This week ends the summer for most people in school and for those who follow the rules regarding wearing white pants. But it's not really over for gamers, since PAX is in full swing over in Seattle and the terrific rush of games for the fall hasn't begun yet.
As ever, it was a week packed full of stories for us to report and write. Plus we had some opinions we needed to share. (As well as some images, including the great one up top snapped by Borderlands studio chief Randy Pitchford.)
What follows is what we think is the best of our work. But, first, one of the best comments from our readers.
The Best Comment From The Community
Our favorite comment of this week comes to you from Ventriloq, who joined in on a spontaneous Kotaku Reader Poetry Jam:
Thine article struck me at the core-
Reminded me what this site is for-
And the humor is an added perk
When stuck for hours at my work!
17 Things About Resident Evil 6 That You Should Know
Stephen Totilo was initially unimpressed with Resident Evil 6, but changed his mind after playing for six hours. More »
In a Shocking Twist, This Game Stars Normal-Looking People. Some Of Them Are Even Old.
Stephen talks to Chris Hecker about the very normal-looking people featured in Spy Party. More »
Rock Band Blitz: The Kotaku Review
Kirk Hamilton enjoys the more video gamey version of Rock Band. More »
Guild Wars 2 Arrives Tonight. Here's Everything You Need To Know.
Kirk rounds up news of Guild Wars 2 from the team. More »
The Joy of Jumping: Why ArenaNet Lets You Hop In Guild Wars 2
If you've been playing Guild Wars 2 at all, then you've probably seen people talking about jumping. Dancing is cool too, and actually, standing in one place is pretty neat as well, but the thing people love to do most is jump.
That's partly because jumping was impossible in Guild Wars 1. More »
Getting Very Close To Halo 4's Master Chief (And Friends)
Luke Plunkett takes a look at some Halo 4 vehicles and figures. More »
One Man's Journey From Warehouse Worker to Nintendo Legend
Luke tells a Nintendo Legend's tale of starting out as a warehouse worker. More »
The Live Action Rurouni Kenshin Movie is a Nearly Perfect Film Adaptation
Richard Eisenbeis reviews Rurouni Kenshin, the historical fiction live-action adaptation of the popular manga and anime series. More »
This Hacked Nintendo Game Turned Me Into a White Guy and Asked Me to Kill N***ers
Evan Narcisse played an incredibly, intentionally racist game. More »
A Team Of Seven Is Making A Game That 'Shouldn't Be Possible'
Jason Schreier tells us about the small team making Natural Selection 2, with a big helping hand from the community. More »
Mass Effect 3: Leviathan: The Kotaku Review
Stephen finds Shepard's journey exhausted in this new DLC. More »
Steam Greenlight Is A Good Idea, But Makes Its Buried Treasures Very Hard To Find
After one day of poking around Steam Greenlight, Kate feels like she has seen this all before. And then she realizes: in a way, Steam's suddenly going all Kickstarter. More »
Digital Storm's Budget Gaming PC Doesn't Sacrifice Power for a Reasonable Price
Fahey finds this affordable PC quite capable. More »
Guild Wars 2, Log One: I Cannot Rest Until I Have Explored All The Things.
Kate's first log with Guild Wars 2 finds her obsessively exploring the land. More »
Here's a Piece of Adventure Time Dialogue Pen Ward Wrote Two Nights Ago
Tina Amini's got a piece of Adventure Time dialogue read off by Pen Ward himself. More »
White Actress Will Voice Assassin's Creed's Black Heroine
Evan discusses the advantages of mirroring voice actors with their in-game characters. More »
You Are Getting Old. Street Fighter Just Turned 25.
Luke reminds us that on August 30, 1987, the very first Street Fighter game was released by Capcom. Making today the series' 25th birthday. My God. How depressing.
Not for Capcom or Street Fighter, of course. More »
No Metal Gear Solid 5, But Here's All of Last Night's Big Metal Gear News
Brian rounds up all the week's big Metal Gear news. Twenty five years! The time has just flown by.
If you were hoping for Metal Gear 5, you're going to be disappointed. But there was other cool stuff.More »
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Makes Major Changes to the Series' Formula, Ends Trilogy
Final Fantasy XIII heroine Lightning will be back in a new game, and it's a very different kind of Final Fantasy... More »
Fable: The Journey Might Be the Next Kinect Game Worth Caring About
Tina confesses: I'm not really anti-Kinect. It's just that a lot of Kinect games really suck. But I absolutely love Dance Central and Fruit Ninja Kinect is always a hit with my non-gaming friends when they come over for after-partying.
But those hits are few and far between.
I wasn't expecting to enjoy Fable: More »
Gold Vs. Plus: How Sony Is Making a Mockery Of Xbox Live
You can pick your preference between PlayStation and Xbox. You can argue that Halo is better than KillZone or that Uncharted tops Gears of War.
But it is becoming increasingly hard to argue that the Xbox 360's online subscription service is superior to the PlayStation 3's. More »
Double Fine's Next Game Is For iPhone, And It's About Superheroes
Kirk confesses: Being a superhero is exciting, no doubt about it. You get to wear a cool costume, use cool powers, and fight crime! But what about the nitty gritty bureaucratic aspects of being a superhero-the paperwork, the scheduling, all the stuff behind the scenes? More »
Ron Gilbert's Cave Is Deeper Than I Thought
Kirk says there is a special type of anxiety that arises when you have to solve one of Ron Gilbert's puzzles in front of him. This is the guy who made Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island, for gosh's sake. More »
We Love The World's First Post-Apocalyptic Competitive Eating Card Game
"The game is about eating and spewing and chewing and swallowing," game designer Zach Gage says in this beginning of this 25-minute video that features me and Evan Narcisse playing Gage's new card game Guts of Glory. More »
Three Reasons Most Video Game Movies Don't Work, and One Why I Hope a Metal Gear Solid Movie Will
Kate says that film adaptations of popular games are almost as inevitable as game adaptations of films-and often, just as terrible.
Early this morning, we learned that Konami once again have plans to take Metal Gear Solid to the silver screen. More »
Let's Help Hollywood Find the Perfect Snake for the Metal Gear Movie
Hollywood is making a Metal Gear movie! Again! It sounds like production on the flick is just getting started (again). The project has a producer, but there's no word of a director or screenwriter. More »
A Children's Treasury of Madden Release-Week Glitches
When it was first shown to writers in April, Owen knew what was in store for Madden's "Infinity Engine" of real-time physics. This is the YouTube age, where a game's every gaffe, glitch and goof is filmed and uploaded within moments of release, it seems. More »
Everything Breaks Bad In The Darkest, Strongest Episode Of The Walking Dead Yet
Kirk writes: if there's anything Telltale's The Walking Dead game has taught me about myself, it's that come the post-apocalypse, I'd be of no use to anyone.
We like to think that all our time spent scoring video game headshots in Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising, or yelling advice at the protagonists of 28 Days... More »
The Macross Do You Remember Love? Remaster is Beautiful Beyond Belief
While comparatively unknown in the West, Macross: Do You Remember Love? was one of the most important anime of the 1980s in Japan and was one of the most ambitious hand-drawn animation projects of all time. More »
I love Final Fantasy VII: Now Watch Me Pretend I Hate It.
Tim Rogers loves Final Fantasy VII, but he must roast it: More »
The Cosplay Of PAX: Day One
The Seattle Convention Center was covered in video game characters today for the first day of the Penny Arcade Expo. There were all manner of costumes-the elaborate, the humble, the humorous, the bizarre. More »