Shuzzle: Kids Shouldn’t Learn Shapes Like This

Shuzzle is an iOS puzzle game that makes you put shapes into the right slots. I’m glad I didn’t have to learn shapes this way when I was a kid, or I’d have developed some serious psychoses. [iTunes]

Kinect Can Also Turn You Into A Bloated Mutant

We’ve seen some fun and sometimes funky homebrewed uses of Kinect for the Xbox 360, thanks to the release of open source drivers for Microsoft’s camera sensor, but how many of those apps support house cats? This one does. Robert “Flight404” Hodgin has whipped up a Kinect demo that can bloat or emaciate the body…

Touch World Of Goo On Your iPad (Soon)

2D Boy, makers of WiiWare/PC hit World of Goo, are bringing their game to Apple’s iPad, bringing with it support for up to 11 fingers at once. When can we expect this all-new, touchscreen-controlled World of Goo? “As soon as we get approved by Apple,” explains 2D Boy. “We hope before the holiday season.” The…

Dad Builds Bedroom Marble Run for World’s Luckiest Son

He’s a generous Dad, too—for he has put the instructions on Instructables, for building your very own. I don’t think you even need children as an excuse to create this, that’s how awesome it is. [Instructables via DailyWhat]

Nintendo DSi Comes In Festive Orange & Green For The Holidays

Rumor? Ha! Nintendo has made official that Black Friday will get an injection of green and orange with a pair new Nintendo DSi bundles that with either remind you of Halloween, Christmas or Samus Aran. Orange and green Nintendo DSi bundles will hit North American retailers on November 26 for $149.99 USD, with a copy…

Is this a portrait of a human 50 million years from now?

We recently rounded up the most nightmare-inducing creations of speculative zoologist Dougal Dixon. Here’s another one of Dixon’s futuristic Homo sapiens. This being is more or less a psychic raspberry strudel. io9 superstar reader Hypnosifl has blessed us with this pre-Man After Man musing Dixon contributed to the November 1982 issue of Omni magazine (RIP).…

Behind the Scenes With the iPhone’s Take on Diablo

I loved the original Dungeon Hunter. The iPhone Diablo-esque action game was one of the first iPhone games that felt like both something built for the iPhone and a solid, deep game. Here’s a look at Dungeon Hunter 2, complete with strangely mis-matched translator voice-overs.

Microsoft: There Will Be A Halo Movie

At the Future of Television East conference last week, Microsoft’s Frank O’Connor sat on a panel that focused on the grail of transmedia. Halo’s franchise development director is a shortish, stocky guy who looks like a feisty boxer. And he’s proud bordering on arrogant about the lauded series of games that sold so many Xboxes.…

Gifts for Gamers of All Ages—and Degrees of Cleanliness

Video game consoles are getting a bit long in the tooth. But these gifts will make them feel like brand new toys. 1. Splitfish FragFX mouse controllers for PS3, $50 to $80. Studies show that mouse + keyboard gamers fare better against console gamers, so why not bring a mouse to a virtual gunfight? Splitfish…

California Is The Best Place To Buy World of Warcraft: Cataclysm First

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the kind of game shops open at midnight to sell. No shop is planning more midnight Cataclysm madness than Fry’s Electronics in Fountain Valley, California. That store will host all of the following on the night of December 6, starting at 9PM PT as midnight and the WoW expansion tick…

Navigating The Video Games of Black Friday

Motion gaming, mobile gaming, traditional gaming. More than any year before, shopping for that gamer in your life has become a minefield of games, deals and gadgets. With Black Friday looming, Kotaku is here to help with a hand-dandy primer on what’s new, what’s hot and what’s coming to the world of gaming. Motion Gaming…

Robot Unicorn Attacks Christmas

It’s amazing what a single, surprisingly-fitting piece of music can do for a game. Take Robot Unicorn Attack, for instance. The original was wonderful. The remakes? All that really changes is the art and that single song. Robot Unicorn Attack’s latest target is Christmas. The 99 cent iPhone game is due to hit iTunes Tuesday…

Debatable Evidence That Conan O’Brien Is Copying Super Mario Again

The theme song for Conan O’Brien’s new show on TBS sounds sorta kinda like a theme song from Super Mario Bros. 3. And we know someone who works with Conan loves Mario. Right? Listen. Even the guy making the video concedes this might be a stretch, but listen and then try to not hear it.…

Is It Time For a Major Black And White Video Game?

Our video games are in color. Even our noir video games set in 1940s Los Angeles. They don’t have to be, right? This is a trailer for Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire, with one change. We made it black and white. Sure, this is a crude transfer. I took Rockstar Games and Team Bondi’s official L.A.…

iTunes Chart Toppers: Out with the Old, In With the New

Plenty of hot new titles swamped the charts this week including id’s Rage for the iPhone and iPad, LEGO Harry Potter and Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. Here’s the full list of games for both platforms: iPhone Position Title Price Weeks Last Week 1 Angry Birds (Clickgamer.com) $0.99 28 2 2 Smurfs’ Village (Capcom) Free…

Talk Amongst Yourselves

We recommend that you talk about video games right here, in the comments section. And, hey, go submit an image to #TAYpics and it might be featured in a future installment. Thanks to p4w4rr10r for today’s image.

Nothing Says Weekend Like Robo Sushi

To: Crecente From: Bashcraft Ahoy! Saturday was spent covering the Kinect launch in Japan. There weren’t that many lines, but I do expect Microsoft to see a bump in Xbox 360 sales in Japan. How big? It’s hard to say. Japanese game retail blogs (here, here, here and here) are reporting sluggish interest. Even though…

Balance the Budget The Game, Now With More Defense Cuts and Health Care Reform

With the United States’ budget projected to hit a $418 billion shortfall by 2015 and a $1.3 trillion shortfall by 2030, the New York Times knows something has to be done. So they made a game. The Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget allows you to get rid of that nasty deficit by clicking on…

Where There’s Smoke, There’s PlayStation Phone Fire

Late last month, photos of a rumored PSP phone surfaced. The prototype looked like a Sony Ericsson cell phone mated with a PSP. Rumors, right? Know what they say, where there’s smoke there’s fire — with “they” being Sony. “There’s a lot of smoke, and I tell you there must be a fire somewhere,” Sony…

Robot Unicorn Attack Christmas