks for some of the main characters from Star Wars From a Canadian cereal cash-in (the cereal itself branded C-3POs) dating all the way back to 1984, there were six in all, for…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 12, 2012
• CultureTotal Recall

  Science Proves Old Video Games Were Super Hard

  Sitting down with a bunch of old games in the Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Pokemon and Metroid franchises, Belgian scientists have proven beyond all doubt that those games are way hard. To showcase their work, they’ve written a scientific paper outlining their findings. Greg Aloupis from the Free University of Brussels…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Total Recall Starts Now!

  Let’s go back in time. To the 90s. Maybe even the 80s, if we’ve got the juice.

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Soul Vaccination

  Greetings Kotaku-eers, and welcome to a new week of evening open threads. I missed doing these last week during the Game Developers Conference! It’s good to be back. Below, please find a collection of things that you might enjoy checking out or talking about. The Tower of Power tune, in particular, is worthy of a…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published March 12, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Why Mass Effect 3’s Ending Was So Damn Terrible

  There’s an almost universal outrage at the moment over the ending of Mass Effect 3. After playing a series for what’s usually over 100 hours, people are very upset at the manner in which the trilogy wound down. And they have every right to be. But not for the reasons I see so many putting…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  The Next Onimusha Is… a Browser Game

  Capcom will bring a new Onimusha game to browsers this summer, it said Friday in a press release. Onimusha Soul, to be released “for PCs and smartphones,” will be out on June 28 in Japan. Here’s how the developer describes it, as translated by Capcom’s official website: “Onimusha Soul” is a Sengoku simulation RPG based…

  By Jason Schreier Published March 12, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Finally, a Music Game That Lets You Look Cool While Playing

  It’s hard to look cool when you’re playing most music video games. You may think you look cool with your dinky plastic guitar or humorously scale-sized drum set, but in reality you look like… well, a person playing a plastic instrument. At a recent Penny Arcade Expo, a group of contest finalists assembled on-stage to…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  You Won’t Jump Over the Flagpole in These Awesome Mario Heels

  Artist Jamie Ferraioli proves that stunning, feminine accessories are in no way at odds with nerd culture with her gorgeous, hand-painted shoes. These heels and flats display meticulously detailed hand-painted art from Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda. My personal favorite part is the lava painted onto the platform sole of the black…

  By Kate Cox Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  A Song of Ice and Fire Has Become Game of Thrones, and Thank God For That

  Somewhere along the line, it happened. The name changed. George R.R. Martin’s celebrated fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire more-or-less officially became known as Game of Thrones We can probably blame HBO; their hugely successful TV series Game of Thrones is what launched Martin’s books into the public consciousness. Since the show’s debut,…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Unauthorized Presales Land NECA’s Awesome Portal Gun Replica on Indefinite Hold

  You know that awesome Portal gun NECA was working on? The one everyone was excited about buying? As it turns out, folks were excited about selling it as well, and that excitement might have just gotten the amazing replica cancelled. Kotaku reader Will passed along an email on Friday that he had received from online…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Where are the Black League of Legends Characters?

  In November 2011 League of Legends boasted more than 11 million active players all over the world. With almost 100 unique characters for players to choose from and bi-monthly additions to the roster, the studio behind LoL, Riot Games, has quite a diverse crew on its hands. The game’s roster isn’t diverse enough according to…

  By Elyas Gorogo-Baker Published March 12, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Giggle With Us Now at These—Let’s Be Honest—Pretty Goofy Motion-Capture Demonstrations

  Motion-capture technology’s changed the way that today’s movies, TV shows and video games look and move. Usually, sessions where special cameras and suits upload a person’s movement to computers happens in sequestered studios, far from prying eyes. At GDC 2012, mo-cap happened right out in the open and it was a wonder to behold. Acrobatics…

  By Evan Narcisse Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Xbox Live Arcade Games Will Soon Offer Double The Gamerscore

  Maybe it’s due to the slumping sales of Xbox Live Arcade games that game developers have been complaining about. Or maybe we can call it Gamerscore inflation. Or is Microsoft just being generous? Whatever the case, XBLA games will be able to offer 400 Gamerscore points instead of 200, starting in April and will be…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Why Mass Effect 3‘s Ending Doesn’t Need Changing (SPOILERS)

  If you died tomorrow, if some kind of disaster struck and removed you entirely from the world, would the choices you’d made with your life to date matter? Would it matter what you had accomplished? Who you had loved? If you had saved another’s life? Would your life’s work have meaning? Would there not be…

  By Kate Cox Published March 12, 2012
• Uncategorized

  Peter Molyneux And His Parody Twitter Account Need To Team Up

  What if controllers had feelings? What if every time you yanked a power cord, your console started to scream? What if your games could cry? By now you must have seen Peter Molydeux, the fake Twitter account that parodies legendary game designer and Fable creator Peter Molyneux, who recently left Microsoft to start his own…

  By Jason Schreier Published March 12, 2012
• 

  Uncategorized

  Your First Look at Dishonored in Motion

  It’s been quite a while since we’ve heard anything from Arkane Studios’ steampunk/sci-fi/assassin game Dishonored Actual footage in this video is, unfortunately, pretty sparse but at least the scenery’s pretty. Just imagine all the running, super powers, and shooting. There. Now aren’t you excited? If that didn’t work then perhaps the interview with co-creative directors…

  By Elyas Gorogo-Baker Published March 12, 2012