Watch This, Play This To Make Your Monday Better

It’s time to make your Monday better through the magic of video games. We present to you our first daily installment of Watch This, Play This. For 30 minutes, we’ll give you things to… watch or play, all linked to from this page. WATCH: Let’s start with the video up top. A most absurd Skyrim…

Watch This, Play This Begins Now

Stuff to play, stuff to see, here comes Watch This, Play This. Confused? Read this

Little Deviants: The Kotaku Review

The first thing I ever heard about the PlayStation Vita game Little Deviants was that you could touch the Vita’s rear touch panel to poke flat ground in the game into hills. Doing that would cause a spherical deviant who was sitting on the flat ground to roll. Brilliant, I thought! The first thing I…

Why Prolong the Inevitable? A New Dune Game is Life

Is anyone doin’ a new Dune? Commenter Nameloi thinks it’s about time we revisited the sands of Arrakis once more as the video game players of Dune in today’s Speak Up on Kotaku. “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I…

These Portal, BioShock Toys Look Better In Slow Motion

Team Fortress 2 figures and one hell of a Portal gun help round out this video we shot at the NECA booth during New York Toy Fair this week. You might have seen our teaser screenshots last night, but the video is much cooler, if only because you get to see real-life footage of Assassin’s…

Talk Amongst Yourselves

Let’s take a break from the fire-scarred fields of battle, put our differences aside, and focus on talking about video games in the official Kotaku forum, Talk Amongst Yourselves. Today’s TAYpic from Jimmy_Jazz serves the dual purpose of reminding us which website we are writing or reading while also making us imagine a sweet little…

Super Stardust Delta: The Kotaku Review

The best physical attributes of the PlayStation Vita are the machine’s big screen and twin analog sticks. They are conveniently what Super Stardust Delta uses best to make one of the cheapest launch games for Sony’s new gaming portable one of its best. Super Stardust Delta is a twin-stick shooter of spaceship vs. aliens and…

The 50 Best Video Game Endings of All Time Starts with Resident Evil and Ends with… Black Ops?

More than 13,000 fans voted for their favorite video game ending of all time for the Guinness Book of World Records 2012 Gamer Edition, and this is what they came up with? Call of Duty: Black Ops is the greatest video game ending of all time? Maybe I need to go play it again. Oh…

Vita Game Vid Gallery

Nintendo Gets Its Very Own Video Codec Provider

Mobiclip, the Paris, France-based company responsible for the codec that allows Nintendo handhelds to run high-quality video with little power consumption, quietly became Nintendo’s property last October. Now we’ll never be without video on a Nintendo device again. [Gamasutra]

Just When You Thought You Couldn’t Care Less About Binary Domain, a Multiplayer Trailer Arrives

I’ve not played any of Sega’s upcoming sci-fi shooter Binary Domain, so it could be the best game ever created by human humans for all I know. I’m having an incredibly difficult time mustering any excitement at all for the title, and this new multiplayer trailer isn’t helping at all. I blame Square Enix. Remember…

Paildramon, All Hand-Made and Wearable

STICHED | THE INTERNETS: Via tipster Jinah comes these photos. (Photo: Marie-Emilie Lanteigne | Facebook) Big in Japan, Made in England Music wasn’t what brought singer Emi Evans to Japan. But it’s what made her stay-and what is making her famous. With her work on Dark Souls and Nier, the British-born singer is quickly creating…

These Plastic People Are Wonderful

The Wonder Festival isn’t only about cosplay. Rather, the event is dedicated to figurines and models. So of them are production models, which are mass-produced, while other pieces are limited edition or even one-off pieces. This year’s Wonder Festival was held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. Sister site Kotaku Japan and figure site…

Swedish, Sixteen, and Stunning

Earlier this month, it was revealed that a Swedish “bishounen” (beautiful young boy) named “Yohio” will be making his debut in Japan this spring. Yohio currently plays for a Swedish visual kei band called “Seremedy”, and he became interested in Japan after getting into anime as a kid. Some of his heroes are Japanese Visual…

Meet China’s New Nerd Goddess

Over the course of the Chinese New Year, a young girl took China’s internet population by storm. Unlike other previous net celebrities, this lady didn’t do it by showing off skin, being outrageous, or destroying public goodwill towards the red cross, instead she did it through cosplay. She became famous because of a series of…

A Collection of Right-Wing Japanese Propaganda Buses

If you’ve ever spent any time in Japan, you’ve seen them: big black buses blaring right-wing propaganda. And today, you’re going to see an entire fleet of them. If Japanese itasha enthusiasts gather, Japanese right-wingers do, too. Here, it was also to mark Japan’s creation. This weekend, that’s exactly what happened. Feb. 11 is National…

Boy, Is China’s Illegal Gray Market Blatant

Looking for pc games in China? Not a problem, they’re sold everywhere. Console games and consoles? Not a problem, they’re also sold everywhere, despite the fact that video game consoles are banned in China. The sale of gaming consoles in China falls into the category of the gray market. Despite the connotations of a black…

Mmm… Octopus Tentacles

Have a nice weekend? This Sunday, like so many Sundays before, I made dinner. I was actually somewhat nervous about our Kotaku East rollout, and I do find cooking (and drinking while cooking) relaxing. So I made one easy dish I can make fairly well: takoyaki. Takoyaki is often translated as “octopus balls” in English,…

Giant Gundam? No, Tiny (and Adorable) Gundam.

Japan is famous for its giant mecha statues. But not all Gundam are huge. At this weekend’s Wonder Festival in Chiba, a little kid showed up with his father, ready to cosplay. The kid wore a homemade Gundam costume, proving once and for all that you’re never too young to dress like a giant mecha.…

The Wonder and the Horror of Japanese Cosplay

The Wonder Festival roared through Japan over the weekend. The biannual event is a gathering of figure collectors and makers—as well as cosplayers. Sister site Kotaku Japan was on hand to capture the cosplay festivities, which range from fantastic to frightening. Japanese websites Asagawo Blog and Gigazine were also on hand, too. You can see…