Simple Question…What is Sega?

We recently discovered that the first “frequently asked question” in the Xbox section of the website Team Xbox is “What is the Xbox?” Sometimes the most obvious questions are the best ones, so, inspired by Team Xbox, I turned to Twitter and asked: “What is Sega?” The First Answer I Got “The publisher of Platinum’s…

Tribes Gallery

How Many Interns Does it Take to Cover a Press Event?

Last week, ace Kotaku Interns Jen Schiller and Joshua Rivera underwent a vital video game journalism rite of passage: their first publisher Press Event. At the suggestion of their mentor and spiritual guide Stephen Totilo, the two met up afterward via the magic of the internet to discuss their thoughts on the proceedings. This began…

Tribes: Ascend Revisits the Series’ Glory Days

I first played Starsiege: Tribes at the 1998 E3 Expo in Atlanta, Georgia. A relative newcomer to the multiplayer first-person shooter, I fondly recall ignoring whatever objective our team was supplied with, instead spending my time whooshing about the map with my jetpack, giggling to myself. Eventually I got a copy of the game for…

HBO Go Coming To Consoles, HBO Vaguely Says

The HBO Go app that lets people watch HBO shows from iPads and other things that aren’t cable boxes is coming to unnamed game consoles, according to a Gigaom report of a recent Time Warner earnings call. The app has been specific to certain providers (blocked by Time Warner Cable in New York, for example),…

Forget Quake, It’s Cake Team Arena Time

In celebration of this weekend’s QuakeCon and the 20th anniversary of id Software, id and Bethesda sent me the most hideous cake I’ve ever had sitting on my coffee table, and I shop at the Publix bakery. The Strogg make great arena fighters, but their freakish alien visage doesn’t exactly scream “eat me!” That’s the…

Nintendo’s Problem Isn’t Hardware—They Stopped Making Killer Games

Nintendo’s biggest problem isn’t hardware—it’s games. The proper noun that should send Nintendo watchers the most chills isn’t Apple—it’s Wii Fit Apple is merely the topic of a question, the one about who Nintendo is competing with. The other is an answer—possibly the missing answer—about what Nintendo needs to be a confident giant again rather…

TERA Online‘s Massive Monsters Make a 2012 Play Date

You know that action MMO TERA Online I can’t stop talking about? You’re going to have to deal with it for at least another seven months, as En Masse Entertainment opens up a Spring 2012 release window. I played TERA Online at GamesCom 2010, and it will be playable again at GamesCom 2011, but not…

Confessions of a Beta Testing Addict

Commenter gametr4x loves hunting for bugs in PC games so much, he’s got multiple email accounts set up so he can apply to beta tests to his heart’s content, but it only took one account to be featured in today’s Speak Up on Kotaku. Does anybody else here apply to beta programs a lot? I…

One More Reason to Go To Gamescom, PAX: Borderlands 2

Perhaps lost this morning amidst the excitement of confirmation that Gearbox is indeed making a new Borderlands, is that the role-playing shooter will be shown off at Gamescom and PAX Prime later this month. We’ll be there. Will you?

Talk Amongst Yourselves

In case your summer goals included becoming a Pokemon master, you’re running out of time to catch ’em all!! Hurry! Special thanks to TAY contributor buckyboy2009 for today’s TAYpic (second time’s the charm!) Submit your images to #TAYpics, and please keep submitting until you’re out of good ideas, at which time, we recommend you keep…

An Argument For Video Games That Don’t Waste Our Time

In a very real way, games play us. We may hold the controller, but often it feels as though the games—through their systems, design, and pacing—hold most of the cards. And as game developers cotton to the specific design elements that compel us to play (and keep playing), many of them are reaping financial gains…

Requiem For An iPhone Game

Free running through a dream, leaping over crates, running along walls, dashing through gaps, Requiem is a slightly marred look at what Mirror’s Edge could have been on the iPhone. In Requiem you play a boy lost in a nightmare world chased by a raging bull, collecting stars on his way to a pegasus read…

It’s a Fashion Show, a Cosplay One

Tera Firma | TOKYO, JAPAN: Cosplay show at a recent Tera event. (Photo: アキバブログ) Borderlands 2 Is Official. Borderlands 2 Is Coming. Post-apocalyptic shooter Borderlands is getting a sequel. It’s called Borderlands 2 The Sweeping Video Game Art of Nicolas Bouvier Frenchman Nicolas Bouvier has been drawing pretty pictures for the video game industry since…

Boy, This Lady Loves The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

When nerd heroine Shoko Nakagawa isn’t appearing in Pokémon movies, she’s putting molted bug shells in her hair. And when she’s not doing that, she’s doing other things, like appearing in commercials! Such as a series of spots for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, a game that she was extremely excited to…

Borderlands 2 Is Official. Borderlands 2 Is Coming.

Post-apocalyptic shooter Borderlands is getting a sequel. It’s called Borderlands 2 Currently in development, the title is being created by Gearbox Software, who developed the first title (above). Like the previous title, the game is slated for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. “Combining invention and evolution, Borderlands 2 features all-new characters, skills, environments, enemies,…

So What Was One Inspiration for Star Fox?

Well, there was a fox temple Star Fox developer Dylan Cuthbert told Kotaku about. But that’s not all. The game was also inspired by British television. In a recent Nintendo interview, both company president Satoru Iwata and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto professed their love for 1960s British puppet show Thunderbirds Miyamoto admitted that licensing Thunderbirds…

How One of Gaming’s Coolest Studios Helped a Dude Get Married

There have been gamers who’ve hacked games to ask their special someone to take the plunge, but how many game studios have decided to lend a hand in popping the question? Q-Games is the Kyoto-based studio behind a whole host of wonderful titles, such as the PixelJunk series. It doesn’t only make video games, it…

The Sweeping Video Game Art of Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier

Frenchman Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier has been drawing pretty pictures for the video game industry since 1996, in a career that’s taken him from Darkworks (Cold Fear) to Ubisoft to id Software and now to Microsoft, where he’s working on the upcoming Halo 4 In that time his art helped shape the vision of games like…

Why the Hell Does DirectX Install Every Time I Buy a Game off Steam?

It’s a trivial question most PC gamers will have pondered at one time or another, as upon booting up a new (or, more importantly, old) game bought from Steam, they have to wait while DirectX installs. Again. For, like, the 100th time Turns out it’s not a Steam error. It’s just the price you pay…