These Video Game Movies Don’t Actually Suck

By “video game movie”, I do not mean movies that were adapted from video games. Oh, no. Instead, I mean movies that have video games as a plot element. In light of the upcoming French thriller Black Heaven, now is as good a time as any to take a look back at some of the…

Halo Developer Joins Forces With Activision

Bungie, the studio that created the Halo franchise, will be partnering with Activision for an “exclusive, worldwide partnership” the developer revealed this morning. The partnership will encompass one upcoming franchise and will last for the next ten years. Bungie was founded in 1991 and was purchased by software giant Microsoft in 2000, but parted with…

What If Kotaku Had Been Around In 1996?

In case you just joined us, Kotaku has only been around this century. And yes, it’s always been based on a formula of baby-sick green and Amsterdam-hooker pink. But what if we’d been blogging in the last century? It’d look a little something like this. Except substitute the headlines for ones involving the Sega Saturn,…

Kingdom Hearts Figures Might Be Too Damn Cute

Kingdom Hearts fans, who we know like things cute, will surely snap up these new figures from Square Enix, which are not only based on Kingdom hearts characters, but are incredibly, impossibly cute. There are five available – Sora, Cloud, Tifa, Axel and Riku – with the catch being you need to buy them as…

She Has A Bandage On Her Head

The mysterious Rei Ayanami from the Neon Genesis Evangelion juggernaut gets immortalized in polyvinyl chloride. Again. Famed illustrator Shunya Yamashita, who also created the characters for Final Fantasy X, designed this particular version of Rei, which was sculpted by Mitsumasa Yoshizawa. This is the second version of this particular statue. Rei Ayanami has long been…

The Giant Japanese Robot Dance Routine

Giant robots aren’t just for fighting! They can also be used for…construction work! And…complex song & dance routines! A group of Armored Core: For Answer players have sat down and recorded an insane 18 hours worth of footage, in which the game’s giant robots do little but tap toes, swirl around and generally make like…

If Only The Avatar Game Manual Was This Amusing

It’s not. This is a pirated game manual. A really, really funny one. Reader Andrew noticed this Avatar for the Nintendo DS manual at the game retailer where he works. The non-legit pirated game was inadvertently accepted as a trade-in — and whoever pirated this title went as far as turning the 20-something-page instruction manual…

The Muppet That Ate Your DS (And Your Soul)

Oh God, it’s so terrifying Meet the Padded Puppet Pouch! It’s a…padded puppet pouch for the DS, that pulls two jobs as both a puppet and a pouch for your DS. Just like the name says! It’s by CTA Digital, and while we’ve chuckled at most of the company’s previous efforts in the gaming peripheral…

Customize Your Wife

You can customize your in-game avatar, so why not your better half? Upcoming Japanese Xbox 360 title My Wife ~ A Bride For You Only ~ lets players customize their wife’s appearance, personality, voice, name and more. There are also downloadable voice packs that include well-known voice actresses like Kana Hanazawa and Emiri Kato. Various…

Civilization Creator: Social Gaming Is “The Frontier”

I love Sid Meier. Not just because he’s a great game designer, but because he’s a generally smart guy, as evidenced in this interview with IndustryGamers in which he talks “social” gaming in terms you should all understand. “I think it’s a new frontier”, he says. “I don’t think it replaces any other forms of…

This Is How You Promote An Adult Video Game

With a large bus. Adult computer game Shin Koi Hime Musou ~The Legend of the Moé Commander~ goes on sale on July 23 in The Land of the Rising Sun. To whip players up into a frenzy, this large Shin Koi Hime Musou bus was spotted cruising the streets of Tokyo’s geek mecca Akihabara. A…

This Meme Just Made A Fourth Quarter Comeback

Tecmo Bowl Throwback parties like it’s 1987

Black Ops

First things first, this lab makes repeat appearances. There are allusions to somebody being “revived”, and a look at that clock reveals what may well be a 2010 date (albeit in the Japanese back-to-front style). Here’s a missile launch. Hard to tell what exactly is going on, but it looks like it’s at the coast,…

Girls Or Tekken – Which Gets A Gamer’s Attention?

Certainly tamer than Russian strippers grinding on Counter Strike players. At this South Korean “Tekken Crash” tournament, model Kim Ha Yui stood next to a Tekken 6 cabinet as players tried to concentrate on their match. She, on the other hand, concentrated on trying to look cute for the camera. They’ve got excellent concentration! So…

ilomilo, Today’s Prettiest Puzzler

There are few better ways to end your Wednesday (or start your Thursday!) than with a game you’d previously never even heard of, but now can’t wait to actually play. Today’s case in point: ilomilo. It’s a puzzle game by Southend Interactive. You know, the Swedish team behind Tecmo Bowl Throwback and R-Type Dimensions on…

Minorigate, or, How to Piss Off Otaku Without Really Trying

Last summer erotic game developer Minori, developer of adult PC titles like Bittersweet Fools and Angel Type, blocked foreign access to its website in the wake of the Rapelay controversy. The developer later explained in English: “Some foreigners seem to be having an antipathy against EROGE. Therefore, We prohibited the access from foreign countries, to…

World Of Warcraft Expansion Hits…The Famicom?

Chinese World of Warcraft players, bummed at the challenges they face trying to play expansion Burning Crusade on a PC, could always lower their already-low graphical expectations and play the game on a…Famicom That’s it, up top. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, for the Famicom. This version, created not by Blizzard but by pirates,…

The Scary Luigi Public Restroom

As seen by reader ZackFair at Pasir Ris Park, Singapore.

God Of War Creators Had Different Ideas On Trilogy’s Ending [Update]

God of War is a unique series, in that three different men lead the development team for each of the three games. How, then, would David Jaffe – original creator of the series – have ended things? I’m not going to spoil the actual ending, but I can tell you that Jaffe’s vision for how…

DS2