Power Outage Knocked Out Valve, Steam; All Services Being Restored [UPDATE]

[Update 3:58 p.m. EST] On the Steam forums and via Twitter, Valve has said that a power failure in their data center’s uninterruptible power supplies was responsible. “The power is back on now and we’re working to get service restored as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.” [Update 3:06…

Unreal’s Next Engine Will Need a Console At Least Ten Times More Powerful than the Xbox 360

The human eye can only perceive 72 frames per second. We’ve been seeing games at 60 frames per second for some time. And as graphics approach photorealism with current computing power, some suggest that the days of giant leaps in visual quality are past us, and we’ll be seeing smaller refinements going forward. Not so,…

Link, Ryu, Samus and More Return to Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0 Today

The highly anticipated—and it says a lot that term is being used with a flash game—Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0 is available to play now from Jay Pavlina and Exploding Rabbit. You can reacquaint yourself with its new features in that video or just head right over and see for yourself. The cast from the…

European Gamers Get a Shot at Early Mass Effect 3 Demo Starting Today

North American gamers have been trying since about Friday to win their way into early access to the Mass Effect 3 demo, which begins on Tuesday. European gamers also get a chance with their own Facebook game. Europe’s Mass Effect Mission Command app involves a hacking minigame but the chances of winning also seem to…

Gotham City ‘Shoppers

No, we are not doing a special Whitney Houston-themed ‘Shop Contest, as I threatened. We’ve got some Gotham City exploitables, courtesy of a viral marketing stunt for the game that released earlier this week, that are just waiting for you to apply some vigilante funny. To the ersatz Batpoles! Source Image: Actual People Dressed as…

Start Your Engines for a Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Sequel

Publisher Sega will release a sequel to Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing this holiday season, Kotaku has learned. Toys associated with the franchise were displayed in a booth at the Toy Fair in New York this Sunday, where an attendant confirmed that Sega is making a sequel to the franchise-crossing kart racing game. There will…

Weekend Talk Amongst Yourselves

Good morning and welcome back to Talk Amongst Yourselves, where you may feel free to discuss all topics related to video games. Whitney Houston is not one of them, though I did put out a bounty to find a news obituary that led with her contributions to video games. Outside of the odd song in…

Sunday Comics: Me Time

Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Legacy Control by Javis Ray published Feb. 6.—Read more of Legacy Control Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Feb. 6.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by…

Tebow Time: The Winners

Testing the limits of human overexposure, we put Madden Bowl XVII champion Tim Tebow up as the subject of last week’s ‘Shop Contest. Twenty of you, many not knowing what the hell football is, responded with brilliant depictions of the NFL’s messiah. We’ve got all of them, including winner pnkero, inside! Getting started, I want…

DLC? Title Update? Whatever, Gotham City Impostors Promises a Big, Free Update in March

I’m not sure whoever’s writing up these notes is properly classifying what’s to come from Gotham City Impostors, the downloadable shooter that released this week. “In March, we’re going to release our very first DLC for the low, low price of FREE,” they say. Considering one of the features is the ability to mute other…

Outgoing Twisted Metal Creator Would Consider Kickstarter Funding for His New Projects, Too

Despite his fears—as only he could express them—that crowdfunding for video games could become “a dick measuring contest,” Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe says he’d consider a Kickstarter project for backing, as he embarks on life starting up a new development studio. Of course the games development world sat up and took notice of Double…

Having Made This Bed, Will MLB 2K Lie In It Next Year?

Mark Little flicks the joystick and opens a special developer’s menu in Major League Baseball 2K12. The screen jumps to an empty ballpark, with a few lines representing the trajectory of a pitch and the timing of the batter trying to hit it. Little starts fooling with some ratings, creating a situation involving a high-contact…

Bruticus Leads Transformers: Fall of Cybertron‘s Toy Store Invasion

Only four of the sexy robot designs from Transformers: War for Cybertron ever made it toy store shelves, a tragic missed opportunity. To ensure they don’t miss a second time, Hasbro and High Moon Studios are planning a much bigger toy line for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron How big? Combaticons, transform and form Bruticus. That…

Transformers Bruticus Concept Art

Transformers Bruticus Toy Images

Transformers Bruticus Screens

Machine-Gun This Truck from the Comfort of Your Computer Desk on Valentine’s Day

Out in the middle of the desert, a remote-controlled M249 Squad Automatic Weapon will unload its magazine into Sweet Tooth’s iconic ice cream truck from Twisted Metal, releasing on Tuesday for the PlayStation 3. The trigger will be thousands of spacebars from across the Internet, and the finger on one of them can be yours.…

Radiant Historia Gets a Re-Release in March

Radiant Historia released in North America more than a year ago for the DS and quickly distinguished itself as a top-flight JRPG. Trouble is, Atlus didn’t print enough copies to satisfy demand. Case in point: A new copy is now listing for $105 on the used-games brokerage Glyde. Well, fans who missed out the first…

“This is Crap,” Sony’s Chief of Development Said, After First Playing Demon’s Souls

We’ve heard (as far back at 2010) Sony admit that it blundered big time by not publishing Demon’s Souls in North America. Now we know why they passed. Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Computer Entertainment’s head of product development, told Game Informer that he played two hours of the game as it was close to final, and…

Take the Official Tour of the PlayStation Vita

After posting its official unboxing teaser video on Thursday, Sony yesterday published this 12-minute guided tour of the system, explaining all of the features and benefits of the PlayStation Vita, with Guy Longworth, PlayStation’s chief marketer, and John Koller, who is the boss of PlayStation’s handheld division. The PlayStation Vita launches in North America on…