A Widely Open Thread

Dear Kotaku readers, won’t you join us in this nightly open thread where the talk of the town is whatever you choose? Please, engage your fellow video game-loving peers in stimulating conversation. Perhaps you can answer this curious riddle: Why does the microwave burrito get such a bad rap? When, in reality, it is quite…

The First Batch Of Screens For Activision’s New NASCAR Game

Not sure what the point is of a site countdown when the game is confirmed and, today, 15 screens for NASCAR 2011: The Game were get put up on the new site. But that countdown’s still a-tickin’ anyhow. Okie doke! Well, take a gander at 11 in-game shots that include tracks at Martinsville and Phoenix,…

NASCAR 2011: The Game Screenshots

Metal Gear Solid: Wyvern Eater

Artist David Hsu Yen reinterprets Snake’s crossover into the Monster Hunter universe, transforming the star of Metal Gear into a Felyne friendly wyvern slayer. Another great video game mash-up, as seen on deviantArt, where much larger versions await.

Roman Politicians Allowed To Game During Meetings

Rome. The Eternal City. Its elected leaders are the inheritors of a millennia-old tradition forming the basis of modern municipal and state government. Yet where senators once debated inside the august walls of the Curia, now city councillors play video games. Laptops are issued to town hall bosses, pre-loaded with video games, says Metro of…

Did You Know EA’s Skate Games Were This Hilarious?

As a lapsed fan of the skateboarding video game, I dedicated little personal interest to Electronic Arts’ Skate series. What a mistake that was, because as this lowlight reel shows, Skate is great comedy. This compilation of Skate and Skate 2 pratfalls and glitches is positively ancient. Months old. But thanks to the video game…

New DLC Available Now For Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

Two months back we scented the rumor that Castlevania was due for downloadable content, specifically a new map set inside a pyramid. That’s confirmed with today’s availability of “Beauty, Desire Situation Dire,” for 400 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Marketplace. “Beauty, Desire Situation Dire,” (may I call you BDSD?) is the first extra map for…

Myst May Be Coming To A Theater Near You

Puzzling adventure game Myst, the best way to show off your bad-ass new CD-ROM drive in 1993, may be the next video game to get a big screen adaptation. According to a report from Deadline, Cyan Worlds’ adventure game series has been optioned for “live action film treatment.” Producers Hunt Lowry (Donnie Darko) and Mark…

Get Chills With Left 4 Dead’s ‘The Sacrifice’ Cinematic Trailer

Next week, downloadable add-on “The Sacrifice” comes to Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, giving the original Survivors, Zoey, Francis, Bill and Louis, a chance to beat up on Spitters, Chargers and Jockeys with melee weapons. To set the mood, Valve has released a heart-pounding cinematic trailer for The Sacrifice, filed with thrills,…

NBA Elite’s Cover Star Learned Of Postponement Over Twitter

Kevin Durant, the cover athlete for NBA Elite 11, “spoke with noticeably more sullenness” in his first comments since EA Sports indefinitely postponed the game. Hearing the news first via Twitter probably did not help his mood. “They said it wasn’t as up to par as they wanted it to be,” Durant, the all-star forward…

Please Review This

To: Ash From: Crecente We’re continuing to tweak the new review system we’ll be using. It still needs a bit of work, but I think it’s coming along nicely. I’ll be writing up a full run down of the system and our new criticism pieces probably next week. Otherwise we spent most of the day…

Fist of the North Star Declares November ‘Already Dead’

The holiday season with be covered in liquefied guts, now that Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage has a release date. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 brawler lands in North America on November 2, Tecmo Koei revealed today.

Forza 3 And All Its DLC Ultimately Collected

Microsoft kicks off a multi-year partnership with BBC hit television show Top Gear next month, packing in 90 minutes of Top Gear TV content into the Forza Motorsport 3 Ultimate Collection, along with every bit of DLC released so far. Today is a day for making people feel bad about buying downloadable content. First Dragon…

Call of Duty: Black Ops Achievement ‘Leak’ Is Spoiler City

The next big Call of Duty game has just had much of its single-player game spoiled, thanks to an early look at the shooter’s list of achievements and trophies. What do Black Ops‘ achievements tell us about Treyarch’s war game? (Perhaps too much. Stop reading now if you would prefer to keep Black Ops’ locations,…

Chesty Jake Moves To World Of Warcraft

Fans can get up close and personal with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time’s Chesty Jake in the Egyptian-themed Uldum zone in World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm expansion. Thanks, Michael!

Video Proof That Outland Is The Child Of Ikaruga And A Platformer

We’ve described Outland. We’ve shown screenshots. Now watch the 2011 downloadable game from the makers of Super Stardust HD in action. The trick is the color-switching, Ikaruga-style. When the hero is red, red bullets don’t hurt him and red elevators work. Blue bullets do hurt him, but he can switch to blue. When he’s blue,…

Put A Half-Life 2 Headcrab Zombie On Your Shelf

Who doesn’t love sending Half-Life 2‘s headcrab zombies to the great beyond with a few whacks of Gordon Freeman’s trusty crowbar? And who wouldn’t love to have said bloody, shambling headcrab zombie in statue form? Thankfully, the next great Gaming Heads creation based on Valve’s Half-Life games is coming soon. The figure makers is opening…

Turning Old Vegas Into New Vegas

In the latest developer diary for Fallout: New Vegas, the team at Obsidian talk about how they tackled turning something old into something new, while keeping it old. I’m confused. Building a world based on the real world das we know it today is easy. With tons of old movies, archive footage, and photographs available,…

Running Backwards While Shooting A Shotgun Is A Bad Idea In Real Life

One brave or foolish gamer claims he took out his shotgun, went somewhere remote, and tried a common video game first-person shooter maneuver. The results were painful. This is how one man says he tried to back-up-and-shoot, using a shotgun, a broom, and a warehouse. He suffered some distress. The details were revealed in the…

Team Fortress 2 Now Lets You Buy Items With Real Money

No longer will you have to endure hours of Team Fortress 2 play just to unlock the game’s hidden weapons, defensive items and wearable accessories. Today, Valve opened the Mann Co. Store, which lets you buy goods with real-world cash. The update not only introduces a way to buy new guns, hats and fish-wrapped-in-newspaper melee…