The Best Of Kotaku, This Week

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week’s best content. Look at BMO up there. So happy amongst his brethren (actually BMO is genderless as far as I know). The picture was made for Game & Graphics’ new BMO shirt Now let’s move on to reading this week’s best…

One of the Most Impressive Nintendo Collections in Japan

By day, Tokyo resident Isao Yamazaki is a website developer. By night, he’s at home, perusing one of the most amazing Nintendo collections you can find in Japan or anywhere else. Yamazaki fell in love with Nintendo early on. “I started collecting Nintendo items 30 years ago, in 1982,” he told website Before Mario. “My…

This Isn’t Real Sushi. These Are Diapers.

How cute. Japanese company Wire Orange is offering “Diaper Sushi” (“omutsu zushi” or おむつ寿司) as a present for new mothers. The gift set is designed to look like sushi. Often in Japan, sushi is used in celebrations and special dinners, whether that’s going out to eat, ordering sushi for home delivery, or making it at…

Gold medal judoka Kaori Matsumoto is voicing a motorcycle cop in upcoming anime Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods

The Clever Optical Illusions and Camera Tricks of Figure Photography

Kotaku previously showed how skilled photographer Yoshinobu Kimura is at using tilt-shift photography, Photoshop, and figurines to make toys appear larger than life. Literally. Here’s another look at Kimura’s work, showing off his ability to breathe life into plastic figures and statues by using computer sofward to digitally add them to a variety of backgrounds.…

The Poetry and Humor of Japan’s iPhone Hero

Earlier this month, a Japanese performance artist who goes by Morishowta became a viral hit on Western websites like sister site Gizmodo with his Taxi Driver inspired iPhone quick-draw sleeve. But his work is far more interesting than just the quick-draw sleeve. Morishowta’s short movies follow his brilliant plans to make devices or eat soumen…

Mario Kart isn’t on iTunes, but a Mario Kart “cheat” app is.

This Super Sonico Statue Is Truly Enormous

Remember that Queen’s Blade statue? The jumbo one with silly proportions that an 88 year-old gentleman was thrilled to hold? Well, there’s another huge statue slated for release. It also has silly proportions. This is an unpainted prototype statue of Super Sonico, the mascot character for adult PC game maker Nitroplus. The figure is 1/2…

More Hope for Final Fantasy Versus XIII. I Guess?

Back in 2006, Square Enix unveiled three games: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Agito XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. All three were linked by a mythos centered on crystals, and the series was dubbed “Fabula Nova Crystallis”. And somewhere along the way to 2013, Final Fantasy Agito XIII was renamed Final Fantasy Type-0, while…

Cartoon Network Needs To Let This Guy Make An Entire Episode Of Adventure Time In 3D

Check out this animation by YouTube user RyleyAndFriends. It redoes Adventure Time’s intro, but in 3D. It’s great. I should catch up on Adventure Time. Not this weekend though. This weekend is for conventions and crazy adventures that I’ll get to write about next week. I’m excited. I’d tell you what those are, but I…

Don’t Like How Your Game Looks In The Upcoming SimCity? Give It The Instagram Treatment.

One cool feature in Maxis’ upcoming SimCity is the “filter” setting, which lets you view your city through all manner of lens. You can choose any of over a dozen filters, from soft-focus “warm” to a Sin City-like black and red, to “vintage,” which will look familiar to most anyone who has endured used social…

The Beauty Of One Shot, One Kill, As Shown Through Battlefield 3

The precise, ruthless efficiency of using a single bullet to kill someone in a game is kind of like poetry, huh? And that’s exactly what this wonderfully edited montage by TheOkayrussia feels like, poetic. Reminds me of what a master of sumi-e can do in a single stroke of a brush. This is why I…

The Week in Gaming Apps, Inaugural App Review Edition

Last week we bid a fond farewell to our regular Gaming App of the Day feature, swapping the aging and uncompromising system for something that gave us the flexibility to be more critical. How’d that work out? See for yourself! Before you get to the six gaming app reviews we posted this week (five of…

Massive Layoffs Crush Gas Powered Games Just Days After Launch Of $1.1 Million Kickstarter [Update]

We’ve heard from two sources that there have been big layoffs at Gas Powered Games, the company that just launched a Kickstarter for $1.1 million to make their next game, Wildman One source said these layoffs may be connected to the Kickstarter’s current performance, which you could argue has been disappointing, based on their goal.…

The Music In Fire Emblem: Awakening Is So. Hot.

I’ve been playing the upcoming 3DS game Fire Emblem: Awakening for the last week, and wanted to share some of the game’s music. We won’t be posting a full review for a little while still, but I can already say that the soundtrack, most of which you can already listen to on YouTube, is something…

The Sequel to a Game Played By Millions Dropped This Week, and No One Knew It Was Coming

Imagine Activision releasing the latest Call of Duty game without telling anyone it was coming. No developer diaries, no screenshot packages, no media events—just a quick heads up that it would be in stores tomorrow. Preposterous, right? Yet on Thursday a sequel to a game played by more people than Call of Duty: Black Ops…

Beautiful Video Game World Maps

World maps in video games are usually pretty great. We love world maps! You can use them to track the results of your progression through some grand adventure as new locations become accesible and your control over the world grows. A well-crafted world map in any game is always a sign of high quality. Plus,…

Love games? Fancy the idea of telling Kotaku readers about bargains? Apply for a job in our company’s Commerce Dept.!

DOTA 2 Introduces a “Least Played” Mode to Get Players Out of Their Comfort Zones

The latest update for DOTA 2‘s beta now delivers a “Least Played” mode, which will match players who are forced to use characters other the 20 that have given them the most wins. It’s meant to get players in the game’s closed beta to explore the game’s full roster, which now runs 96 character deep.…

Sublime browser-based strategy game Highgrounds just updated with 14 new characters and lots more. You should play it