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One Day You Might Think ‘Saints Row’ Without Thinking ‘Grand Theft Auto’
Saints Row is the video game series many of us think of, with good reason, as the premiere Grand Theft Auto imitator. In theory, we won’t think of the next Saints Row that way. “All I can tell you is that [pause] it’s all good,” Danny Bilson the head of “core” games at Saints Row…
By Stephen Totilo Published January 12, 2011 -
PC Gaming Week Confessional, Bashcraft Edition
We are all over PC gaming this week , but what do we know about PC gaming? Each day, one Kotaku editor will reveal their PC gaming knowledge and share some memories. Yesterday you read about Crecente’s experiences, and now? Now you can read about mine. Are you a PC gamer? For several Texas summers…
By Brian Ashcraft Published October 27, 2010 -
K-On! Star’s Favorite Game Might Surprise You
Aki Toyosaki is a voice actress and a pop singer, perhaps best known for schoolgirl rocker anime K-On! She’s a gamer, too, and she’s got discerning taste. In Japan, Western games are not big sellers. People play Japanese games, which is totally fine! It is Japan. And while Western games might not be as popular…
By Brian Ashcraft Published October 19, 2010 -
Classic Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Coming To Mac, Says Rockstar
Answering reader mail, Rockstar Games today said it will be bringing Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City and San Andreas to Mac gamers “later this year.” “Look for the long-awaited release of the classic Grand Theft Auto Trilogy (Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) for Mac…
By Owen Good Published September 9, 2010 -
APB Developer’s Social Game Project Snapped Up By Mystery Buyer
Realtime Worlds, the U.K. developer of cops-and-robbers title APB, has entered administration, which is somewhat analogous Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in the U.S. While the firm’s administrator is looking for a buyer for the studio’s recent massively-multiplayer-online game APB, it has now sold a social gaming project it was working on called MyWorld. The project…
By Brian Ashcraft Published September 7, 2010 -
Kinect Could Make Carjackings, Stabbings & Execution Style Kills This Immersive
Rockstar Games wasn’t shy about utilizing the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as a killing tool in Manhunt 2, but will they follow suit and support Kinect for the Xbox 360? Could Grand Theft Auto V turn millions into sadistic mimes? Explore the vicious possibilities in this humorous look at how the next Grand Theft Auto…
By Michael McWhertor Published July 28, 2010 -
There Will Be No $450 Rockstar Book Collection
I hope the ultra-wealthy portion of the Kotaku readership didn’t get their hopes up for one of those $450 tomes collecting the history and art of Grand Theft Auto devs Rockstar. Because they’re not actually going to be made. At the time of our original story, a representative from publishers Steidl told us exact information…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 27, 2010 -
British Tab’s Bogus GTA Story Brings Bigtime Apology — and Damages
The idea that Rockstar Games was making “Grand Theft Auto: Rothbury” – whether or not a ghastly crime was committed there – was so sensationally ridiculous that when The Daily Star alleged such a plan, I ignored it. Rockstar didn’t. The studio has now extracted a remarkable apology from the U.K. tabloid, which last week…
By Owen Good Published July 24, 2010 -
The History Of Rockstar Is A $450 Library
Rockstar, the developer network behind games like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, will be releasing a book collection next month cataloguing their history and artworks. It comes in three enormous hardcover tomes, and costs $450. The three books, collected in a single volume, will feature “original illustrations, wireframes, production stills, product shots, ads,…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 19, 2010 -
Grand Theft Auto Blamed For Failed Teen Firebombing
“They appear to have crossed the line from virtual reality to reality,” said Police Chief Lou Pachec of the two teens who allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at an apartment building in Raynham, Massachusetts over the weekend. Two teens, one 16 and one 12, claim to have been playing Grand Theft Auto on Saturday night when…
By Mike Fahey Published July 2, 2010 -
Grand Theft Auto… Insurance?
Who knew that escaping a four-star wanted level in Grand Theft Auto was as easy as flashing proof of insurance to Liberty City’s finest? SafeAuto Insurance takes some liberties of its own to shill coverage to “tough guys.” Thanks, Killer_Walrus!
By Michael McWhertor Published June 30, 2010 -
Scientific America Looks at GTA, Calls for Non-Sexist, Non-Racist, Non-Violent Video Games
The problem of using science to determine whether or not violent video games like Grand Theft Auto do harm to our children is neatly summed up in one article on Scientific American – there’s always good news and bad news. In an article titled “Grand Theft Auto Is Good for You? Not So Fast…,” Scientific…
By Mike Fahey Published June 22, 2010 -
My Four-Year-Old Son Plays Grand Theft Auto
At the very impressionable age of four, my son loved Grand Theft Auto. This article is reprinted with the permission of Bitmob.com More specifically, the version he played was the Hot Coffee moddable, San Andreas. Before Child Protective Services bestows upon me the prestigious honor of father of the year, allow me to explain. Gaming…
By Lauren Orsini Published June 9, 2010 -
“You Gonna Read This, Fisher?” The Art of Enemy Taunts
I can’t think of another game so destroyed by its dialogue as Splinter Cell: Conviction; not by bad lines alone (which are nothing novel in gaming) but by the way Ubisoft’s designers and programmers used them. It could live on, maybe, as a cautionary tale in design meetings: “your idea would poison our game, sure…
By Lauren Orsini Published June 7, 2010 -
Buy A Rockstar Game For Kids, You’re A Terrible Parent
Here’s a refreshing, if predictable dose of common sense from developers Rockstar, telling the BBC that anyone buying one of their games – like Grand Theft Auto, or Red Dead Redemption – is a “terrible parent”. “Our games are not designed for young people”, Rockstar’s Lazlow Jones tells the Beeb. “If you’re a parent and…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 22, 2010 -
Game Design as Make-Believe: Participation
Based upon part five of the Mimesis as Make-Believe serial. See part four here When my wife and I played the Resident Evil remake (pictured left) and its sequels in the early 2000s, we did so by pad-passing. My wife would take control during the ominously-quiet exploration sequences, poking in the corners for green herbs…
By Lauren Orsini Published May 19, 2010 -
Game Design as Make-Believe: Fictional Worlds
Based upon part four of the Mimesis as Make-Believe serial. When one plays most videogames there is a tacit understanding that one is entering into a fictional world – the term virtual world, is often deployed to mean exactly this. It is self-evident that this also happens when one plays a tabletop role-playing game, the…
By Lauren Orsini Published May 13, 2010 -
A Look At The (Possible) New York City Of The Future
New York City is one of the most played locations in games, serving as the inspirational backdrop for games like Grand Theft Auto, Prototype, Crysis 2 and many, many, (perhaps too many) more. Will future visions of the Big Apple be… fun? Newsweek tasked three architecture firms with envisioning and designing how a future NYC…
By Michael McWhertor Published May 11, 2010 -
Get The Ballad of Gay Tony For A Song This Week
Attention Grand Theft Auto IV fans looking to complete the “Impossible Trinity”: Rockstar’s second expansion The Ballad of Gay Tony is the Xbox Live Deal of the Week. Revisit Liberty City slightly cheaper, just 1200 Microsoft Points. [Live Marketplace]
By Michael McWhertor Published May 10, 2010