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The Golden Years
To: Luke From: Owen Re: The Man You guys know that I’ve been in South Carolina for the past four months, looking after my grandfather while he recovered from a rather serious fall and head injury late last year. The good news is that he is well and capable of resuming an independent lifestyle in…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Week in Games: There’s Bound to Be Blood
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the rootinest, tootinest, shootinest title in a busy week, as nearly every publisher is trying to unload some new release by the end of the quarter deadline. [Sorry folks. I forgot to tell teh interwebs to push this out. OSG] Some sites are still showing Marvel vs. Capcom…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Mass Effect Insanity Explained, May not be Locked in ME2
One gripe among hardcore Mass Effect players is that its toughest difficulty was an unlockable – after playing through the game twice. A design lead explains why, and “insanity” may not be locked in ME2. On the Mass Effect forums, Christina Norman, lead system designer, said that Insanity difficulty was made unlockable, because it was…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Arkham Achievements Unveiled
The list of 47 achievements, worth 1,000 Gamerscore, have made it out – for the Games for Windows Live version of Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s hard to imagine these will change much for 360. Finishing the game on any difficulty (of three settings) returns 50 Gamerscore; 100 percenting it gives you 75, and solving all…
By Owen Good -
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UncategorizedA Team Fortress 2 Tribute to Billy Mays
This has been a week unlike any other for celebrity deaths. Billy Mays, the cheerful, if relentless pitchman who hawked such items as Oxiclean and Orange Glo, was found dead in his home today. Mays, 50, was something of the modern heir to types like Ron Popeil. But his pitch style was never greasy or…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Xbox Live Offering “Thriller” for Free
The Michael Jackson Grief-a-Thon rolls into its fourth big moneymaking day. Except that “Thriller” is being offered free for the rest of the weekend on Xbox Live Marketplace. Ordinarily it goes for 160 Microsoft points. “Beat It,” “Smooth Criminal” and “Billie Jean” join Thriller in the top 10 of the Most Popular in XBLM’s Marketplace…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Alright, What, Exactly, is “Xbox 360 Beta?” [Update]
Natal? ODST? Whatever it is, Major Nelson, Stepto and other Redmond regulars have been playing it lately. I thought it might be 1 vs. 100, but other friends show that as “Xbox 360 Dashboard.” So that’s two Xbox rumors before the morning’s out. I have emailed Larry to see if he wants to say anything…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Ten Minutes of Batman: Arkham Asylum — in Polish
If you don’t know Polish, the narrative gets in the way, but you can watch Bats skulk around Arkham’s grounds and get a feel for the stealth takedowns the game is engineered to deliver. I was particularly impressed by his ziplining up to a guard tower and clonking a sniper, forehead-first, into the railing. Of…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Win Prizes in 1 vs. 100 Next Week? [Update]
Last night on 1 vs. 100, it sounds like host Chris Cashman let slip that this coming week the game show’s beta is over, and players can finally take home Microsoft points. The accidental leak came after The One, as many have been wont to do during the beta, either ignored or didn’t remember the…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Weekend Talk Amongst Yourselves
It was 80 degrees, in the shade, at 7 a.m. where I am. That’s too hot to be easy like Sunday morning. Stay inside and enjoy the air conditioned comfort of Kotaku’s official open thread. (P.S. If you don’t get the reference made by the word balloon.) Confused about commenting on Kotaku? Read our FAQ.
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
College Freshman Gets Life in Console-Dispute Tragedy
A Fresno man was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for shooting a 19-year-old to death in a dispute over a PlayStation 2, bringing to a close a tragedy first reported on two years ago. Jonquel Brooks (pictured at right), a freshman at Fresno State, shot and killed Brant Daniels, 19, and wounded Daniels’…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 not Releasing June 29
Marvel’s financial report back in May said Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would release for download on June 29. The Capcom-Unity Twitter account has officially nixed that date, setting it back about a month. Says Capcom-Unity: MvC2 is not actually coming out on June 29, sorry guys. Not sure where that rumor came from, but it’s…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
There Will Be No “New Game Plus” in Mass Effect 2
Restarting a character, with all of his attributes, weapons and perks, at the beginning of the game is sometimes called “new game plus.” Mass Effect had it, but Mass Effect 2 won’t. Preston Watamaniuk, the lead designer for Mass Effect, addressed the question today on Bioware’s forums, and the explanation has as much to do…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
EverQuest I & II Get 16th and 6th Expansions
The dedicated players of Everquest – and after nearly 10 years, hell yes they are dedicated – will get expansions for the first two games in the series beginning in November. At its Fan Faire in Las Vegas, Sony Online Entertainment announced the 16th expansion for EverQuest, will be released in November. Called “Underfoot,” it…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Right-Wingers Cite 1982 Arcade Death in Legal Brief
The fun-killing neighborhood scolds at the Eagle Forum filed a brief [pdf] supporting California’s violent video game law, and invoke the 1982 death of a Berzerk player as evidence that games even cause physical harm. The Eagle Forum isn’t much different from your typical gasbag family values think tank, except that it was founded in…
By Owen Good