Did a major gaming chain robo-call you yesterday, too? “This is an important message from GameStop!” Spoiler: It wasn’t.

Here’s (Most Of) Team Kotaku Reunited In New York City

Well, most of Team Kotaku, anyway! From left to right, front to back: Stephen Totilo, Chris Person, Yours Truly, Mike Fahey, Jason Schreier, Kirk Hamilton, Evan Narcisse, and Owen Good. The team is usually scattered across the US, but Fahey, Owen and Kirk flew over from their respective cities to celebrate the holidays at homebase.…

Asheron’s Call 2 lives again! … If you’re an Asheron’s Call subscriber, that is. If so, you can now play for free

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: The Kotaku Review

“I’ve found it is the small things, every act of normal folk that keeps the darkness at bay,” Gandalf the Grey says somewhere near the middle of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. “Simple acts, of kindness and love.” The Hobbit is not a small movie, but it is filled with small people doing small things.…

First Dirty Bomb Gameplay Trailer Shows a Loud, Messy Urban Battlefield

Following up on last month’s trailer, here’s a look at some pre-alpha multiplayer gameplay from Dirty Bomb. The trailer takes us to a smoldering, half-destroyed version of London, presumably one of the levels of Brink developer Splash Damage’s new free-to-play title. We get to see mostly scenes of infantry action, though a few moments of…

The World Won’t End This Month (But If It Did, It Should Look Like This)

As you may be aware, there’s a belief that the Mayans predicted the end of the world this month. They didn’t. But just the thought of the apocalypse has people dreaming up ways they’re going to meet the end of days. Like, say, invaders from space. My take on how the world is going to…

The Second Ace Attorney Musical is the Most Depressing Phoenix Wright Tale Ever

Back in May, we took a look at the first Phoenix Wright musical, Ace Attorney: Truth Resurrected. The musical presented a retelling of the final case in the DS remake of the first game, “From the Ashes.” And it was so well done that I went so far as to say that it was better…

Explaining the Difference Between Male and Female Otaku

In Japan, there are male nerds and female nerds. And there are key differences between the two, besides their gender: The way they shop and interact with fandom are not the same, reports Excite Bit An individual connected to otaku (geek) goods told Excite that there’s apparently a discrepancy in how much male and female…

Japan’s Solution to Boring Politics: Rad Manga Posters

Japan is holding a national election on December 16. No, wait! Don’t stop reading, because one politician just did something so very cool. It’s more a like manga-inspired art project than your typical politics. Before the election, boring posters of politicians go up across Japan. The posters feature headshots, and like I said, they are…

Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney is Pretty Much a Perfect Crossover Game

The Professor Layton series follows an English gentleman solving brain teasers and occult mysteries with his apprentice Luke. The Ace Attorney series follows lawyer Phoenix Wright as he breaks down the logical flaws in witnesses’ testimonies to protect his clients and uncover the truth in a court of law. At first glance they might not…

Why Resident Evil 4 Became a Nintendo Exclusive

Resident Evil 4 was released as a GameCube exclusive. And when Capcom ported the game to the PlayStation 2, Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami is quoted as saying he would “cut [his] own head off”. That infamous quote was probably a mistranslation. But there’s a reason why Mikami seemed so antagonistic towards Sony. What’s more,…

Circle of Mana, the newest entry in the Mana series, is a social card game for Android and iOS.

This Is What Didn’t Make the Final Fantasy Tactics Final Cut

Back in the days before the infamous Grand Theft Auto “Hot Coffee” scandal, it was common practice in game development to simply leave unfinished content on the disk. Sometimes this data was cut due to time issues, other times it was old data from early in the game’s development that no longer fit the vision…

And Here’s the Dragon Quest VII 3DS Trailer

Yes, right here! Watch it! Originally released in 2000 on the PlayStation, Dragon Quest VII is headed to the 3DS in Japan next February. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

A Bento Box. Shaped Like a PS3. No, Really.

To show its gratitude to the Final Fantasy and the Metal Gear series, Sony is launching a special “character bento” (kinda like this, I assume). Sony hasn’t yet unveiled the actual meal, but today it did show off the bento box the food will go in. The bento box that looks like a new PlayStation…

Everything You Need To Know About The New Devil May Cry (In Five Minutes)

After what seems like an eternity on the horizon, Ninja Theory’s Devil May Cry reboot is almost with us. To help you get up to speed on what’s going down, here’s five minutes of footage giving you the rundown on DMC, some of it helpful, some of it… less so.

I Don’t Think Samurai Actually Wore Sneakers

But that’s OK, because these are the samurai of tomorrow, not yesterday. They’re by the toy masters at ThreeA, and while there’s no price yet, that’s irrelevant, because I want one Looks like they go on sale on December 20. They say.. [ThreeA]

Petition to Build the Death Star Gathers Enough Signatures to Rate a Response from the White House

A petition calling on the United States to begin construction of a moon-sized superweapon has achieved 25,000 signatures, which according to the rules of the Obama administration’s feel-good bullshit platform “We the People,” requires a response from the White House. None has yet been made. You might recall all those articles of secession a bunch…

Chun-Li vs Tifa In a Brutal Fistfight. Who Would Win?

Sorry if that sounded like an idle fanfic question. I couldn’t care less what your imagination says. What I do care about is videos going to the trouble of dressing up professional stunt people/fighters and having them go at it… in the name of idle fanfic curiosity. Chun-Li vs Tifa (Street Fighter 2 vs Final…

Cramming A Giant PC Genre Onto a Tiny iPhone Can Work, You Know

There are few more “PC” genres than 4X. So named because they generally involve asking players to “explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate”, they’re normally set in space, and have so many buttons and menus that you can only really play them on the PC. So when I sat down to play Sidius Nova this morning,…