Alice: Madness Returns Finds A Novel Use for the iPad and iPhone

With ten-year-plus gap between the new Alice: Madness Returns and its predecessor, American McGee’s Alice, maybe you could use a little refresher on what’s been going on in Wonderland and in Alice’s head. Good news? There’s an app for that. If you own an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, you can download a storybook that…

Sony Online Entertainment Fully Online; Account Holders May Claim 45 Days of Free Time

Sony Online Entertainment this afternoon sent password reset emails to its account holders, notifying them that all SOE services are back online and that they may claim 45 days of free playing time for any game they had activated on their Station Account before the massive cyber attack of late April took SOE’s servers offline.…

Are the Next Ratchet & Clank‘s Pre-Order Incentives Cool or are They Just Supposed to Piss Fans Off?

According to the people who want to sell us the next Ratchet & Clank game, “everyone’s favorite Ratchet & Clank weapon” is the Sheepinator, a gun that transforms bad guys into sheep. According to these same game-selling people, the only way for any series fan to get the “classic version” of that weapon in the…

Why Does NBA All-Star Blake Griffin Want to be in Rage?

The tie-in between reigning NBA Rookie of the Year Blake Griffin and Rage, the forthcoming post-apocalyptic first person shooter from id Software and Bethesda Softworks, eludes me. Griffin’s last (and only) video game gig came on the cover of NCAA Basketball 10, canceled four months after release. Maybe he’s seeking redemption? Maybe he hung onto…

Will Modern Warfare 3 Skip The Wii?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be out this fall, but whether it’s coming out for the Wii is a shaky proposition. The early indication, if a listing by retail giant GameStop is accurate, is that it isn’t. The gaming chain’s web-page for MW3 lists three versions—Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Wii critics…

Forever a Champion

Forever a Champion | Randy “Macho Man” Savage, one of the greatest performers in the history of all professional wrestling, died today in a car accident in Florida. He was 58. (Photo: Frank Micelotta | Getty) It’s Our Last Day on Earth. What are you going to play? Tomorrow is the Rapture, according to a…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I’ll be catching up to my fellow Kotaku editors on their L.A. Noire progress this weekend, finally getting my feet wet with Rockstar’s detective thriller. I hope to be pleasantly surprised with the game as I was with last year’s Red Dead Redemption During breaks, I’ll squeeze in some Dungeon Raid, an addiction that only…

Mortal Kombat‘s Multiplayer is Free to All While PlayStation Store Remains Offline

Until PlayStation Store returns, Warner Bros. has suspended the “Kombat Pass,” the one-use code (included free in retail copies) that enables online play for Mortal Kombat. That means anyone with a copy of the game, used or new, can play online for free. However, when PlayStation Store comes online, “users will be able to enter…

What Can We All Learn from the Xbox Live Banning of ‘Pound Her Stank’?

Xbox Live technical support will be extra busy over the course of this week and the next as a new software update rolls out, bringing sweeping bans to those with modified consoles. But one fresh account banning from this week is more educational than the rest. An Xbox Live member with the gamertag “pound her…

This Week in the Business: 200 Million

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week… QUOTE | “We know we owe a great deal.” – Sony’s statement to its “valued” PSN partners as the company began to restore the PlayStation Network in some countries. QUOTE | “Derivative, uninspired, narcissistic.” – Former Ubisoft developer and Splinter Cell and Far Cry…

Welcome Back to Killzone 3, Here’s Double XP

Now that Killzone 3 players can get online and kill each other once again, Guerrilla Games and Sony gives them incentive to do so in the form of a double XP weekend running now through 10AM UK time Monday morning.

Author of Negative Conduit 2 Review Becomes Target of Studio’s Ire, His Novel Attacked on Amazon

Video game development company High Voltage Software was so chagrined by a negative review of their game, The Conduit 2, its creative director may have encouraged studio staff to retaliate against the author—by inundating the Amazon page for his novel with negative reviews. T. Michael Murdock made no secret of his dislike—and outright distaste—for the…

Now Playing in CityVille: Kung Fu Panda 2

If FarmVille gets GagaVille, what does CityVille get? Jack Black as a tubby martial artist bear. Close enough. Zynga has teamed up with DreamWorks for the first ever in-game integration for CityVille, the Facebook city building game played by more than 88 million people. Starting today, players can destroy some low rent housing in order…

At Blip Festival, the People are Almost as Cool as the Music

The first thing I thought about this morning, as I opened my eyes, was that the cat trying to rouse me from my hung-over sleep sounded like a Game Boy. The second thing is that I had a really, really good time at the opening show night of Blip Festival 2011 last night. This year’s…

Put an Assault Rifle in Your PC with This Assassin Motherboard

You can go the route of modesty with a gaming rig—sure, but there’s something to be said for the glowing, flowing, completely outrageous rig of conspicuous PC carnage. How about a motherboard that looks like a disassembled gun? The Gigabyte G1.Assassin straps enormo-heatsinks in the shape of barrels and a full magazine. And it looks…

If Dadaists Opened An Arcade, It Would Look Like This

While debate persists over the merit of video games an art form, the medium has reached an undeniable milestone: the emergence of an active counter-culture. Enter Babycastles—an independent video game collective, housed within a lively exhibition space on the border between Brooklyn and Queens. When the collective hosted an exhibition in Manhattan last October, we…

Blip Festival 2011, Photos by Chris Person

So-so PSP Game Gangs of London Is Unexpectedly Coming to the Silver Screen

Remember Gangs of London? You’re forgiven if you don’t, because it’s a 2006 PSP game from Sony’s Team SOHO—The Getaway guys!—that very few people actually liked. But one British filmmaker was a fan and has since optioned rights to make a movie based on the game. The Hollywood Reporter notes that director Menhaj Huda wants…

The Cars of L.A. Noire

The hyperrealism in the groundbreaking 1940’s police detective game L.A. Noire extends to the 95 era-appropriate production and concept cars that populate the gritty game environment. Here are over 60 of the real vehicles from the game. [Jalopnik]

Blip Festival 2011, Photos by EMi Spicer