• Uncategorized

  This Game Looked Better On Paper

  It’s a common complaint that too many games these days are brown. Or grey. Or a brownish shade of grey. So it’s nice sometimes to spend a little time with the rest of the colour wheel. Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom was a game released earlier this year. It was…forgettable, which isn’t meant as a…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 29, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  2010: A Symphony Of Cosplay

  With Comiket just starting (and thus, Comiket cosplay), now is as good a time as any to take stock of 2010 in well-dressed cosplay form. These photos don’t include Winter Comiket cosplay (nor do they include Western events) and come courtesy of Moeyo.com. The music? That’s Beethoven. コミケ79も始まったし2010年のコスプレイヤーさんを集めてみたよ！ [Moeyo.com]

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 29, 2010
• Uncategorized

  Super Street Fighter 4’s Arcade Edition Needs A #Corrections Tag

  Here’s hoping you don’t rely on the printed instructions next time you slip some Yen into the arcade edition of Super Street Fighter IV. As seen on EventHubs

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 29, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  An Arcade Game To Fall In Love With

  Love Plus, the love simulator from Konami, is coming to Japanese arcades, so get ready to fall in love all over again. This latest trailer shows some of the date events like playing darts, as well as the dress up sequence, which could prove embarrassing for some players. The cabinets do have privacy dividers on…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 29, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  When A Game About English Words Is Released In Japanese

  Scribblenauts is a title that is synonymous with the English language. Or, at least, the Roman alphabet. So how does the game look when it gets translated into Japanese? It’s fascinating seeing the game running like this. To make things easier, the Japanese version has a fancier notepad, on which players can write characters in…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 29, 2010
• Uncategorized

  The Masses Descend

  The lines for Comiket form — that is, the highly organized lines. As seen at 7am this morning by yuhmari

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 29, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  See Kingdom Hearts Running On A PSPgo

  The fact you can’t buy Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep on the PSPgo highlights one of the bigger problems with Sony’s struggling handheld. It also helps explain why piracy is so rampant on the portable device. This clip, from a device that is able to run copied games on the handheld, shows what PSPgo and/or…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 29, 2010
• Uncategorized

  Who Was That Masked Model?

  In Japan, there are idols for everything, whether it be trains, personal computers or, of course, video games. They have one thing in common: they’re all smiley and cute. But what about an idol that never showed her face? Last summer, a blog went live featuring a young model named Imao with a doe-eyed anime…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 29, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  It’s Worms For The 21st Century

  Watch, as a fight between a painter and a guy who is rubbish at basketball enters the video game realm, and only escalates from there. This is what the Worms of the future should look like. Or Smash Bros., depending on how you interpret the battle!

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 29, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  The Year In Video Game Trailers

  Movie trailers suck. They lie, and they spoil. Game trailers, on the other hand, are an artform. Once derided as a smoke and mirrors show, being barely representative of the titles they were trying to sell, many game trailers have since moved beyond this trapping and become something more: short bursts of creativity and innovation,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 29, 2010
• Uncategorized

  Will The PSP2 Look Like This?

  Note these images are not from Sony. They’re mock-ups. But since they’re mock-ups of an image that claims to be of a real PSP2, they’re still worth looking at! These pics, commissioned by PSM3 and put together by this guy, formed part of a recent news article in the magazine, speculating on both the PSP2…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 29, 2010
• Uncategorized

  The Year In Surprises: Highs And Lows From 2010

  Can we still be surprised by video games in an industry rife with rumors, leaks and publishers who prefer safe bets to bold risks? Looking back at the turn of events that was 2010, a year sometimes rocky, sometimes thrilling, it seems we can. We should have seen some of the biggest surprises of 2010…

  By Michael McWhertor Published December 28, 2010
• Uncategorized

  Welcome Back, Search Bar

  Kotaku readers, if you’re not too pre-occupied with typing things into the search textfield or refreshing the #speakup page, waiting for it to work, how about joining us for some off-topic conversation tonight? As Mr. Crecente mentioned earlier, we’re heading to CES next week, which means a return to the desert of Las Vegas. Having…

  By Michael McWhertor Published December 28, 2010
• Uncategorized

  Call of Duty: Black Ops Nabs ‘Most Pirated Game of 2010’ Distinction

  Not only is Call of Duty: Black Ops one of the fastest selling video games of all time, racking up more than a billion dollars in sales in 2010, it’s also impressively enough one of the most illegally downloaded. According to a report from BitTorrent news site TorrentFreak, the PC version of Black Ops has…

  By Michael McWhertor Published December 28, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  Kinect Hacked To Play World of Warcraft

  We’ve made it an important milestone in the increasingly long list of hacks that transform Microsoft’s Kinect from Xbox 360 motion controller into something grander. World of Warcraft is now playable with Kinect hand-waving action. The Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California demonstrates its Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST)…

  By Michael McWhertor Published December 28, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  Here’s Where The Instruction Manuals Have Gone

  To: Ash From: Crecente Re: The Autographs Of My Boyhood I don’t have any gaming autographs either. My childhood signatures include David Copperfield, the Harlem Globetrotters and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Oh! And C3PO. I was a strange child. What you missed The Consumer Electronics Show Cometh New Owner of an Xbox Phone? Play These…

  By Brian Crecente Published December 28, 2010
• Uncategorized

  When Larry Niven reinvented the Green Lantern universe

  Larry Niven is best known as author of Ringworld novels and creator of the Known Space universe — but did you know he also helped to reinvent the Green Lantern Corps and their masters, the Guardians? You might have seen Larry Niven’s Green Lantern graphic novel, Ganthet’s Tale, which he co-created with artist John Byrne.…

  By Charlie Jane Anders Published December 28, 2010
• Uncategorized

  What Were The Biggest Games In Japan In 2010?

  Not too surprisingly, it was a pair of Pokémon games for the Nintendo DS that sold better in Japan than anything else. Also not shocking is that the top ten games are dominated by titles for Nintendo platforms. Pokémon Black and White moved nearly 4.5 million copies in 2010, followed most closely by New Super…

  By Michael McWhertor Published December 28, 2010
• 

  Uncategorized

  Feel The Drama, The Lightning of Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy

  Square Enix’s next Final Fantasy fighting game for the PSP will, at the very least, have some very handsome cinematics stuffed onto a UMD, as proven by the latest Japanese trailer for Dissidia 012 [duodecim] Final Fantasy. See new contenders and old favorites from Final Fantasy games new and old in the newest trailer for…

  By Michael McWhertor Published December 28, 2010
• Uncategorized

  Ever Wonder How The Nintendo Zapper Light Gun Worked?

  Today’s shooting gallery games take advantage of high-tech infrared sensors and cameras. Back in the days of the original Nintendo Entertainment System, things were much simpler. As a child I spent countless hours firing away at video game ducks with my NES Zapper light gun, but I wasn’t actually firing anything. If anything, I was…

  By Mike Fahey Published December 28, 2010