L.A. Noire Examines Death In All of Its Misery

Elizabeth Short was beaten, sliced lips to ears, forced to eat excrement and then cut in half and drained of blood. Her gruesome death on Jan. 15, 1947 was never solved despite the efforts of LA’s best police and worst journalists. Nicknamed The Black Dahlia, her case has been loosely linked to other serial killings…

LA Noire

Kylie Minogue Inspires The Fanciest Kinect Sensor

Australian pop singer and tragic one-shot Doctor Who companion Kylie Minogue’s European tour is sponsored by Microsoft Kinect and Dance Central, and this crystal-studded Kinect sensor is the by-product of that union. Created by PlayBling and studded with more than 6,000 Swarowsky Elements crystals, the Kylie Minogue Kinect is styled after the singer’s latest album,…

Will Video Games Age Gracefully?

Commenter EcksJay22 wonders if video games will hold up as well as the classic films of yesteryear in today’s Speak-Up on Kotaku. I was playing some Splinter Cell yesterday and remembering how jaw-droppingly amazing it’s graphics were at the time. They were still okay, but a lot of the initial wow factor the game had…

The Best iPhone Dungeon Crawler Crawls To The PlayStation 3

Diablo III might be coming to consoles, but it’s still a long ways off. In the meantime, PlayStation 3 owners can satiate their dungeon crawling cravings with Dungeon Hunter: Alliance, coming in April to the PlayStation Network. The Dungeon Hunter series for the iPhone and iPad is quite derivative of Diablo, but if Gameloft’s developers…

Think Fast, Shoot Fast, Kick Ass

In many ways, Playstation 3 first-person shooter Resistance was a return to their roots for the studio behind Ratchet and Clank and Spyro the Dragon. First-person shooters were what got founder Ted Price into the business of making games. The first game Insomniac Games made was shooter Disruptor for the Playstation. “We were working with…

Talk Amongst Yourselves

It’s March and we just can’t stop giving you new installments of Kotaku’s official video game forum, now with new art. This month’s work is Paumgartner Altar from Albrecht Dürer. It comes recommended by reader FiveSpeed who surely must know that the painting may be a bit busy but is surely rich with potential visual…

Cuss Words, Maps And A Big, Red Letter Box

I quite like the design of traditional Japanese letter boxes. We have a whole collection of old piggy banks shaped like them. Are piggy banks still called piggy banks if they are not shaped like…piggies? Nintendo 3DS Allows Racist, Sexist And Vulgar Character Names The 3DS’s “StreetPass” function allows players to automatically trade Mii Avatars…

Fan Favorite Gracious About Uncharted Movie Snub

In the Uncharted movie, Mark Wahlberg will be hero Nathan Drake. Fans, however, had a different actor in mind and even made awkward pleas for their choice. That choice was television star Nathan Fillion. The actor tells The Nerdish podcast that he “would have loved” to be Drake. “Mark Wahlberg, I think that’s a talented…

This Is RIFT

It’s launch day in North America, and that means retail stores everywhere are bracing for the launch of RIFT, Trion Worlds’ first MMORPG. Be one of the first to experience massive dynamic battles that bring you into the story, a class system that lets you build any class you can imagine, epic dungeons, player vs.…

If Hasbro Made The Elder Scrolls

It might look like this. It might have My Little Ponies. But one thing that is for certain, it would be totally awesome. Let’s call it The Elder Scrolls IV: Equestria. This clip features footage of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which is the My Little Pony series currently running on the Cartoon Network.…

Censorship Has Never Looked So Good

The Chinese government dictates what can and can’t be shown in overhead photographs. This is bad news for Google Maps, which continues to have run-ins with the Mainland. No worries, there is a solution. A beautiful one. Baidu Maps created a Sim City-like reproduction of China to sidestep these issues. An overhead view of the…

LEGO Meets Vegas In A Slot Game For Toys

Some LEGO games are expansive voyages built on exciting properties. This is not one of those games. No, if you put LEGO Star Wars at one end of the spectrum, LEGO Minifigures Collector would be at its polar opposite. It’s a slot/poker machine game that has you trying to match up the three correct body…

Charity Is Nice, But So Are Massive Indie Paychecks

The Humble Indie Bundle is a project aimed at not only selling a ton of quality indie PC games, but raising money for charity as well. And it’s doing a very good job. Wolfire Games’ John Graham and Jeffrey Rosen (two of the organisers of the bundle) revealed today that the two bundles have so…

A Stand For The DualShock 3 To Rest And Recharge

The DualShock 3 hasn’t had an official place to call its own. Until now. When charging the controller, players typically just connect it to the PS3 via its controller cable and perhaps leave it on the floor or place it on the console or something Third party companies do have charging stand solutions. And this…

Today, Five Million Kids Are Playing One Game

Right now, there are over five million kids from all corners of the globe taking part in an online game. One you may have never even heard of. It’s got nothing to do with farms or penguins. Instead, it’s all about…mathematics. Today is World Maths Day, and the cornerstone of the celebration is a competition…

The Menus On The 3DS Are A Breeze

Nintendo hasn’t only just released a stylish piece of hardware, the Kyoto-based games maker has just launched a piece of hardware powered by elegant software. If only other Japanese companies could follow suit. Anyone who has ever owned a cell phone in Japan knows exactly what I’m talking about. Heck, if you’ve played Japanese video…

Eff The Knicks! Eff These T-Shirts!

Fans of Mango Sentinels and Curly Moustaches, you can now wear your allegiance proudly on your chest. Don’t know what I’m talking about? This will help These two shirts, from BROKENTIER, are part of a collaboration honouring IFC Yipes, one of the fighting game scene’s most prominent characters, who is not only a handy gamer…

A Map Fit For The Legend Of Zelda

The Legend Of Zelda takes place in a fantasy kingdom, and no fantasy kingdom would be complete without an exquisite, elaborate map to chart its regions. Bill Mudron has put together this beautiful map that combines the land of Hyrule as depicted in both the first (bottom map) and second (top map) Zelda games for…

Panasonic Realises Its MMO Gaming Handheld Was A Silly Idea

Last year, Panasonic surprised the world with the unveiling of a rather unique gaming handheld. Which was one way of putting it. You could also say it looked a little stupid. Something Panasonic now agrees with. The “Jungle”, as it was known, was planned to be a small handheld computer that ran on Linux, allowing…