Kotaku Originals: Annual Affairs

They happen every year: QuakeCon, the Woodstock of Gaming. Totilo’s in Dallas, bringing back the peace and love. Madden also dropped this week; with a splurge of coverage and controversy. And console price rumors? Oh, right, they happen every day. The week in original reporting on Kotaku: Kotaku’s QuakeCon 2009 Coverage News Former LucasArts President…

Mommy, Where Do Classic Video Games Come From?

After crying to the heavens about the lack of an English-language version of classy French gaming mag Amusement, editor Abdel Bounane was kind enough to point us towards this gallery from the latest issue. No need for translation with these! These are from a piece called “Made in Myth”, and show how cats like Miyamoto…

Red Steel 2 GamesCom Video

We knew Ubisoft’s Red Steel 2 was going to be playable at GamesCom, and this teaser trailer doesn’t tell us much more than that. I am excited that I’m finally going to get a chance to go hands on with the Wii MotionPlus title. I was so excited about Red Steel and so, so, so…

All Weekend, Valve’s Games Will Be Crazy Cheap

Valve are saying “to hell with third party Steam sales” this weekend, as their digital download store plays host to an in-house firesale, with Half-Life, Counter-Strike and Team Fortress products all going for a song. All standalone Half-Life titles (including Team Fortress Classic) are a whopping 66% off, meaning you can buy all seven of…

Eat that, ho.

July’s Top-Selling PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade Games

There are sales charts for the US, sales charts for Japan, even sales charts for Britain and the PC, so why not for downloadable games on consoles? Why not indeed. So let’s take a look. GamerBytes have posted the top 10-selling games for both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade for the month of…

Brink Impressions: It All Makes Sense Now

Splash Damage’s 2010 squad-shooter Brink wowed our Luke Plunkett at E3. Here at QuakeCon, a public demo of the game wowed several hundred more people. The game defies easy classification. It’s ambitious. Brink is the Bethesda-published game from the makers of Enemy Territory Quake Wars, Splash Damage. The studio’s chief, Paul Wedgwood, took the same…

Bethesda Have “No Plans” For More Elder Scrolls

On this week’s instalment of No Plans Watch: Bethesda’s Todd Howard, speaking at QuakeCon 09 on the future of the Elder Scrolls series now that his company is officially done with Fallout 3. Answering fan questions on the subject, Howard said that there are “no current plans” for a fifth game in the Elder Scrolls…

They Don’t Have A Modern Warfare 2 Box Big Enough For This One

Life-sized Modern Warfare 2 ‘Ghost’ prototype, as seen on fourzerotwo’s Twitter.

A Blog For The Ladies… Who Date Gamers

A former co-worker of mine started a blog for girlfriends of gamers. I’m hoping she’ll expand the scope — but for now, I get to be both her target audience and her audience’s target. The Gamer’s Girl is supposed to be a place for girlfriends of gamers to commiserate about their gamer-dating-related woes and advice.…

Madden Launch: It Happens Every Year

Last night the Springfield, Ore., Game Crazy treated about a dozen people to tailgate food and a Madden tournament. Despite the hype, the launch memories many of them shared had little to do with the highest-selling franchise of all time. Resident Evil 5 was bigger, said Travis Wade, 27, a store employee. Halo 3 was,…

Eternal Sonata Manga Looks… Different

I just now got around to reading the manga adaptation of Trusty Bell: Chopin no Yume (a.k.a. Eternal Sonata) by Kuroi Mimei and I’ve got to say — I’m a little weirded out. For one thing, a huge chunk of the cast is missing from the 10-chapter story — including my favorite unbalanced character, Viola.…

‘Inglourious Plummers’ Spoof Is Basterdly Good

Okay, so that heavily mustachioed Toadsworth is no Brad Pitt, but this spoof of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds set in the Mushroom Kingdom compensates in charm. It’s rock solid use of Wario and game footage doesn’t hurt. Don’t hit that pause button until you make it to the very end of GamerVision‘s Inglourious Plummers. It…

Sega Putting Chromehounds Servers To Sleep

Xbox 360 mech sim Chromehounds is about to have its online component put to sleep. Sega will be taking the game’s multiplayer portion behind the barn, hopefully ending its life with the first shot. The Chromehounds community, dozens strong, was informed of the news last week: Sega will be pulling the plug on January 6,…

I Should Probably Start Packing

To: Owen From: Crecente Totilo is homeward bound after spending a chunk of the week in Texas at Quakecon (expect a lot more from him in the coming days). And it’s just in time too. Mike and I are both flying out on Sunday for Germany. I just realized that it’s Friday night and that…

Tecmo Adding Ninja Gaiden, Rygar To Virtual Console Arcade

New ESRB ratings indicate that Tecmo is planning to inject some life into the incredibly dull Wii Virtual Console Arcade lineup, with new ratings for Ninja Gaiden, Solomon’s Key and Rygar. Those three Tecmo arcade games all spawned NES ports, with Ninja Gaiden remarkably different from its arcade predecessor. While we haven’t seen an announcement…

They Came, They Fragged: QuakeCon’s Staggering BYOC Galaxy

Glimpsed from a distance QuakeCon’s Bring Your Own Computer conclave looks more like something NASA related, than frag related.

DSi Reclaims #1 Spot In Japan, Hi-Def Console Sales Still Low

Last week’s strong showing by the Wii doesn’t repeat this week, as the Nintendo DSi rightfully reclaims its seat at the top of the Japanese hardware sales chart. Things quickly get ugly in the bottom half. While the DSi, Wii and PSP continue to sell strongly week in and week out, the PlayStation 3 and…

Dr. Stephen T. Colbert Prescribes New ‘Tan Theft Auto’ To Kids

Doctor of the fine arts and television personality Stephen T. Colbert, DFA has the cure for what ails our vitamin D deficient youth—video games!! During last night’s “Cheating Death” segment, Colbert busted out a new piece of tech, Prescott Pharmaceuticals’ Vaxbox, a revolutionary console that not only plays games, it gives kids a healthy orange…

Tony Hawk To Vert at GamesCom

Former pro-skater and current video game namesake Tony Hawk plans to demonstrate Activision’s upcoming motion-based skating title at next week’s Gamescom. The 41-year-old skateboarder will also be tackling Gamescom’s vert ramp, located in the conventions sports zone in hall 7, to wow the crowd on Friday evening. I suspect we won’t be seeing any 900s.…