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Who Owns The Rights To Guilty Gear?
There are rumors that Sega Sammy Holdings now owns the rights to Guilty Gear, the flashy fighting franchise from developer Arc System Works. Game site Gamasutra tries to find out if they are true. Background: Sammy, which bought SEGA in 2004, has published Guilty Gear tiles like Guilty Gear X, Guilty Gear Isuka and Guilty…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Rumor: EA Shuts Down Pandemic Studios Down Under
Electronics Arts has shuffled off Pandemic Studios’ Brisbane office, a reliable source tells Kotaku. The Australian developer was best known for Destroy All Humans! and its rumored development of an ill-fated Batman game. According to the information we were provided, Pandemic’s Brisbane staffers weren’t necessarily laid off by EA corporate, which purchased the developer alongside…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Coraline Screens Creep Me Out
I’m thrilled Neil Gaiman children’s book Coraline is getting the Nightmare Before Christmas treatment. But I can’t say the same for the video game tie-in. Something about these screens just seems too happy to me. No spoilers, but suffice it to say Coraline is not a tale of bright, shiny, happy things. So why does…
By AJ Glasser Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
New Game Informer Reveals Activision’s Singularity
The February issue of Game Informer drops a “world exclusive” on us, Activision and Raven Software’s Singularity. What is it? A sci-fi shooter, if you can possibly believe that. According to the magazine’s teaser, Singularity “features mind-bending gameplay that not only has the player jumping through time, but using it as a weapon.” You get…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
FIFA Interactive World Cup 2009 Grand Final goes to Barcelona
FIFA, Electronic Arts and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe today announced that the 2009 FIFA Interactive World Cup is going to go down in Barcelona this May. There’s still time to enter the tournament before the March 31 cutoff date. Qualifying rounds are going on worldwide via PlayStationNetwork and at FIWC 09 Live Qualifier Events. Check…
By AJ Glasser Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Analyst Dates PlayStation 3 Price Drop For April
Microsoft says its anticipating a PlayStation 3 price drop in the “springtime,” but what about the video game industry’s best-known analysts? One has pegged Sony for a PS3 price cut as early as April. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has consulted the spirit world (and probably a spreadsheet or two, to be fair) bringing back…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Red Alert 3 For PS3 Is The “Ultimate Edition”
There’s a good reason PlayStation 3 owners have had to wait to play Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 on their console. EA’s been busy packing the ULTIMATE experience onto a Blu-ray disc! Or so says the EA Store, which now lists the PS3 “Ultimate Edition” port of the latest Red Alert real-time strategy game.…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Report: Nintendo DSi Gets Priced, Dated For U.S. Launch
The next Nintendo DS, dubbed the DSi, is rumored to be launched in the United States in April of this year, according to a report from IGN which cites “multiple sources close to Nintendo.” According to the report, the follow up to the tremendously successful Nintendo DS Lite will land on U.S. shores on April…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
TV
To: Ash From: Crecente Re: So I Hear This Season’s 24 Is Good… So Far I don’t really watch that much television. Between running Kotaku, spending time with Trish and playing with Tristan, I’m pretty whipped by the end of the day. When I do watch TV it’s often old movies on AMC or the…
By Brian Crecente Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Future Rock Bands May Steer Closer To “Real Musicianship”
What does the future hold for the Rock Band series? Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos gives us another hint in a new interview, one that teases closing the gap between real and fake rock and roll. Rigopulos says that “during the coming years we will continue to try to bridge the gap between simulated musicianship and…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
PixelJunk Eden Gets Updated, Easier This Thursday
North Americans, expect your copy of PixelJunk Eden to become breezier this week, as the patch that adds more time, more control options and more forgiveness will hit the PlayStation Network this Thursday. Q-Games’ big boss Dylan Cuthbert reveals on the official U.S. PlayStation blog that the patch that hit Japan late last year will…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Breaking News: Nintendo Games Not A Substitute for Reading a Book
A Carlsbad mother is fighting mad. Turns out that video games make her 5-year-old have panic attacks and, get this, they’re not a good replacement for reading books or playing outside. The Isabelle Clingerman tells the local news there that while her 9-year-old, who owns more than 40 Nintendo games, can play the games to…
By Brian Crecente Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Killzone 2 Gets Bundled With PlayStation 3 For Europe
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe just loves to put things inside retail PlayStation 3 boxes. Case in point, this Killzone 2 bundle, which reportedly leaked from SCEE earlier this week. That’s right, consider it unconfirmed. But don’t consider the package, basically an 80 GB PS3 plus a copy of Guerrilla Games’ shooter Killzone 2, unlikely. Or…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Aksys Goes Way Retro With Bit.Trip Beat For WiiWare
Aksys Games and developer Gaijin Games unveil Bit.Trip Bit, a rhythm action game that takes retro past the Nintendo Entertainment System, landing squarely in Atari 2600 territory. Bit.Trip Beat is an upcoming WiiWare title that takes the age-old concept of a paddle and balls and mixes in some of the latest Chiptune music in order…
By Mike Fahey Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Novint Falcon Soon To Confuse Console Gamers Too
With the peculiar-looking Novint Falcon finally gaining some solid support in mainstream games, such as Valve’s Left 4 Dead, the company plans on bringing the 3D controller to consoles. Looking like a device you’d expect to see in a medical office or alien spaceship, the Novint Falcon is a USB device that replicates mouse movement…
By Mike Fahey Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Turns Out You Can Be Arrested For Sexually Soliciting Boys On Xbox Live
Who knew that chatting up 13-year olds via Xbox Live then asking them for naked photos would be so frowned upon? What’s that you say? Anyone with a shred of common sense? One man who learned that lesson the hard way was 24 year old Portsmouth, Virginia resident Ryan Edwin Donker. Donker, whose very last…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Suicide Girls Rock Band Their Pants Off
If they’re going to tackle Halo 3 in the buff and Grand Theft Auto IV lollipop-fetishism, you know that the avant-garde nudies over Suicide Girls is all over Rock Band. And I do mean all over. In this latest pictorial, photographer tmronin took 1,800 shots over two separate shoots in Chicago to create this 72-photo…
By Brian Crecente Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
Playstation 2 Hits 50 Million in North America
The Playstation 2, born in 2000, continues to churn out impressive sales despite being a generation behind the current slate of gaming. Earlier today Sony announced that the PS2 just hit 50 million. And that’s in North America alone, the Associated Press reports. John Koller, director of hardware marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment of America,…
By Brian Crecente Published January 13, 2009 - Reviews
Lumines Supernova Review: Still Shinin’
Q Entertainment’s sound and lightshow-cum-puzzle game Lumines was one of the breakout hits for the PSP. It has since been ported to everything possible, including the PlayStation 3. Does Lumines Supernova bring anything new? Fortunately, yes. While the color-matching, Tetris-like gameplay is unchanged, a few new modes make Lumines Supernova a worthwhile entry in the…
By Michael McWhertor Published January 13, 2009 - Uncategorized
The Most Beautiful Atari 2600 Lamp Ever Created
In the long and storied history of Atari 2600-themed lighting projects there have been countless interesting creations, but only one Atari 2600 lamp deserves to be called the Ultimate. This is that lamp. Okay, so perhaps Atari 2600 lamps aren’t all that readily available in the first place, but that surely doesn’t steal away any…
By Mike Fahey Published January 13, 2009