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The Death Star’s Trenches, Through the Eyes of the Oculus Rift

If you think about it, flight simulators, with their fully-realized cockpits and scenic locations, are a perfect fit for the Oculus Rift. So are space sims, for the same reason. Developer Boone Calhoun, realizing this, promptly went to work on an Oculus Rift demo of the Death Star trench run from Star Wars Here’s one…

Super Smash Bros. Melee Is Great. But Why Is It Great?

The aptly named Really Freakin’ Clever webseries is back, this time focusing on the second entry in Nintendo’s all-star brawler franchise—Smash Bros. Melee While I agree with the notion that having all these celebrated and massively nostalgic characters in one place is a hell of a selling point, it’s important not to overlook Melee’s rather…

Got Twenty Minutes? Here, Kick Some Zombie Ass on YouTube

Hellraid, the game which attempts to mix the combat of Dead Island with the setting of Dark Messiah (or Heretic, or Hexen), has a prequel that you can play right now. The catch? It’s an interactive movie. Don’t worry though, it’s lotsa fun. Techland released the choose-your-own-adventure series on YouTube as a lead-up to the…

How To “Ruin” A Grand Theft Auto V Launch With “Spoilers”

Here’s Mega64 trying to ruin a Grand Theft Auto V launch with a very special kind of spoiler. Stick with it. The escape is better than the crime. GTA V MIDNIGHT LAUNCH RUINED BY ME!!!!!!!! [YouTube, via ALBOTAS]

Hope You Like Playing F-Zero Until Your Eyeballs Puke

GameCube games can run on a PC. The Oculus Rift works for the PC. What comes next? White knuckles and sick bags. While the framerate stutters a bit on this particular footage, the fact it’s working should give hope – or fear – to F-Zero fans the world over. If we can’t get a new…

Your Childhood Wishes Its Model Kits Were This Good

Did you make models as a kid? I did. Plastic cement and messy decals were a weekly duo on my kitchen table. I got better as I got older, but even by the time I stopped (at around 14), I could only dream of putting together kits like this. This is the work of Japanese…

Rich Maniac Still Wants To Build A Real Rapture

He’s been trying to get this off the ground for years now, but last week PayPal founder Peter Thiel took one step closer to his dream of building an aquatic utopia populated solely by rich/smart/weird folks “who wish to demonstrate new ways of living together”. So, yeah, Rapture. And we all know how well that…

Idiot Steals Car, Blames Own Crime On Grand Theft Auto

Normally, it takes a third party to blame a crime on a video game. A sensationalist tabloid, or a stuffy politician. Not in Zachary Burgess’ case, though, the 20 year-old only too happy to blame his own actions on Grand Theft Auto Police report that early on Saturday morning, Burgess jumped into a car in…

What It’s Like Meeting A Cosplayer Who’s Cosplaying As…You

Natalie Dormer plays Margaery Tyrell on the Game of Thrones TV series. She recently went to her first ever nerd convention, so was suitably warned: there will be people cosplaying there. As you “That was my first convention, my virgin convention experience,” she tells Entertainment Weekly. “Other members of the crew and cast said, ‘Someone…

The Handwritten Blueprint For A Musical Masterpiece

Before music becomes music—before it’s played by musicians—it’s just ink on a page. Some compositions require a great deal of ink and a lot of pages, hundreds of carefully-drawn notes bound into massive tomes of score-paper. And yet it’s worth remembering that some of the greatest compositions of all time were born of simple ideas…

Keiji Inafune Is Taking Your Questions Right Now [Q&A Is Finished]

Mega Man. Onimusha. Dead Rising. These are just a small sample of games from Keiji Inafune. Now, he’s working on a new title, Mighty No. 9. Oh, he’s also answering your questions, right here! For the next hour, Inafune will be on hand for a reader Q&A, with Tokyo-based game localizer 8-4 doing realtime translations.…

He Forged The Meteor Sword From Avatar. Then, He Cut Stuff With It.

For a long time, young Sokka was the Xander Harris of Avatar: The Last Airbender. He didn’t have any sweet bending powers and he wasn’t the Avatar; he didn’t have a great, noble destiny. He was just a dude with a boomerang. Then, he got the meteor sword. More precisely, he met Fire Nation swordmaster…

Guns for the Call of Duty generation: here’s documentary by Motherboard about “smart weapons,” or guns with scopes that incorporate HUDs that help even novices pull off one-shot-one-kills. The gun does all the accuracy calculations for you. Fascinating stuff, and yes, they do talk about people who play games.

Maybe Avengers Alliance Can Make Sense Of Marvel’s Infinity Event

Marvel’s universe-spanning “Infinity” event is coming to turn-based social RPG Avengers Alliance, where it will hopefully make more sense. I am so lost in space right now. There’s just something about the Infinity series (“Infinity Gauntlet”, “Infinity Crusade”, “Infinity War”, “Infinity Bucket”) that makes my brain turn off. I’ve read each series and its crossovers…

Data Leak Hints At Microtransactions In GTA Online

The upcoming Grand Theft Auto Online may let you buy in-game money with real money at some point—files found on a Rockstar server hint at the possibility, and it’s an interesting one. A Redditor says he found the files, which you can read here, by trying to access the store section of the game’s pause…

2013’s Best Graphic Novel Is All About Killing in the Name of God(s)

Don’t let the appealingly cartoony look of Boxers & Saints fool you. Terrible things happen in this graphic novel. Old men get beaten up. Women and children get killed in rather heartless fashion. And, worst of all, the senseless death that happens in the 500-page opus is based on actual events. But, goddamn, is it…

Let’s Talk About Multiplayer Games

A short The Multiplayer column today, because I’ve spent the last 3 days getting destroyed by a cold. So! I’ll turn it over to you guys: 1) What multiplayer games are you playing lately? What games are you looking forward to? Feel free to talk about anything and everything multiplayer in here, think of it…

Rockstar Warns GTA V Players To Avoid Using Garages Until Bug is Fixed

This past weekend in GTA V, my buddy Franklin finally made some real money on a heist. The guy loves to drive, so I decided to buy him a nice new sports car. But when he got back to his house and checked the garage, the car was nowhere to be found. Had master car-thief…

Masked Reagan Suspected in GameStop Stickup

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, sometimes tragic. Kotaku‘s Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Rob One for the Gipper PALM DESERT, Calif.—A clown…

Alien Rage: Boring Name, Boring Game

The game has one redeeming quality, and that’s a completely out of place narrator that says things like “Double kill!” and “Ten headshots!” to remind you that you’re doing a good job. Thanks guy! I started the game with high hopes, but in the hour or so that I played, the game just got more…