Skype Getting Into Gaming?

Skype, the mostly free, Internet replacement for phones and video phones, may get into online gaming. As part of a filing that would make the company public and allow for stocks of it to be traded, Skype detailed some plans for expanding its business. VentureBeat reporter Dean Takahashi zeroed in on the gaming part of…

Super Scribblenauts Has Vomit & Corpse-Eating Carnivorous Bikes, Still Safe For Kids

What innumerable whimsical scenarios can Scribblenauts players generate like some sort of god in the sequel? How about knife-wielding murderous computers, flaming snowmen and flesheating bicycles? That’s just the tip of the iceberg in the still kid-friendly Super Scribblenauts. That animated assault and the setting on fire of Christmas trees is just the type of…

The Man Who Brought Tetris Home To Consoles

Henk Rogers of Blue Planet Software, the man who secured the console rights to Tetris with Nintendo, posing outside the first Classic Tetris World Championships in Los Angeles.

Red Dead Redemption’s Famous Scream

Unless you’ve lived off the grid for the last 60 years, you’ve heard the “Wilhelm scream.” It’s a stock sound-bit originally used in film and television post-production. It started in a Western movie. It’s back in a Western video game. Kotaku’s Owen Good previously wrote about the Wilhelm scream and its long history in the…

Ferrari Racing Plus Giant Robot Arm Equals Awesome

The only thing I can imagine that would be more exciting than racing a Ferrari F2007 at high speeds, is pretending to drive a Ferrari F2007 at high speeds while being swung about by a giant robot arm. Now this is scientific research I can fully endorse. Paolo Robuffo Giordano and colleagues at the Max…

Tetris Finally Has An Official World Champion

Yesterday at Los Angeles’ Downtown Independent Theater, 29-year-old loan coordinator from Redondo Beach, California Jonas Neubauer was crowned the first-ever Classic Tetris World Champion. Over 200 players showed up to test their Tetris skills against the best the world had to offer at the Classic Tetris World Championship, organized by former Nintendo World Champion and…

The First Time I Played Doom Was Yesterday

More than 17 years after it was released, more than a decade after I was first paid to write about video games, I have finally played Doom. For an hour last night. My belated snap judgment? I like Doom! I like the way it looks. I like the way the gun bounces as you run.…

iTunes Chart Topper: Planets Collide, Osmos Returns

Osmos the highly regarded game about little orbs absorbing bigger ones makes it’s return to the list. Both iPhone and iPad gamers have found a renewed interest in it’s galactic ambiance. Here’s the full list of games for both platforms: Which do you think should be the top game? Check out all of our iPhone…

The $100 Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Collector’s Edition Is Worth Every Penny

With two different intricately-detailed, creepy cool jack-in-the-box collectibles packed inside the collector’s edition of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, the question isn’t if you should buy it, but where. The collector’s edition for Assassin’s Creed II, with its lovely tin and Ezio action figure, was quite a nice little package, but Ubisoft has outdone itself with the…

This Is Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer In Action

We know very little about the multiplayer in Call of Duty: Black Ops, except that there will be competitive multiplayer, separate co-op and, for PC gamers, dedicated servers. Any other facts or hints may be in this debut multiplayer trailer. The end of the trailer shows an in-game screen and video capture tool. But surely…

CGI Snooki Beats Obama With A Wine Bottle

Next Media Animation continues to make a game out of Taiwanese news, with a summation of trash TV show Jersey Shore that captures Snooki’s true essence. Ashcraft spoke to the folks at Next Media Animation last month, after the company’s Wii molester monk and Tiger Woods videos caught our attention. During the interview, Next Media…

Madden NFL 11 Review: A Run For Your Money

Madden NFL 11 arrives tomorrow to the marketing drumbeat of simpler, quicker and deeper. Laudable design goals, but for a game that’s been a living room ritual for a quarter of a century, let’s also ask, is it more fun? Yes. Though we’ve heard all spring and summer about Madden’s new play-calling, faster game times…

This Could Be The Worst Nintendo Download Ever

This week’s Nintendo Download brings a collection of six downloadable games so underwhelming you probably shouldn’t even bother reading about them. Did you read Lisa’s column? It’s pretty awesome. Go read that instead. Still here? You must be really bored. Are you at work? Perhaps you should find a job that keeps you too busy…

Seventeen Expansions Later, EverQuest Gets Player Housing

Eleven-year-old MMO EverQuest is getting its 17th expansion pack in October, raising the level cap, adding more than 450 new spells, 18 raids, 13 zones, more than 120 quests, and finally giving players somewhere to live. Just because Sony Online Entertainment is already teasing the fourth game in the EverQuest series doesn’t mean it’s forgotten…

Talk Amongst Yourselves

Shall we talk about games? We shall do it here in Talk Amongst Yourselves, beneath today’s image, set up by reader Diesel. How very Borderlands! Submit your TAY pic to #TAYpics Want to know more about commenting on Kotaku? Read our FAQ

EQ 17 Gallery

How Fast Should We Play Games?

My obsessive-compulsive tics suggest less of a “personality” disorder and more of a “She’s probably just crazy” disorder. I systematically eat fries and small candies two at a time as if programmed from birth, regularly disinfect my DS despite being the only who uses it, and, about every two minutes, check to make sure no…

Holy Crap The U.S. Dollar Is Weak!

To: Totilo From: Bashcraft The U.S. dollar is at a 15 year low against the Japanese yen. (T_T) What you missed last night Video Games, Strippers & Goldman Sachs Blacklisted Druggie Pervert Returns In A Skirt For PC Shooting Game 250GB Kinect Bundle Spotted So Gran Turismo 5 Isn’t Done Yet

Is Dead Or Alive’s Creator Interested In Entering Politics? Yes.

Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of jiggly fighting franchise Dead or Alive and the upcoming Devil’s Third, is keen on getting into Japanese politics. Oh, he also thinks the country’s game industry is dying and that Japan failed to import Western capitalism. After agreeing that the Japanese game industry is dying, Itagaki tells Edge Magazine, “Japan failed…

Stay Up Past Your Curfew

An authoritarian state. The future. Whom can you trust? Britain’s Channel 4 has launched browser game The Curfew. In it, players are given data that could bring down the regime and find refuge in a safe house, which is being occupied by four individuals: the immigrant, the dissident, the ex-cop, and the youth. The Curfew…