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Metal Man, Air Man, Flash Man… Lego Man?
I love creative fan works. I never cease to be amazed at the brilliant drawings, sculptures, songs, videos, and more that devoted fans with artistic talent create and share. Today, reader Gavin sent us a tip about this Mega Man mural. Measuring an impressive five feet on every side, this wall art depicting Mega Man…
By Kate Cox Published February 20, 2012 - Uncategorized
Rift Breaks World Record For Virtual Love
Love was in the air in the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing game Rift last week, where players set a Guinness World Record for most in-game marriages in a 24-hour period. Rift tallied 21,879 marriages between 9am PST on February 14 and 9am PST on February 15. Assuming nobody decided to shack up with…
By Jason Schreier Published February 20, 2012 - Uncategorized
Who Cries for the Non-Player Characters?
We see them every day, but do we really look at them? When a nameless, faceless non-player character stumbles into your line of fire, who sheds a single tear? Commenter Sol does, and he wonders if you do as well in today’s Speak Up on Kotaku. Does anyone else feel sorry for NPCs? Strange question,…
By Mike Fahey Published February 20, 2012 - Uncategorized
Uncharted 3 Runs Away With Writing Award
The Writers Guild of America is a slight misnomer. In fact, there are two separate unions, WGA West and WGA East. But they work in tandem, and once a year they come together to celebrate the past year’s achievements in writing. The 2011 awards were presented on Sunday, February 19, in a simultaneous, shared event…
By Kate Cox Published February 20, 2012 - Uncategorized
Talk Amongst Yourselves
Praise be [Higher_Power_Of_Choice]! This is Kotaku’s official forum, known affectionately as Talk Amongst Yourselves, where we gather on a daily basis to discuss the joys and wonders of gaming all rolled up into one. Pit hasn’t yet made his return to a starring role in the upcoming 3DS title Kid Icarus: Uprising Apparently, Pan1da7—there’s no…
By Evan Narcisse Published February 20, 2012 -
UncategorizedMechAssault Creator Playing With Robots Once More
Day 1 Studios, the development studio behind MechAssault and F.E.A.R. 3, will release a new mech game called Reign of Thunder, it said today. There’s no info on platforms or a release date for the game, which sure looks a lot like MechAssault. All we know is that it stars giant robots attacking one another…
By Jason Schreier Published February 20, 2012 -
UncategorizedThe Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Ends in Crash-Causing Chaos
To celebrate the successful press beta weekend for Guild Wars 2, the nice folks at ArenaNet gathered us all together in the main courtyard of Divinity’s Reach and killed us over and over again. The lag was bad enough with somewhere around a hundred members of the press and assorted ArenaNet staff bunched together in…
By Mike Fahey Published February 20, 2012 -
UncategorizedTen Things I Learned From the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend
Of the more than a dozen hours I spent playing in the Guild Wars 2 press beta event this past weekend, seven involved actively battling enemies, three and a half were spent exploring, and a half hour was dedicated to creating my four different characters. The final hour involved trying to throw myself into a…
By Mike Fahey Published February 20, 2012 -
UncategorizedInteractive Mass Effect Fan Film Lets Viewers Go Paragon or Renegade
There’s quite a few fan-generated homages to Bioware’s sci-fi universe out on the interwebs but surprisingly few use the twist that “Assignment” does. Featuring two Alliance operatives named Hale and Meer, the clip by Sneaky Zebra Productions lets players choose between alternate endings pegged to Mass Effect’s signature good-guy Paragon or kind-of-a-jerk Renegade behavior poles.…
By Evan Narcisse Published February 20, 2012 -
UncategorizedI’m Not Excited About Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Just Because of Metroplex
In the next major Transformers video game, you will be able to issue orders to a massive, rampaging Metroplex. You will be about to control Bruticus. You will be able to transform, as Grimlock, from robot to Tyrannosaurus Rex. You’ll breathe flames from your jaws. You will be able to fulfill the fantasies not of…
By Stephen Totilo Published February 20, 2012 - Kotaku East
