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New Super Mario Bros. Arrives In A New Setting
New Super Mario Bros. Wii is making the jump from the Nintendo Wii to arcades, and trading Wii Remotes for joysticks and jackpots. Dubbed Super Mario Bros. Wii: Coin World, the game is being reborn as a four player “medallion game”. Medallion games are arcade games in which players try to hit the jackpot and…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Nintendo Is Taking May Off, It Seems
April showers might bring May flowers, but they sure as shit don’t bring games in Japan. The release schedule for the Wii, DS and 3DS is looking shockingly barren. According to Nintendo’s Japanese site, there are only two DS games getting released in Japan in May: Treasure Report, Red Stone DS and Nakayoshi Kids: Oshigoto…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 -
UncategorizedBig Time Gangsta Takes Back The Portable Streets
Fresh out of prison and back on the streets, it’s time to gather your gang and reclaim your ugly, run-down, drug plagued neighborhood block-by-block. Glu Mobile is so gangsta. Big Time Gangsta for the iPad and iPhone takes the formula established in Facebook games like Sony Online Entertainment’s The Agency: Covert Ops, strips out the…
By Mike Fahey Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
PixelJunk Shooter? No, PixelJunk Signed Shooter Shirt
Kyoto’s Q-Games, the studio behind PixelJunk and a whole host of wonderful titles, is auctioning off a signed ThinkGeek t-shirt for “Play for Japan”. The whole PixelJunk staff autographed the shirt! Auction ends on April 10 and all proceeds will go to the American Red Cross. More info in the details below. Play For Japan:…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Want To Help Build A Digital Library Of Old Video Game Magazines?
Kevin “Game Mag Weasel” Gifford has a plan. He’s sitting on a motherload of old (like, pre-2000) video game magazines and wants to know if anyone’s got the means to scan them all. Make a digital “library” of sorts. If you can help, head here for details
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Lara Croft Gets Wet, Snake Takes A Smoke Break And Vader Mourns A Tragic Loss
Between Anime Conji 2011 being held a week ago, Wondercon 2011 and the Supernova conventions going down in Australia, there’s been a ton of great cosplay on display in recent days. So let’s take a look at some of the best of it! In this week’s round-up, there’s an aquatic Lara Croft, an energetic football…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Street Fighter’s Cammy Gets An Unofficial Makeover
Cammy, a Lara Croft rival for “Most Beloved British Video Game Character Of All Time”, is looking a little old-fashioned in the 2000’s. I think it’s the boots. Time, then, for a change. Russian artist Bogdan Gabelko drew this redesign of the iconic character for a recent competition. There’s two pictures on show: one a…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Naked Fan-Made Figure Goes For Insane Price
Virtual idol Miku Hatsune has her own Sega video games, concerts, insane game controllers, and figurines. Whether it’s plastic statues for arcade redemption games or detailed collectors’ statues, there is no shortage of Miku merch. One fan decided there was a gaping hole in the Miku figures, namely of the totally naked variety, and decided…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Get A Behind-The-Scenes Look At The New Twisted Metal
Twisted Metal series creator David Jaffe has posted some photos on his blog, giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the new Twisted Metal’s live-action cutscenes. If you’re not a Twisted Metal fan, these likely won’t make sense at all! If you are, though, you’ll see glimpses of costumes and characters you haven’t…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011 -
UncategorizedGaming’s Greats (And Kotaku) Pay Tribute To Japan
Broadcasting over the weekend, Gamers Heart Japan is a one hour program, designed to celebrate the country that’s given us so many great games as well as help with the relief efforts. Created by The Electric Playground, the program features a whole host of gaming luminaries, like Tim Schafer, Will Wright and Sid Meier, talking…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
There’s A New Mech Fighting Arcade Game
Developed by Konami, Steel Chronicle is a multiplayer mech combat game that’s currently – and rather quietly – having some location testing done in Japan. The game is a shooter of sorts, with a viewpoint sat close behind the player’s mech, while you’re tasked with mowing down waves of invading alien bugs. The action is…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Some Of Gaming’s Giants Give Toys To Quake Kids
While some of the Tohoku Earthquake’s youngest refugees told the Mainichi Newspaper that they really want to play video games, power shortages make that impossible. Kids are kids, and they want to play. This is why twenty-six companies are donating four ten-ton trucks worth of toys, clothing and stationary to the relief efforts. Among those…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 -
UncategorizedOh, Turns Out You CAN Run Gmail Using Kinect
Last week, Google thought it’d be funny to have an April Fool’s gag based on Kinect powering, of all things, Gmail. Well, turns out you can actually do that. A research team at USC already has Kinect running Google’s email service, and as you’ll see in this slightly stupid video (it’s keeping things in the…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011 -
UncategorizedThis 3DS Sports Game Sure Seems Gimmicky
The Nintendo 3DS is not multi-touch. That hasn’t stopped Namco Bandai from making a game that requires two touch pens. So players not only have to hold two touch pens like total goobers, they cannot use them at the exact same time. Well, they can, but the multitouch won’t register. Only one of the brain…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Not Everyone Knows Who The Hell Hideo Kojima Is
You probably know who Hideo Kojima is. He makes Metal Gear Solid. But is he famous? Probably, but that doesn’t mean mainstream Japanese celebs know who the heck he is. Kojima appeared on a recent episode of variety show Real Scoop, talking about how popular he is abroad. Famous celebrities like Yusuke Kamiji as well…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Video Games Say The Darnedest Things
While the video games of today are (usually) professional enough to hire proper writers to handle localisation and translation duties, it wasn’t always that way. Take the 1980s and early 1990s, for example. Lots of games turned up in the West from Japan. And some of them got a little…lost in translation. You may have…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
When You Think Of Japan, Think Of This
More than schoolgirls, salarymen or neon lights, when video games want to evoke Japan, they pick one thing above the rest: cherry blossoms, or “sakura”, as they are called in Japanese. During spring, Japan is awash in pink and white. Cherry blossoms are in bloom for a short period (around two weeks or so), and…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 4, 2011 - Uncategorized
Anonymous Targets Sony, Warns Of Penises Stuck In Hornets Nests
Militant hacker group Anonymous has launched a campaign against Sony, citing the Japanese company’s “unforgivable offense against free speech and internet freedom” after it took legal action against a pair of hackers. As you’d expect from the group, its statements are neither polite nor subtle. It says Sony has “abused the judicial system in an…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011 - CultureTotal Recall
Meet The Four Americans Who Built Sega
Nintendo and Sega. Hardware rivals for decades, and even today they remain the archetype Japanese video game companies. Only, Sega isn’t entirely Japanese. It was founded by some American guys. While Nintendo, with its history in trading cards and love hotels, is as Japanese as they come, Sega’s history can actually be traced back to…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 4, 2011