Kotaku Off Topic: Put Your Finger in the Socket

Thank goodness it’s Friday. And thank the heavens for Kotaku Off Topic, where non-video game related conversation kicks off the weekend, a chance to let off some steam about whatever subject is on your mind. No dilly-dallying. This is an open topic, yours for the steering. Here are a few things to get the conversation…

There It Is! The Most Amazing Use Of The Nintendo DSi Camera

This is Rittai Kakushi e Attakoreda, a DSiWare game that makes brilliant use of the Nintendo DSi’s built-in cameras to control an in-game camera that lets the player explore a 3D diorama to find hidden objects. The downloadable game, right now for Japan only, comes courtesy of Wario Land: Shake It! developer Good-Feel. As one…

Rock Band Weekly Gets Disturbed, Adds Silversun Pickups & More

Next week’s batch of Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and LEGO Rock Band downloadable tracks leads with mood rockers Disturbed, who bring more of The Sickness to Harmonix and MTV Games’ music game. A three pack of Disturbed tracks will come to various Rock Band games (but not the family friendly LEGO spin-off), with tracks…

An Unfortunate Pairing of Gestures with Double Entendres

An Australian morning news team catches up with curling, the latest It Sport, via Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. What’s the joke? Well, here it comes … here it comes! [thanks Ryan H.]

New 3D Dot Game Heroes Screens Will Add Inches To Your Sword

Atlus is bringing From Software’s 3D Dot Game Heroes to North America this May, a PlayStation 3 exclusive adventure that’s full of tiny, blocky, brave adventurers sporting monster blades and here are six scorching shots full of huge hard steel. Oh, and one rare fish. For a quick video primer on just what 3D Dot…

First Details on NCAA 11 Emerge

EA Sports gave its first exclusive look at (and first screengrab, above) NCAA Football 11 to ESPN, and the first details emerging about the game are ones sharpening the game’s visual authenticity. In terms of actual gameplay, so far only the return of formation substitutions (a feature on previous-generation versions of the game) changes what…

Review Round Up: Micro Zombie Invasion

It was a week infested with zombies, Nazi zombies and micro-reviews, the smaller format reserved for Kotaku reviews of downloadable video games and downloadable game add-ons. It was also the week that featured our first massive-review. That would have been Mike Fahey’s review and four week long log of massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star…

Finally, A Chance To Beat Up Crecente In-Game

Specifically the Eegra version, as seen in Xbox Live Indie Games release Avatar Showdown.

Judge Tosses Blind Gamer’s Suit vs. Sony

In October a visually-impaired gamer sued Sony, alleging that it wasn’t fulfilling its responsibilities under U.S. law to provide access to the disabled. The reasoning depending on finding that Sony’s products constitute a public accommodation. A judge said they aren’t. Plaintiff Alexander Stern sued Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sony Online Entertainment in federal…

Enjoy the Weekend

To: Owen From: Crecente It’s Friday. I think I’m going to try and catch The Crazies this weekend. That is all. What you missed: Disney’s Guilty Party: Family-Friendly and Fun…Really. FlingSmash: It’s All In the Elbow The Stalling Of An Anti-Bush Video Game This Week In Comics Transformers: War For Cyberton Preview: A World Without…

First Joe Danger Trailer Looks Ridiculously Fun, Fiendish, Gorgeous & Delicious

Hello Games’ Joe Danger is on a very, very short list of downloadable games that we’re unreasonably excited about here at Kotaku, a game that got its first official video showing during last night’s GameTrailers TV. While Joe Danger may not have gotten the airtime that Kratos did on the show’s God of War III…

The Last Laugh in the Pitchers-vs.-Hitters Feud

So, MLB 2K10 releases on Tuesday, officially delivering to you this hitters-vs-pitchers battle it’s been touting the past two months. Here is the final installment, complete with artist’s renderings by the Rangers’ Nelson Cruz. I just got my review copy of this and have already begun working on it. Two things will work you into…

Where Have All The Zombies Gone?

The Infected. Los Ganados. Majini. Parasite hosts. Some of the biggest “zombie” games in recent years don’t feature the undead. Why can’t we call a spade a spade, burying it in the neck of a good old-fashioned undead zombie? This is a conversation we’ve been having fairly often lately at Kotaku Tower, mainly due to…

Hammer Back A Few With Warhammer Online Beer Steins

After a long day in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, one builds up a big Orcish thirst. The best way to quench said thirst? Drinking your beverage of choice (mead, ale, blood, etc.) from an officially licensed WAR stein. Those lager or Mountain Dew-holding steins can be pre-purchased as of right now, one in Order…

Dreamcast’s Rayman 2 Hits iPhone Next Week

Hot off of game developer Gameloft’s Twitter feed is this juicy nugget: Rayman 2: The Great Escape is coming to the iPhone on March 1. That’s Monday for you calendar-challenged readers out there. The game features all 45 environments of the original 3D game and appears to use a virtual thumbstick and two buttons. What…

Star Trek Online Review: A Piece Of The Action

After years of television series, books, cartoons, movies, and video games for both consoles and PCs, Star Trek faces the final frontier: the massively-multiplayer role-playing game. When Star Trek Online was first officially announced back in June of 2008, fans of the series were excited, cautious, and slightly nauseous, all at the same time. The…

Transformers DS Screens

PlayStation Wins, Places In Japan’s Weekly Hardware Race

The PlayStation family bookends this week’s Media Create hardware sales chart thanks to strong sales of Biohazard 5 Alternative Edition and God Eater, as well as dwindling sales of the PlayStation 2 and PSPgo. Sony’s PSP and PlayStation 3 secure spots one and two on this week’s Japanese hardware chart, each platform giving a bit…

Transformers: War For Cybertron DS Preview: Grimlock Goes Portable [UPDATE]

Don’t get excited about this screenshot. It’s from the console version of Transformers: War For Cybertron. But the game still might turn your head. [UPDATE: DS screens added below.] Transformers: War For Cyberton on the Nintendo DS is being made by Vicarious Visions, the veteran studio behind other, recent well-regarded portable 3D Transformers action games.…

Transformers: War For Cybertron Preview: A World Without Michael Bay’s Robots

No humans. No Michael Bay. Two campaigns. Three-player online (only) drop-in/drop-out co-op Transformers with a link to the past and a Gears of War amount of gunfire. Happier? Last week, the developers of Transformers: War For Cybertron began the live demo of their summer game with an audacious claim. “The goal was not to make…