This Space Intentionally Left Blank

Folks, if you’d like to talk amongst yourselves about a variety of topics, video game related or not, this is your shot. Tonight’s open thread is all yours, so let’s make the best of it. Should be a crazy week, with Mr. Brian D. Crecente here in Los Angeles prepping for the big E3 2011…

Playing One Hour of Dead Island, The Zombie Apocalypse of My Dreams

Techland’s Dead Island reminds me of a recurring nightmare, an unsettling dream of helplessness in which my body feels too fatigued and feeble to fight off nameless, faceless attackers. And beyond a cinematically inventive trailer, that’s my favorite thing about Dead Island so far. Playing Dead Island, an exotic, violent, zombie-infested role-playing game, from the…

Sony Thinks Your PSN Pain and Suffering is Worth Up to $104

Sony is sorry it got hacked and that you’ve been locked-out of the Playstation Network for over three weeks. Now it would like to buy your forgiveness. Exactly how much the company is willing to part with depends largely upon what kind PSN-user you were previous to the outage, and which of the two Sony…

We’ll Forgive Another Take on Catherine‘s Scantily-Clad Actress for Not Being Good at the Game

Launching day-and-date with Atlus’ sexy Persona spin-off Catherine, Another Take on Catherine is 70 minutes of Japanese gravure idol CoCo demonstrating how much she looks like the game’s title character both with and without clothes. Just don’t ask her to play the game. Another Take on Catherine is one of the latest releases from Studio…

Dragon Age Legends: Remix 01 Delivers Hack-and-Slash in a Flash

Dragon Age Legends developer EA2D turned over all of the assets to its Facebook strategy role-playing game to acclaimed Flash game developer Pixelante, and the action-packed Dragon Age Legends: Remix 01 is what they got back. Pixelante’s Evan Miller isn’t one to create slow, Facebook-style strategy role-playing experiences. EA2D already made that game, so when…

Lego Sets Launched Into Space

Hide Your Wallets! Valve Now Doing Steam Deals Daily

No stranger to sales, Valve is now committing to “a new 24-hour deal, every single day” via its Steam digital distribution service. Valve christens the daily deal with Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, currently 75% off.

Get ‘First Access’ to Duke Nukem Forever: The Demo on June 3

Duke Nukem Forever is still (*fingers crossed*) on schedule to release June 10 internationally, June 14 in North America. But a select few will get their hands on Duke’s long-awaited adventure a bit earlier. On June 3, Gearbox Software and 2K Games will unleash the Duke Nukem Forever demo on the world, but only to…

Officer Down

L.A. ACCIDENTAL | Deleted scene from my play-through of L.A. Noire’s Fallen Idol case.(Screenshot by Stephen Totilo) Mass Effect Fans Worry That Expanded Gay Options Will Create Inconsistencies, Alter Canon Mass Effect developer Casey Hudson’s announcement less than a day ago that same-sex romances would be given fuller and more explicit articulation in Mass Effect…

Best Buy’s Giving Away L.A. Noire DLC at Midnight

According to a Best Buy circular, the first 16 lucky gamers who line up to get their copies of L.A. Noire at midnight tonight will get access to a yet-to-be-announced DLC case, The Nicholson Electroplating Arson Case. [Joystiq]

A Doom Tribute That Also Kind of ‘Fixes’ Doom‘s Box Art

This is not a knock on the original, iconic Doom box art, gorgeously illustrated by the late great Don Ivan Punchatz. This is just a tribute. But some may consider it a “fix” of the artwork that graced id’s early ’90s shooter. This is the work of “Agent Scarlet,” an artist we’ve featured more than…

Action-RPG Darkspore Is or Was Coming to Xbox 360, PS3

In his resume, level-designer Jordan Patz claims to have “worked with Maxis to modify Darkspore for release on Xbox/PS3.” Wasn’t that just a PC game? The résumé has since been modified: it now links to a YouTube video of a flying cat. Very Suspicious. [joystiq]

Report: Forza World, Dance Central 2 and Kinect Games for ‘The Hardcore’ At E3 2011

Microsoft may have had some of its Kinect-heavy E3 2011 showing spoiled a bit early by a Eurogamer report, which pegs “at least 10 non-sequel Kinect games” for the show, including some aimed squarely at the “hardcore” Xbox 360 crowd. Eurogamer‘s unnamed sources point to reveals of Kinect Sports 2 and Dance Central 2, a…

Before Playing Gotham City Impostors Read Batman: Impostors

Want to get more out of Monolith Productions upcoming downloadable multiplayer game Gotham City Impostors? Then you’ll want to read Batman: Impostors, an epic four-issue story arc that first appeared in Detective Comics last year. Gotham City Impostors is a cunning way to deliver a multiplayer Batman experience without having to worry about who plays…

Mass Effect Fans Worry That Expanded Gay Options Will Create Inconsistencies, Alter Canon

Mass Effect developer Casey Hudson’s announcement less than a day ago that same-sex romances would be given fuller and more explicit articulation in Mass Effect 3 has unsurprisingly ignited a spark among many followers of the franchise. In previous Mass Effect games, only female versions of series hero Commander Shepard have had access to homosexual…

Darius Mason Didn’t Mean to Get All Those Martian Colonists Killed

In Red Faction: Armageddon, Darius Mason does indeed open up an ancient shaft on the surface of Mars, awakening a long-dormant alien race from its slumber to kill his fellow colonists in droves, but it’s not his fault. He was tricked. It’s all Adam Hale’s fault, though technically the blame lies on Darius’ grandfather Alec…

Sony Says ‘Welcome Back’ To PlayStation Network With These Freebies [Update: Now For North America Too!]

Now that the PlayStation Network has respawned across various parts of the globe this past weekend, Sony is saying sorry in the form of free PlayStation 3 and PSP games. The PlayStation maker has outlined its “Welcome Back” offering for Europe and North America. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s head of communications Nick Caplan writes today…

In Defense of a Christ-Centered Review of Portal 2

Note from Kotaku: We recently republished an article by video game journalist and critic Tom Chick, who complained that an article about the game Portal 2 on a site called Christ-Centered Gamer lacked a “shred of insight, much less Christian insight.” Shortly after publishing that story, which originally ran at QuarterToThree.com, we heard from one…

An A Capella Group Pays Homage to the Portal 2 Turrets

This is an A Capella version of Cara Mia, the “turret opera” from late in Portal 2. I don’t really know why you’d sing this, but vocalizing music as beeps and boops is a big part of A Capella, so it works just fine. If you want to see the original, you can watch it…

Now You Know Your Video Game ABCs

A is for alien, B is for Bomberman, and C is for Chun-Li. Do you know your video game ABCs? Artist Fabian Gonzalez knows his ABCs. He’s created a series of colorful character-specific alphabets featuring superheroes and Simpsons characters ,and now he focuses his talents on creating 26 video game themed letters for your viewing…