Nobody Makes Sexy Anime Lamps like China
Long known as the maker of the world’s goods, China has also been an art development powerhouse for the game and animation industries. But hentai cartoons? Video game developers and companies have been using China as a source of cheap labor to do basic game development to art development long before the rise of the…
By Eric Jou Published February 20, 2012 - Uncategorized
This Dude’s Fun
Nice Sweater | CHIBA, JAPAN: Japanese celebrity Tanoshingo showed off Sega’s new arcade game MaiMai in style. (Photo: GameImpressWatch) Mass Effect 3‘s Spectacular “Take Back the Earth” Trailer Gives Us All a Reason to Fight If last week’s teaser trailer for Mass Effect 3 got your juices flowing, you might want to grab a towel…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 20, 2012 - Kotaku East
The People Who Make Your Game Consoles Still Make Next to Nothing
Taiwanese company Foxconn, the maker of most of the worlds electronics and our favorite gaming consoles, announced that it had raised the wages of junior level factory workers in Shenzhen from 1,800RMB (US$290) to 2,200RMB ($349) a month. The move to raise wages comes at no surprise as Foxconn and many of Apple’s suppliers in…
By Eric Jou Published February 20, 2012 - Uncategorized
iPhone Belts? iPhone Flashlights? iPad Concrete? Oh China.
China’s Proview is taking Apple to court over the iPad moniker. While that looks to be one of Apple’s biggest legal headaches in China, it’s not its only one: Chinese companies are using patent law right and left to create a whole host of iPhone and iPad products. These products could ultimately dilute the iPad…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 20, 2012 - Kotaku East
So, I Want To Build a LEGO Table
Yep. My two sons really, really love LEGO. And I figured that if I’m going to build them something, it should be a LEGO table. Building stuff is kind of hard in Japan, because most people that live in cities live in apartment buildings. That means, they don’t have a garage per se, and need…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 20, 2012 - Kotaku East
Teen Bought Video Game. Mother Got Angry. Teen Stabbed Mother.
On Feb. 19 in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, police arrested a fourteen year-old boy. Earlier that evening, he apparently stabbed his mother with a sashimi knife. The cause? A dispute over a video game purchase. At 5:35pm, the teen stabbed his mother in the back one time, reported Yomiuri News. The mother, age 50, suffered serious…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 20, 2012 -
Kotaku EastChina is Linsane. It’s Trying To Claim Jeremy Lin.
If you’re a basketball fan, or a New Yorker, you’ve definitely heard about Linsanity. It’s the underdog story of a Chinese American Harvard graduate being undrafted and cut from NBA teams before exploding in, well, “Linsanity”. And for the past two weeks, it has been the talk of the sports world. No one saw Jeremy…
By Eric Jou Published February 20, 2012 - Kotaku East
Are You a Woman? Would You Like a Role in Yakuza 5?
SEGA is currently holding an audition for to decide on a new female character to appear on is upcoming game, Yakuza 5. From last November to this January, Sega received over a thousand applications. It’s been narrowed down to 200 applicants from across the country. On the 18th, four judges oversaw the audition in Tokyo…
By Toshitaka Tachibana Published February 20, 2012 - Uncategorized
Breaking: Gabe Newell Grows Beard
Progress Score: Initially startling, but apprehension soon gives way to an appreciation of its wispy whiteness. Post-apocalyptic desert ranger meets Santa Claus. Most likely not a Half-Life Episode 3 tease. Most likely Valve’s Gabe Newell [Penny Arcade Report | Pic by Dabe Alan] UPDATE – Wow. This little thing generated some unexpected responses. For what…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 20, 2012 - Kotaku East
Weirdo Pikachus in Tokyo, Taking Trains and Eating Burgers
Tokyo is pretty normal. Though, sometimes, there’s the occasional oddness. In year’s past, people would simply mutter to themselves, “Boy that was strange.” Now they take photos and paste them on the internet. Progress! This weekend, a group of individual dressed as Pikachu, along with a sole Ash cosplayer, took to the Tokyo streets, popping…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 20, 2012