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Super Smash Bros. (and Everyone Else) Brawl
The house is full with this group of backseat gaming legends! Artist Nina Matsumoto has them all fighting for the controller. (Complete List) Check out the gaming store that commissioned this piece HERE Related Rampage: Transbender Backseat Gaming by Nina Matsumoto (Blog) (deviantART) (Twitter) Need your daily fill of geek eye candy? If so, head…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 25, 2011 -
UncategorizedParkour Pioneer Cole Phelps Wants His Damn Hat Back
I forget at what point exactly but in L.A. Noire Cole Phelps remarks that his hat cost $12. How much is that worth in 2011 money? Dunno, but it’s worth falling off a house a dozen times in 1947. How the hell did his hat get up there in the first place?
By Owen Good Published May 25, 2011 -
UncategorizedDiablo III‘s Skill-Transforming Runestone System in Action
When it was first explained to me way back in 2008, the power-enhancing rune system of Diablo III sounded like it would lead to countless permutations of every skill and spell in the game. Now it’s only five, but they’re still pretty spectacular. This slimmed-down runestone system made its debut at last year’s BlizzCon. Rather…
By Mike Fahey Published May 25, 2011 -
UncategorizedKonami’s Birds of Steel Brings WWII Plane on Plane Violence to Consoles
Fans of World War II era aerial dogfighting may want to enlist in Konami’s Birds of Steel, coming to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation courtesy of developer Gaijin Entertainment (IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, Apache Air Assault). Birds of Steel promises to bring online and offline Axis versus Allies aerial combat to consoles, stuffing “over…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
This is Real War, Viewed from the Call of Duty Camera Angle
In real, modern combat, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some soldiers have cameras attached to their helmets. The videos make it to YouTube (and on Kotaku, too), giving the rest of the world a first-person view of real combat. This week, The New York Times presents a simultaneously stunning and mundane video of…
By Stephen Totilo Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
Japan Falls in Love with the Naughty Akiba’s Trip, But Portal 2 Not So Much
A game about stripping the clothes off of vampires in otaku haven Akihabara is Japan’s bestselling game right now, the curious and cleverly titled Akiba’s Strip for PSP. That game easily beat the new Dead or Alive and Valve’s Portal 2 overseas. Dead or Alive: Dimensions settled for second this week, a debut not so…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 25, 2011 -
UncategorizedDoes This Experiment Prove That Violent Games Increase Aggressive Behavior?
In a University of Missouri study sure to be cited by anti-gaming pundits for years to come, researchers provide what could be considered solid proof of the link between violent video games, aggression, and wearing funny hats. Associate professor of psychology at the University of Missouri Bruce Bartholow and his colleagues have seen studies claiming…
By Mike Fahey Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
Get Your Call of Duty: Black Ops PS3 Bundle On Next Week
Sony confirms today that a new PlayStation 3 bundle will go on sale this month—the one we told you about a few weeks ago—one including a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops and a 160GB console. Even better? The $299.99 USD asking price also gets you a “First Strike Content Pack” and a fancy…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 25, 2011 -
UncategorizedWhat if You Could Play Pool with the Moon or Smash Galaxies Together?
A reader who was tired of my stories about L.A. Noire recently wondered why I hadn’t written about Universe Sandbox. What’s that? A simulation of the universe I can run on a Windows computer? And here I am at work on a Mac? At least I can watch the trailer of this marvelous-looking creation. You…
By Stephen Totilo Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
Will Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Be ‘Better With Kinect’?
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier‘s box art seems to think so, or at least the version uploaded to (and then removed from) Xbox.com today, touting Kinect support for the oft-delayed Tom Clancy game on Xbox 360. Could the delay of Future Soldier to sometime between March 2011 and April 2012 have something to do with Kinect…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
The 2011 Into the Pixel Collection Celebrates the Finest in Video Game Art
Every year experts from the fine art world and the interactive entertainment industry bestow upon video game artists the highest honor they can receive — inclusion in the Into the Pixel art collection. Let’s take a look at the seventeen pieces that made the cut this year. The Into the Pixel collection is a joint…
By Mike Fahey Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
One Year Later, Did Sony Keep Their E3 2010 Promises?
E3 is a den of promises. Promises sell products. And according to the cynics of the world, promises are meant to be broken. Yesterday, we took a look at the promises that Microsoft made at last year’s E3. Today, we scrutinize Sony. Did their PS3 and PSP-related promises bear out, or were we left feeling…
By Drew Cohen Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
GLaDOS Begins Aural Testing with Free Portal 2 Soundtrack Downloads
While the brilliant and mostly dead scientific minds at Aperture Science aren’t busy coming up with new ways for robots to kill you, they like to kick back and relax with a little testing music. Now you can too, with the first of three “downloadable aural stimulus packages” featuring the music of Portal 2 Get…
By Mike Fahey Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
The Farmville IPO
Zynga, the Facebook games company and creator of Farmville, is reportedly about to file for an initial public offering of stock. There is no better investment for cynics looking to bet on the exploitation of America’s dumbest, most vulnerable consumers. Zynga rakes in $850 million per year in revenue and $400 million per year in…
By Ryan Tate Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
BioShock Infinite Propaganda Making 2011 Seem Like a Waste of Time
BioShock Infinite isn’t coming out until next year. That’s a pity, because the people who are making BioShock Infinite keep telling us interesting things about the game. They keep showing us interesting things about the game. Now they’re sharing these new pieces of artwork—ads and propaganda from within the 1912 world of the game. And…
By Stephen Totilo Published May 25, 2011 -
UncategorizedBehold the Shrunken Glory of MineCraft Running on an Android Phone
We’ve all seen the picture, now let’s drool over how well MineCraft Pocket Edition runs on the Xperia Play. Making its big debut at E3 2011 early next month, MineCraft Pocket Edition is the portable block building game you’ve all been waiting for. Shown here running on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play, this tiny version of…
By Mike Fahey Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
Show Her You Love Her With a Pus-Filled Zombie
Women love jewelry. Women love large, shambling, goo-filled undead creatures. Combine the two and you’ve got a one-way ticket to a night of messy romance, thanks to this charming Left 4 Dead Boomer necklace. Video game jewelry artist DeadlyPretty is a big fan of Valve’s Left 4 Dead series, and as it happens she creates…
By Mike Fahey Published May 25, 2011 - Uncategorized
Aion Stays Alive with Update 2.5
Today NCsoft’s massively-multiplayer online game Aion upgrades to version 2.5, Empyrean Calling, delivering a host of new content, features, and tweaks aimed at pleasing players current and lapsed. Is it enough to lure fresh MMO fans to the game? NCsoft seems to think so, choosing today’s major update as the launching point for the game’s…
By Mike Fahey Published May 25, 2011 -
UncategorizedThe Best Feature of the Xperia Play is Kristen Schaal Acting Ridiculous
Kristen Schaal’s web ads were the highlight of the launch of the Xperia Play, the device previously referred to as the PlayStation Phone. Sony Ericsson prolongs the magic with a series of outtakes from the actress and comedienne’s commercial shoot.
By Mike Fahey Published May 25, 2011 -
UncategorizedDeathSpank Returns in The Baconing, an Apparently Improved and Ridiculous Sequel
There will be a new DeathSpank game this summer and it will involve a quest for the Fires of Bacon. It will also be a greatly improved follow-up to last year’s downloadable DeathSpank adventures, two comedic riffs on Diablo Like Hothead Games’ previous DeathSpank third-person action games, the new one will put players in charge…
By Stephen Totilo Published May 25, 2011