Left 4 Dead 2: The Truck: The Gallery

The King Of Fighters XII Gets Pricing Beatdown From Japanese Retailer

The bad news for SNK Playmore is that retailer response to The King of Fighters XII, at least at one major Japanese retailer, is that they’d like to be rid of it altogether, marking the fighting game down to $11. The good news is that Bic Camera, the outlet responsible for dropping KOF XII to…

Nintendo Thinks WiiWare Demos Might Be A Good Idea

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says that Nintendo is planning to test downloadable demos of some WiiWare games, a program that should kick off—in Japan at least—later this month. That’s according to IGN‘s translation of the oft-cited investor Q&A that Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto dropped minor details at last week—nuggets of news that range from Miyamoto’s…

Report: North Korean Military Digs Clams, Exports Fake Nintendo Games

One would think that the North Korean military is primarily involved with matters of combat. But, as recounted in one amazing Washington Post paragraph, they do other things: North Korea is perhaps the world’s most secretive and repressive state, but it makes no attempt to hide the ubiquitous role the military plays in the daily…

Rare Hopes To Evolve The FPS Genre With Project Natal [Update]

Banjo Kazooie and Viva Pinata developer Rare has made some important contributions to the first person shooter genre, a space it hasn’t visited since Perfect Dark Zero hit the Xbox 360 in 2005. That may change, thanks to Project Natal. Rare’s Mark Betteridge tells MCV, as part of a feature on the first-person shooter, that…

Rabbids Developers Remembered Wii’s Neglected Features

The Wii has more special features than motion-sensitive controllers, a stand that tilts the system back and a power cord. The developers of Ubisoft’s latest Wii game seem to have remembered and decided to support some more neglected Wii features. The Controller Speaker: Did you remember that your Wii Remote has a speaker and that…

Dedication To Dedicated Servers Earns EA At Least 60 Bucks

As seen on the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 blog, where, I’ll guess, the redacted words include “Infinity” and “Ward.”

Dragon Age: Origins In Stores Now

Dragon Age: Origins is here. Ready for all that epic RPG combat? Dust off your mage outfit and plug in for the ride. Oh, and for the sexytimes. And for Tim Curry! Dragon Age: Origins, the new dark fantasy epic from BioWare is in stores now. NOW. Go get. 9 out of 10 stars. Dragon…

Splinter Cell Conviction Gets Collector’s Edition, Night Vision Not Included

Ubisoft is unfortunately foregoing offering replica Sam Fisher night-vision goggles for the collector’s edition of Xbox 360 exclusive Splinter Cell Conviction attempts to make up for it elsewhere. Does it succeed? For $79.99 the “limited run” version of Ubisoft Montreal’s stealth action game—still due February 23 in North America—packs in the requisite art book, “collectible”…

Let’s Spy On Fahey

Here at Kotaku today, there’s a sense of emptiness due to Mike Fahey’s day off. If only there was a way to invade his privacy and, say, snoop through his Dragon Age playing history. Ah, but there is! If you have a free account to BioWare’s “social” site, you can check out Fahey’s accomplishments in…

Developer: The Bosses Mandated Stranglehold’s Unnecessary Multiplayer Mode

Why do some games have multiplayer? Because the executives demand it, even if the developers don’t want it. As explained in a recent account of goings on at Midway. In the middle of last month, ex-Midway producer John Vignocchi was a guest on the Giant Bomb podcast, managing to share some wild tales about his…

Is Konami Going To “ReBirth” Jackal On Wii?

Konami may be reaching ever deeper into the intellectual property well, revitalizing one of its more obscure franchises, Jackal, as a Wii game. Do images of a “working prototype” of what appears to Jackal mean a remake is incoming? Not necessarily, but given Konami’s flood of WiiWare versions of Contra, Gradius and Castlevania, released under…

Study: Playing Games Hurts Income, By The Minute

Studies about video games say the darnedest things. Either it is plainly obvious that being a gamer hurts your income — because you have to spend money on these games! — or there is a mathematical revelation here. The New-Brunswick Telegraph Journal reports the findings of Economics student Ryan MacLeod, who has crunched some demographics…

Watch Me Dissect Swag While Being Repeatedly Rick Rolled

The folks at Electronic Arts are putting a lot of time into developing fun, sin-themed marketing for their upcoming release of Dante’s Inferno. Watch the extended cut of me playing around with the box sent me by said marketeers as I try to avoid using the hammer they sent me as part of their wrath-themed…

Left 4 Dead 2 Demo Goes 4 Gold

Xbox Live subscribers of Gold distinction can enjoy the Xbox 360 Left 4 Dead 2 demo as of right now. The 1.69 GB demo is yours for the downloading from Xbox Live Marketplace. Second-class Xbox Live Silver members will have to wait another week to get their hands on the Left 4 Dead sequel. But…

Kotaku Review Round-Up: Tekken, Forza, GTA And More

We cannot stop new games from coming out, but we can at least review them. Here’s what we reviewed last week, for those who may have missed them. Click each thumbnail for a link to each review. Read! Dungeon Hunter Review: Pocketful of Diablo In which Brian Crecente attempts to justify writing the first full-sized…

The 10 Most Avidly-Played Wii Games In America (As Of Nov 1)

Lots to discuss about these stats this month, as Call of Duty rises to fourth and Guitar Hero III begins to dip. Remember, the numbers show hours:minutes, lifetime, for these games. (Click the chart to enlarge) The Nintendo Channel is properly calculating and reporting player data again and so I can provide this month’s look…

A Glimpse at League of Legends’ Champions

Free-to-play, highly addictive PC game League of Legends recently went on sale and live for those wanting to play for free. We’ll have our full review up for the real-time strategy game tomorrow, but until then take a look at this trailer, which shows off some of the more than 40 playable champions in the…

Doom Classic Now on iPhone

In case you missed it, Doom Classic is now available in the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The $7 game, designed by John Carmack, features customizable control schemes, 36 levels spread across four episodes, a bounty of weapons and multiplayer support. Here’s the full break-down of game features: Play the legendary first…

Penny Arcade Awards $10K College Scholarship

Video game design hopeful Kyla Gorman was awarded the 2009 Penny Arcade Scholarship, which she says she plans to use to pursue a degree in game design at the University of Southern California. “I’ll be forever thankful for the opportunity the PA Scholarship has given me to attend USC, one of the world’s best game…