Accused Game Cheater Gets Knife Through Head and Survives

An argument between Counter-Strike players at a Chinese net café over suspected use of a ‘wallhack’ cheat led to a 17-year-old boy being stabbed through the head with a foot-long knife – and living to tell the tale. (Graphic Photo) Counter-Strike players in the Jilin province of China take cheating extremely seriously, as evidenced by…

Mr. DRILLER: Drill till you Drop Screen Shots

Kotaku’s PAX Reader Meet-Up: This Friday, March 26

Meet the Kotaku editors in town for PAX East, then hang at the Alienware afterparty where you (and they) can experience the new Alienware systems! Reader meet-up will be held at the 33 Lounge, 33 Stanhope Street, Boston, MA, from 8-10:30pm.

A Bit More Info On The Makers of Dead Space’s Next, Mysterious Game

Late last year two unearthed trademark applications seemed to lend credence to rumors that Electronic Arts was working on a game based on Jack the Ripper, but we haven’t heard anything new about the game since… until now. Buried in analyst Michael Pachter’s report on his recent visit to Electronic Arts is a single mention…

A Kick-Ass Trailer For The Kick-Ass Movie Game?

The characters from the movie based off of Mark Millar’s comic book Kick-Ass completely kick ass in this trailer for WHA Entertainment’s video game adaptation for the iPhone and PlayStation Network, and somehow that doesn’t seem right. Then again I’ve read the comic book series several times over, and I haven’t seen the film yet,…

Electronic Arts Plans to Make You Pay for Glorified Game Demos?

Electronic Arts plans to grow its digital game business to become one-third of their total revenue over the next few years and that includes starting to charge for what one analyst described as very long game demos. The comments came during an analyst visit to Electronic Arts’ Redwood City headquarters and meetings with the company’s…

Talk Amongst Yourselves

The TAY guys are getting ready to go to Boston for PAX East. Maybe you’ll be there too? For now, please stay where you are and talk about video games. Confused about commenting on Kotaku? Read our FAQ

Growing Up Geek: The Past, Present and Future of Penny Arcade

Two weeks ago the inseparable duo behind popular game-themed web comic Penny Arcade received an award for their work as “video game ambassadors”, this weekend they’ll be earning it… again. Friday marks the kick off of the team’s East Coast expo in Boston, an extension of the popular, often overflowing Penny Arcade Expo held each…

Monday, Monday!

To: Crecente From: Bashcraft Today isn’t Sunday, but yesterday was. So let’s a music video together! What you missed last night Nintendo And McDonalds: A Short History Brazilian Kratos Has Magnificently Painted Man Boobs Get Inside The Real-Life Yakuza Mario Creator Has Never Called Video Games “Art” Swiss Government Cracking Down On Violent Game Sales

Cosplaying In The Streets of Osaka

Girls in stockings. Girls in wigs. Girls in frilly dresses. Over the weekend, the cosplaying hoard took to the streets of Osaka’s Den-Den Town in the annual Nipponbashi Street Festival. The main drag, Sakai-suji, was closed to traffic so cosplayers and people with cameras could mill about, pose and snap photos. It was, for a…

Fable Designer On Not Getting Avatar (And Then Getting It)

Peter Molyneux, the game designer behind the Fable franchise, was invited on the set of Hollywood motion picture Avatar. He didn’t quite “get it”. “I went on the set of Avatar three times and thought, ‘Good grief, he’s got the same problem I have,'” Molyneux told the Times. “All I saw the first time was…

Nintendo And McDonalds: A Short History

The king of fast-food. The biggest Japanese video game company. Nintendo and McDonald’s have been in cahoots for years The recent news that McDonald’s is using the Nintendo DS to quickly train new part-time employees is just the latest in a long, long line of Nintendo-McDonald’s tie-ups. This collaboration helps McDonald’s cuts training time in…

Geometry Wars: The Movie

Alex Kobbs, creator of LEGO “film” Battle of the Brick, is a busy man, for not only is he making a stop-motion movie based on Halo, he’s just made one based on XBLA shooter Geometry Wars as well. Called Geometry – Everything you need to know!, it’s the tale of what happens when you sit…

Giant Gundam Returns With Giant Beam Saber

Ready to slice you up! After being erected this past summer in Tokyo’s Odaiba, the life-sized Gundam statue is returning. With an beam saber. The huge 18-meter statue will be once again erected in the city of Shizuoka this July – specifically, the east exit of Japan Rail Higashi-Shizuoka Station. The beam saber even lights…

Mass Effect 2 Characters Get New Wardrobe Options

Let’s see, let’s see…do I clothe Mass Effect 2 nutjob Jack in tattoos and some packing tape? Or do I go the Kanye West route, and opt for sci-fi sunglasses and jeans? Decisions, decisions. Tomorrow, Bioware will release yet another piece of downloadable content for role-playing masterpiece Mass Effect 2, this time consisting of new…

Brazilian Kratos Has Magnificently Painted Man Boobs

To mark the official launch of God of War III, Brazil did it in style — complete with Kratos cosplay. What sells this dress-up of the God of War III protagonist isn’t just the bald head or the muscles, but the fantastic make-up job. Bravo! Midnight Kratos @ SP: Eu fui! [Hadouken]

Swiss Government Cracking Down On Violent Game Sales

According to a report on Gamesmarkt, Switzerland’s National Council has just passed a pair of bills that seek to restrict the sale of violent video games within the country. The first, put forward by Evi Allemann, of the Socialist Party, wants to stop the manufacture, advertisement, importation and sale of any game that promotes as…

No More Neon Genesis Evangelion News Reading

Launched in June 2009, The Misato Katsuragi News Project had Neon Gensis Evangelion character Misato read the news. As Kotaku posted previously, the news program runs on software that collects news from real-life news (politics, the economy, sports and, yes, the anime industry). A Cellius voice synthesis engine is used to have Misato read said…

Get Inside The Real-Life Yakuza

With the release of Sega’s Yakuza 3 going down well with many, let’s take a look at the actual Yakuza, Japan’s “mafia”, and see just how powerful – and accepted – they are in contemporary society. American author and journalist Jake Adelstein knows more about the Yakuza than most Westerners, having studied them closely for…

Mario Creator Has Never Called Video Games “Art”

Are video games art? Or are they entertainment? Let’s see what Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Last week, Miyamoto was in London to receive a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship at the GAME British Academy Video Games Award, reports the Associated Press. “It’s a great…