Kotaku Off Topic: Left In A Bar

Welcome to Kotaku Off Topic, in which nothing that was found in a bar by a drunken employee of a multi-billion dollar technology company must necessarily be discussed. The discussion is officially open. The key takeaway from today’s Gizmodo scoop—or whatever you want to call it—is that I have a new excuse to go to…

Jetpacks Let You Jump All Over Battlefield Heroes’ New Map

Battlefield Heroes, the zany, free-to-play combat game from EA DICE has a new map, a new game mode to play on it, and jet packs to get you around it. The map, “Midnight Mayhem” sets the Heroes in a nighttime environment – the ruins of a military compound. The game mode, V2 Vengeance, is a…

Tony Hawk’s Tony Hawk: Shred Outed By Tony Hawk

Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk may have just officially sent the Activision PR team into a 720-degree tizzy, tweeting about Tony Hawk: Shred, quite possibly the more shred-tastic follow-up to the skateboard-as-controller experiment Tony Hawk: Ride. Mr. Hawk cryptically named something that we’re just wildly assuming is his next project by way of the Twitter, saying…

Two Voice Actors Out Arkham Asylum 2 Villains

Mister Freeze and Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s (Ra?) will be foes in Batman: Arkham Asylum, according to two voice actors’ comments on a podcast and via Twitter. First up, Talia. Stana Katic, who stars on ABC’s Castle, tweeted on Friday that she’d “Just recorded a character voice on the next Batman video game,”…

Star Fox Dog Needs To Do A Barrel Roll

Dog does Star Fox. But where are the real life frogs dressed as Slippy? [As see on IHasAHotDog]

It’s Not Saturday Yet, but It’s Getting Closer in NCAA Football

Some earlier screenshots gave us an idea of the lighting and detail upgrades due for NCAA Football 11. Now footage just released by EA Sports shows what it all looks like in motion. The game gives good visual treatment to its subjects, but right now, things still look a little floaty in some of the…

My Response To Roger Ebert, Video Game Skeptic

Kellee Santiago, the game developer whose recent talk about games and art was critiqued by Roger Ebert, is ready to move on. But first, she has an argument to defend and an offer to make. April 16, 2010 unexpectedly became a new watermark in my career as a game maker – Roger Ebert wrote an…

Game Manuals

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Not all great manuals had to come from the dawn of time. Rockstar put a surprising amount of work into San Andreas’ PC edition, with the game box remodelled into a tourist guide to Grand Theft Auto’s fictional state. Where the guide began and the manual ended was often a…

Beat Hazard: One Man’s Quest To Make Your Music Hurt You

This weekend while poking about Steam I stumbled over Beat Hazard, the game that turns your music into colorful, frantic shooter levels, and I fell in love. Watch me play, and then read about the one-man studio behind the game. As someone who often worries about the lack of exposure Xbox Live Indie Games get…

Not That Far From The Truth

We didn’t turn out too badly, did we? A comic from famed 80’s – early 90’s prophet Gary Larson, found via Reddit.

Burning Up!

To: Ash From: Crecente Yikes, today was busy and frustrating. We have a slew of news hitting tomorrow morning, so I spent some time today prepping it. Then my computer started to melt down thanks to a faulty CPU fan. I ended up having to take the thing apart to figure out what was wrong…

KOS-MOS Statue

Nolan Bushnell Rejoins the Atari Force

Nolan Bushnell, who founded the original Atari Inc. in 1972, has returned to the company masthead as a member of Atari S.A.’s board of directors. “Original Atari” and “Atari S.A.” have to be specified because technically they’re not the same company. It’s complicated but it all has to do with Infogrames’ 2008 acquisition of Atari…

Here’s 45 Seconds of Guys Getting Kneed in the Balls

New iPhone? Pfft. How about three pairs of sweaty men humping kicking the crap out of each other? Wait! Wait! Calm down! Form an orderly line or you’ll crash the Internet! This is 45 seconds of mostly in-game footage from EA Sports MMA, featuring Jake Shields, whose entourage went all Sharks and Jets with Jason…

Crackdown 2 Becomes “A Beautiful Fusion Of Killing”

Apparently no one told Crackdown 2 senior designer Dean Smith that you aren’t supposed to make up your own cover blurbs, but then this video is titled “Nothing Is Sacred,” so at least he’s keeping in theme. Seriously though, that line needs to go on the game’s box art. I don’t care if it’s from…

Raise Your Real Life World Of Warcraft Cooking Skill

If you’ve ever found yourself afflicted with hunger while leveling your cooking skill in World of Warcraft. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a set of real-life WoW recipes that are sure to satisfy your otherworldly hunger. Beer Basted Boar Ribs, anyone? Sure you can buy a World of Warcraft cookbook, but why waste valuable time and…

You Can Now Catch Crabs From Your iPhone

If you’re one of the legion of viewers that tune into the Discovery Channel to watch men catch crabs, you’ll be pleased to know you can now catch crabs in the palm of your hand with Deadliest Catch for iPhone. After a lackluster release on the Xbox 360 two years ago, it’s high time fans…

What The New iPhone Could Mean For Gaming

The new iPhone 4 that our colleagues at Gizmodo have been showing the world adds a second camera to what is one of the world’s fastest-growing gaming platforms. Think a second camera could change iPhone gaming? The addition of a front-facing camera makes the iPhone that much closer to a Nintendo DSi, the latest in…

Get Your Secret Mimana Iyar Chronicle Codes Here

There’s a secret area in Aksys’ PlayStation Portable Tales of-esque role-playing game Mimana Iyar Chronicles, where secret codes will earn you special loot. We just so happen to have a couple of those codes right here. Players who’ve beaten Mimana Iyar Chronicles and ventured into the New Game+ mode might have run into a fellow…

Lost Planet 2 Multiplayer Demo Impressions: Konnichiwa, My Fellow Players

Since the majority of my multiplayer experience in the original Lost Planet involved myself and a large group of Japanese players, it seems fitting I find myself surrounded by Japanese players in the latest Lost Planet 2 multiplayer demo. The latest multiplayer demo for Lost Planet 2, which goes live on the 21, focuses on…