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Inside Japan’s Largest Cosplay Theme Park
At any geek event in Japan, you’ll see them: cosplayers. Convention centers are not ideal backgrounds for the fantasy of fancy costumes. Amateur photographers who aren’t happy with the shitty con setting even rent private spaces and hire cosplayers for more professional looking photos. While cosplayers continue to favor real backgrounds like abandoned buildings, empty…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 12, 2011 - Uncategorized
So, Nobody Is Buying PS1 Games On The PlayStation Phone
The big selling point of the Xperia Play, Sony’s first mobile phone to run its PlayStation Suite of handheld games, is the fact users can download PS1 games. So it’s a little weird that nobody seems to be doing that. Because the games are available on the Android Marketplace, it’s easy to see how many…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 12, 2011 - Uncategorized
The 3DS E-Shop Has Been Delayed
The 3DS launched without its online store being ready for business. Which was weird. Weirder still is that the store’s launch has now been pushed even further back (if only by a week or so). A brief announcement on Nintendo’s web site states that the online store, originally planned for release in late May, will…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 12, 2011 -
CultureTotal RecallThe HD Console Game From…1993?
While most people would peg the beginning of the high definition era around the time of the PlayStation 2 (some games able to run in 1080i), here’s one game that was running in HD nearly twenty years ago It’s Hudson’s Hi-Ten Bomberman, which has the honour of being the world’s very first high definition video…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 12, 2011 - Uncategorized
Lineage Shuts Down June 29, is Free-to-Play Until Then
After a run of more than 10 years, Lineage is “no longer financially viable in the West,” says publisher NCsoft, and its North American servers will be shut down permanently on June 29. Beginning now, the game is free-to-play until that date provided one has or had created a Lineage account before today. All existing…
By Owen Good Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Sony Online Entertainment Loses Development Chief to Zynga [Updated]
John Blakely, a nine-year veteran of Sony Online Entertainment and most recently its vice president of development, has apparently left the company for casual-games behemoth Zynga. Blakely’s LinkedIn resumé has him departing SOE as of last month to become general manager at Zynga. Update: Sony Online Entertainment has confirmed Blakely’s resignation and departure. In a…
By Owen Good Published May 11, 2011 -
UncategorizedCan one crazy dungeon master defeat the forces of neo-nerd hipster douchery?
When a neo-nerd hipster douchebag joins Scott’s old-school D&D game, it looks like heads are going to roll along with the dice. Help make this funny, original movie about geek culture a reality by donating! The film is called Zero Charisma, and it’s from an experienced group of filmmakers in Austin. They’re raising money for…
By Annalee Newitz Published May 11, 2011 -
UncategorizedGet In-N-Out Of There!
Greetings, Kotaku readers. Welcome to tonight’s open thread, which we’re doing animal style. Wait! Scratch that, I’m thinking of dinner from In-N-Out Burger. Speaking of the fine burger chain, In-N-Out came to Texas today and apparently beef loving locals completely lost their shit over the opening. In a world where we’re pretty used to having…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Check Out This NBA Star’s Massive Wingspan
This full-back tat by Andrei Kirilenko, a free agent most recently with the Utah Jazz, speaks to what kind of pro athlete plays World of Warcraft. Usually, it’s the iconoclast in the locker room, a guy like Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. Once this hit Twitter, word spread of Kirilenko’s badass back tat but few…
By Owen Good Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Test Drive Unlimited Studio Stages One-Day Strike
Atari’s plans to lay off more than 50 percent of Eden Games’ workforce, plus alleged “mismanagement,” were the catalysts for a one-day symbolic strike today by the developer of Test Drive Unlimited 2 “For several years we are witnessing multiple leader changes at its head, they did not hesitate to get rich despite financial difficulties,”…
By Owen Good Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Who Cares About Angry Birds When You Can Play DOS Classics In Your Browser?
Harmless distractions like Angry Birds are perfectly acceptable browser game fodder, should you have nothing better to play, but a newly released port of emulator DOSbox for Google’s Chrome browser is the superior option—especially if you love LucasArts adventure games. NaClBox makes that possible. It’s a newly released port of DOSbox—the free emulator used by…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 11, 2011 -
UncategorizedSamuel L. Jackson Plays Black Ops
Whether this Samuel L. Jackson soundboard is live (in which case, it must have taken at least two guys) or edited in after the fact, there’s little dispute over its comedic value. NSFW language throughout. Part of a series of YouTube Black Ops soundboard videos going back to the beginning of April, including Pee-Wee Herman,…
By Owen Good Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Some Old Starcraft, Some New Mega Man, and What is Flashpoint?
It’s Wednesday. There are new comic books in comic shops. Only some of them are worth your time and money. As always, I have some suggestions…. Comics You Should Consider Buying (from comics shops) Dungeon Monstres Vol 4: Night of the Ladykiller If you’re ever going to trust my comics recommendations, trust this one. The…
By Stephen Totilo Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Fallout-Themed Geiger Counter Monitors Japan’s Transpacific Radiation
A Seattle-area man who lived in Europe during the Chernobyl disaster, now wary of radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear accidents traversing the Pacific, built that, the a Fallout-themed case for a Geiger counter that reports its findings automatically via Twitter. Redmond, Wash.-based RobCo_PIPBoy has been reporting hourly counts per minute of between 17 and 24…
By Owen Good Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
E3 Cometh
JEDI MIND TRICKS | A Star Wars storm trooper character takes a break during the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 16, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) Is This Modern Warfare 3‘s Cover? Yesterday we told you what we’ve been told about the…
By Brian Crecente Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Five New Mass Effect 3 Details You Might Want to Hear
Mass Effect 3 executive producer Casey Hudson spoke with UK magazine Xbox World, divulging some mid-production intel about Shepard and company. The info is scattershot; little pieces of unconnected details about many different aspects of the game. Still, they help to create a larger picture of BioWare’s vision for the game. For those of you…
By Mike Epstein Published May 11, 2011 -
UncategorizedThe Best Place to Loiter in Guild Wars 2
Every massively multiplayer online role-playing game needs a place for players to hang out, shout their auctions, and bitch about the development team working on the game they’re currently spending every waking hour playing. For Guild Wars 2, that city is Lion’s Arch. The city of Lion’s Arch was a hub for adventurers in the…
By Mike Fahey Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Would You Pay $90 to Attend a Minecraft Convention?
Six months before Minecraft‘s full release is due, creator Markus “Notch” Persson is pondering a gala event in Vegas on its release day – MinecraftCon, on 11/11/11, “with all of [development studio] Mojang going there, and us pushing out the final release live on stage or something.” Would you pay to see that? Notch wants…
By Owen Good Published May 11, 2011 - Uncategorized
Japanese Video Game Sales Take A Much Needed Week Off
With Japan celebrating Golden Week, there wasn’t much activity in the country in terms of new releases. In fact, in the list of top twenty bestselling games in Japan, there was nothing new represented. But we soldier on! According to sales tracker Media Create, Square Enix’s Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 Professional topped the charts…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 11, 2011