Hawken’s Great New Cinematic Trailer Shows How Giant Mechs Explode

Indie mech shooter Hawken is now in open beta. To celebrate, this very fancy new trailer has just been released. Boy, this game has come a long way. From nine dudes and a love of Maschinen Krieger to expensive-looking cinematic launch trailers in a little over 18 months.

Some Idiots Wanted To Move The Girl On The Cover Of The Last Of Us

As you’d expect given the fact she’s one of the two main characters in the game, teenage girl Ellie features prominently on the cover to Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us. Indeed, she’s got star billing. But this being video games, an industry where those responsible for selling a game can sometimes be morons and/or…

Hawken just went into open beta. Go kill some mechs!

I Could Not Contain Myself While Watching This Adorable Little Puppy Whimper And Fall All Over His Squishy Self

HO-LY SHIT. Guys. Guys, do you see this puppy guys. Guys, DO YOU SEE THIS PUPPY BULLDOG GUYS. My exact expression while watching little Tebow attempt to do his thing was palms at either side of face, mouth agape, happy “holy shit this is too cute for life” tears glistening on my eyeballs. Head over…

Windows 8’s Store Now Supports Adult Video Games

When the platform first launched, Windows 8 inexplicably shut out games rated PEGI 18, meaning that, if/when the day came that developers began releasing games with Windows 8 features, Europeans wouldn’t be able to get them from Microsoft’s store. It was a stupid oversight, especially since other markets like the US had no such issue,…

Two Companies Are Fighting Like Mutant Dogs Over The STALKER Franchise

What a mess. Ever since former developers GSC Game World began dying a slow and agonising death, the future of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has been up in the air, with former GSC staffers moving onto a spiritual successor after a rights dispute. Well, that dispute has now escalated to farcical proportions, with two companies claiming…

Gorgeous Games of 2012: Papo & Yo

We’ve gotten to this point where graphical fidelity can only take you so far: To make a visually memorable game, you have to have an imagination as well. The Magical Realist favelas of Papo & Yo had that in spades. Continuing in our series of cinemagraphs of some of 2012’s most gorgeous games is Papo…

GLaDOS Stars in Del Toro’s New Blockbuster Movie Trailer (No, Really)

As we told you back at New York Comic-Con, Ellen McLain, the voice actor behind Portal’s GLaDOS, has a role in Guillermo Del Toro’s upcoming Pacific Rim. Playing an AI. As you can see in this new trailer, what this means is that, basically, she’s playing GLaDOS in all but name. Well, all but name…

Midweek Moneysaver: Combo Maker

This Wednesday edition of Kotaku’s The Moneysaver catches all the offers, promotions and bargains that can’t wait until the weekend. The Midweek Moneysaver is brought to you by Dealzon. Software • Best Buy offers “Buy 2 Video Games, Get a $40 Gift Card” on a selection of 35 games for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii.…

A Simple Way To Fix Far Cry 3‘s Dumb Story

Far Cry 3 does a lot of things right. It’s fun to play, the island setting is beautiful, sneaking around is a lot of fun, gunplay is solid, and everything works well. But the story… well, the story has some issues. As I pointed out in my review, the unevenness and general kinda dumbness of…

You Can Knock Back Beers In This Bar That Looks Just Like The Hobbit Pub In The Lord of the Rings

Well, if you live in or visit New Zealand, that is. The Green Dragon pub located in the tourist town of Hobbiton is now open for hairy bare-footed business. Just in time for the release of The Hobbit. It’s modeled to look like The Green Dragon Inn that Frodo and his small-statured friends frequent in…

It Doesn’t Look Like It, but I Think This Ridiculous Red Bull Ice Skating Game is Getting Me In Shape

Wednesday morning last week I woke up feeling like I had been dragged behind that truck from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It felt like I had actually, like, worked out, which is stupid. I let my month-to-month gym membership expire once review season began. Then I remembered: I played that goddamn Red Bull ice…

The Most WTF Review Scores of the Year

Some games are great. Some games stink. Some game reviews are great. Some of the scores of them stink, too. As 2012 draws to a close, let’s take a pause from all the holiday cheer to officially gnash our teeth over the worst reviews—no, the worst review scores—of the year. These aren’t the games that…

With iPad and iCade Combined, a Classic Game Console is Reborn

Rantmedia games and ION have given me back a substantial portion of my childhood — the early days when I could be found sitting in front of an odd black box playing simple vector-based games with a controller connected via coiled telephone cord. So the controller isn’t corded this time around. Between the Vectrex Regeneration…

The Cast And Crew Of G4’s X-Play Say Goodbye

Via Blair Herter, here’s the cast and crew of G4’s X-Play saying goodbye as they shoot their last episode. G4 cancelled X-Play, along with their other gaming-related shows, as part of a network-wide rebranding that will see G4 turning into an Esquire channel

The Xbox 360 and Surface Tablet Fight Each Other, Thanks to Skulls of the Shogun

The next big game from Microsoft will let you earn Achievement points on your phone. And your Xbox 360. And even your Microsoft Surface. And it’s not a shooter. After all, gamers nowadays are drowning in a sea of shooters. Fans who like that sort of thing have an embarrassment of riches but strategy fans…

PSA: Hawken—the mech-based first-person shooter—is in open beta as of [later] today.

Zynga Elite Slots is One Part Slot Machine, One Part Massively Multiplayer Boss Raid

The problem with most slot machine video games is a failure to capture the thrill of winning big in the middle of a crowded casino. Launching soon on Facebook, Zynga Elite Slots communicates that feeling by placing you in a room with up to 149 fellow gamblers and challenging the group to take down a…

The Smartest & Dumbest Things Nintendo Did in 2012

Well, someone had to go first. As far as history will be concerned, Nintendo did one thing and one thing only in 2012: they released a brand new console, putting the first of three nails into the coffin of a seven year old generation. That sounded weird. Whether they have Leeroy Jenkins-ed their way into…

You Can Now Buy And Sell In-Game Items In Team Fortress 2, More Games Coming Soon

Steam now has its own auction house. Valve is launching what’s called the Steam Community Market, a new platform that will allow you to buy and sell items for Steam Wallet cash within various games on the giant digital network. The service is launching in Team Fortress 2, with more games to come later. For…