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Your Three Favorite Dioramas
Our Arcade Mania diorama contest has come to a close, and Kotakuland has picked the winners. What to see your favorite dioramas? Winners, please send an email to kotakucontestATgmailDOTcom to claim your copy of Arcade Mania. Be sure to include your address and let us know if you’d like your copy signed. Arcade Mania is…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 1, 2009 - Uncategorized
What’s Nintendo’s Year End Tokyo Stock Exchange Ranking?
Let’s take look back at something very exciting: Nintendo’s year end Tokyo Stock Exchange market ranking. What number did the company come in? Oh, the suspense! Here is the 2008 year end Tokyo Stock Exchange market cap ranking: 1. Toyota Motors: 10.160 trillion yen 2. NTT Docomo: 7.915 trillion yen 3. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group:…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 1, 2009 - Uncategorized
More SEGA Dreamcast Game Trademark Re-Registering Fun
SEGA has re-registered yet another trademark for yet another Dreamcast game. This time, it’s puzzler ChuChu Rocket. On December 22, SEGA U.S. re-registered the ChuChu trademark — one of many DC titles to get their TMs renewed. According to game site Siliconera, this year SEGA has re-registered trademarks for following Dreamcast games: Sonic Shuffle, Cosmic…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 1, 2009 - Uncategorized
Dumb Lady Physically Puts Credit Cards In Wii
There are smart people, and there are dumb people. Here is the story of a dumb person, her credit cards and a Nintendo Wii. Over at game forum NeoGAF, member HUELEN10 told the following tale. We cannot vouch for the validity of it, but here goes: My neighbors which I don’t really know to well…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 1, 2009 - Uncategorized
Uncharted 2 Also Takes Place In War-Torn Tibet, Has New Love Interest
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has a new game mechanic (stealth) and a new dead famous guy (Marco Polo). Both we knew. What are some things we didn’t know about Uncharted 2? Creative Director Amy Hennig tells EDGE magazine, “Our last story was about Francis Drake… Our ‘what if’ was: what if Francis Drake hadn’t died…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 1, 2009 - Uncategorized
PlayStation Home And Second Life: Worlds Apart
Ever since PlayStation Home was first announced in January 2007, people have been calling it Second Life for the PlayStation 3. We take a look at what separates these two very different virtual worlds. Having been immersed in Second Life for the better part of two years now, I first ventured into the virtual world…
By Mike Fahey Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
A Year In Review: The Top Reviews Of 2008
2008 was the year that we decided to get off our butts, start reviewing games and finally tell the game blog reading populace exactly what we thought of Haze. It was a very good year. While we’d “reviewed” games in the past, we didn’t have a format that we were happy with. We settled that…
By Michael McWhertor Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Show Me The Games You Got In 2008 & I’ll Show You Mine
As 2008 comes to a close (or has already for those of you in The Future) it’s always fun to look back on a year’s worth of purchases and obsessively list twelve months of consumption. This year represents, as far as I know, my biggest haul. The reason? This is the year I started to…
By Michael McWhertor Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Kotaku Resolutions
To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Oh, 2009, Hi Despite not being a big celebrator of New Year’s Day, I still make resolutions. The thing is, when kept private, resolutions are rarely kept, at least by me. So here are my Kotaku resolutions: Roll out the new format for previews Bring critiques back Update our Work…
By Brian Crecente Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Reminder: Blizzard Customer Support Still Not A Teen Suicide Hotline
Teenage suicide? Don’t do it. And don’t threaten that you’re going to kill yourself to Blizzard Entertainment customer support representatives via online chat, because that will land your ass in jail. (Pro tip!) Unfortunately, one 17-year old doofus from Middletown, Ohio hadn’t learned that lesson in time, making a phony threat while chatting in-game with…
By Michael McWhertor Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Way of the Samurai Finds Path To Xbox 360
Former PlayStation exclusive series Way of the Samurai is making the platform jump. Publisher Spike announced its intentions to bring Way of the Samurai 3 to the Xbox 360 in February. Originally released on the PlayStation 3 in November, Way of the Samurai 3 (aka Samurai Dou 3) debuted in Japan with 81,000 units sold.…
By Michael McWhertor Published December 31, 2008 - Reviews
Meteos Wars Micro-Review: Make It Rain
Q Entertainment has given its Nintendo DS puzzler Meteos new life on Xbox Live Arcade with Meteos Wars. Why the “Wars” distinction? It’s certainly no bloodier than the standard Meteos (or even Meteos Disney Magic.) In fact, Meteos Wars doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from the 2005 game it’s based upon. The color-matching block…
By Michael McWhertor Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Play Pinball, Learn About Farts
I’ve seen plenty of edumacational games and I’m always delighted to explore how they surreptitiously teach people as they play a game. But this is the first time I’ve played a edu-pinbal game. Early on in the touring Grossology exhibit there are two Gas Attack Pinball machines. The game appears to be a standard pinball…
By Brian Crecente Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Wall Street Journal: Playing The Fool
An article from the Wall Street Journal highlights some eyebrow-raising stories from the new book “The Race for a New Game Machine,” written by designers who worked closely on the Cell and 360 processors. The book details the entire roller coaster ride of development, including when Microsoft contacted IBM to have the 360 chipset designed…
By Jim Reilly Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Resident Evil: Degeneration A Lackluster Afterthought
With the latest Resident Evil movie behind us and the next game looming ahead, flick Resident Evil: Degeneration sounds like perfect filler. But at least one critic says it’s little more than a 96-minute cutscene. Not as much fun as the Milla Jovovich movies and not nearly as well-conceived or written as the games, “Degeneration”…
By Brian Crecente Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
The LA Times’ Attempt At Making The Perfect Game
Who said designing video games was hard? All you need to do is steal the best parts from each and combine them into one enormous smorgasbord of all you can eat gaming. The Los Angeles Times went ahead and listed their most valued and defining game qualities from this year in an attempt to form…
By Jim Reilly Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Podcastalooza: The News You May Have Missed
Many of you, hopefully most of you, sat down and watched our Very Special Kotaku Holiday Podcast. But how many of you caught the director’s uncut of each in-game podcast? Over the past week we’ve been running a new unedited in-game podcast each day. Because I know some of you don’t have the time or…
By Brian Crecente Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
Mega64 Brings It Home
Anthony Funn from Sony tries to re-convince the general public that Playstation Home is indeed very fun. He highlights some of its actives, like waiting in line, beards, and moving stuff. Definitely not the funniest video they’ve done. I would have liked to have seen more running-man dancing and derogatory comments made towards women.
By Jim Reilly Published December 31, 2008 - Uncategorized
New Year’s Resolutions For The Game Industry
It’s the New Year, and that means it’s time for resolutions. You know, drop some weight, quit smoking, get organized – just like you resolve to do every year, right? It’s also a good time to reflect, maybe mull over some things you learned during the year and how you can apply those lessons in…
By Brian Crecente Published December 31, 2008