With over a decade’s experience in video game concept art, Carlo Arellano has worked on some of the industry’s biggest franchises, including World of Warcraft, Resistance and God of War More recently, he’s been involved in designing characters for Insomniac’s Overstrike, that sci-fi game from E3 that was announced and then promptly slid into the…
Arkham CIty’s had some DX11 problems since its delayed PC release. A new patch from Rocksteady tries to fix this, but only if you don’t have Windows Vista or 7 32-bit. If you do, it makes things worse. Oh dear. [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
Artist Erik Schumacher didn’t paint this striking image of Link atop Epona. It’s not a photo either. It’s a little bit of both, something called “photomanipulation”. What that means is he took dozens of existing images and smashed them together. Like a collage, only, seamless. Then he joins them all together with trimmings like Link’s…
Pull up a chair. It’s that time when Kotaku takes a break from it’s round the clock gaming news and how-is-this-news? and cozies up with some music. This is Soundtrack Tonight, we’ve got country music icon Chet Atkins playing “The Third Man Theme”, originally written and performed by Anton Karas for the 1949 film of…
Cyanide’s upcoming Game of Thrones RPG promises to let players explore the world of Westeros, rather than just be led around it by an author and/or a TV show. Since nobody has played the thing, or even knows that much about it, we can’t vouch for how good it is. We can vouch for how…
Love it or hate it, Final Fantasy deals in big, stylized worlds. In this “environmental trailer”, Final Fantasy XIII-2, the sequel to FFXIII, shows it is no exception. Kotaku already posted the Final Fantasy XIII-2 battle trailer. You can watch it here Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be released Jan. 31, 2012. Environmental Trailer [YouTube]
Researchers looking at cognitive science have long studied chess. But a story on Scientific American shows that chess’ days could soon be numbered, because a superior model is emerging: Blizzard’s StarCraft II Scientists are hailing the game for its ability to help them study “attention, multitasking, and learning”, the game’s quick speed and reliance on…
Before there were smartphones, Japanese people simply carried clamshell mobile phones. They were a bit harder to walk and send email with due to a small screen. People—most infamously schoolgirls—did it. Reading emails and websites was more difficult, too. Smartphones, however, make it easier to do both. There appear to be more and more people…
In Street Fighter‘s famous bonus stage, the goal is to smash cars. That’s the same goal in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition Ver. 2012—even if it looks like the goal of SF character is something else entirely. The glitch appears to happen after Ryu unleashes a shoryuken on the car. Even when time runs…
Activision’s Tony Hawk franchise took its first ever year off in 2011 because it had been run into the ground. Too many games in too many years with not enough new ideas. With the Spike Video Game Awards coming up, it appears that one year off is all Activision felt it could afford. “I’ll be…
Nintendo has admitted that, yes, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has a game breaking bug. What is this bug and how can you avoid it? Warning: Spoilers. The bug makes it impossible for players to complete the game’s “Song of the Hero” quest. The save file becomes corrupted meaning that players either have to…
On Saturday, twenty-two year-old Timothy Randall Clark was supposedly spotted in a Walmart back room stuffing video games in his clothes. The Walmart staffers didn’t have to call the cops. There were already 50 of them in the store. Like many American cities, Waldorf, Maryland has a “Shop with a Cop” program in which underprivileged…
It’s one of 2011’s more troubling, if less sexy developments: that of major publishers and platform holders finding ways to stop customers taking them to court if something goes wrong with their product or service. Sony was the first company to introduce a “no sue” clause as part of its terms of service in September,…
After a slight delay, the new Xbox Dashboard has begun rolling out to 360 owners around the world. Or, well, it would be, if Xbox Live wasn’t down for many of them. So be patient! Those of us at Kotaku still awake can’t connect to Xbox Live at all, and Microsoft’s support website carries a…
Top Best Adult Entertainment. It’s not a name that springs to mind alongside the likes of Nintendo, Blizzard, Valve or BioWare, and there’s a reason for that. This is one of the worst developers in the world. Not because they put out bad games, though that certainly helps. It’s because of the lies they dress…
Greetings, and a happy Tuesday to you. Welcome to another Kotaku open thread, where we come together to talk about games, life, the universe, and everything. Without further ado, a few conversation-starters and other bits and pieces from the Internet at large. Lots of cats today. Sorry, I don’t know what that’s about. The Best…
This week on the PlayStation store, we’ve got new full-game downloads for Dragon Age II and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, as well as the PSN game Wanted Corp. Plenty of games get DLC content, including Batman: Arkham City, which gives purchasers all of the skins that were initially offered as various pre-order bonuses. (Including…
Battlefield 3’s Back to Karkand map pack updates four of the most popular Battlefield 2 maps for DICE’s new shooter. The pack also includes four vehicles and ten weapons from Battlefield 2 as well as some new reward, achievements and some other tweaks. Back to Karkand is free to anyone who pre-ordered Battlefield 3, though…
The new 3DS update just hit in North America bringing with, among other things, the ability to create your own 3D videos. The update that just hit gives the Nintendo 3DS the ability to shoot up to ten minutes of 3D footage with the camera. And to create your own stop-motion photography. Other additions include…
It can be a challenge to buy a gift for your brainy, science-obsessed friend. What kind of games might he or she like? The science brains among us can be so intimidating, partly because it’s always scary buying things for smart people, but partly because who knows what those science people even like? Do they…
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