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The Best Of Kotaku, This Week

Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week’s best content. I’m back from vacation (with a slight tan and a cold) and ready to unleash this pretty, wooden Atari 2600 at you. It’s currently running for $1.2k on ebay. Or, if that’s too much for you, you can always…

‘That Was Dumb’: EA Says They’ll Give A Free PC Game To Anyone Who Bought SimCity

Anyone who bought SimCity will get a free video game, publisher EA said tonight. Apologizing for the crippling server issues that have rendered the new simulation game near-unplayable for the past week, Maxis boss Lucy Bradshaw wrote in a blog post that anyone with a copy of SimCity activated before March 18 will get a…

Hope Nobody Ever Tries To Wake You Up Like This

Sure, pranks are things jerks often do—but sometimes, things can get genuinely mean. And there’s really no other way to describe this supercut of cruel wake up pranks, where people find the most awful ways to get people to rise from their slumber. Despite how mean the video often is (if not dangerous, and arguably…

Gearbox Teases Burly New Borderlands 2 Playable Character

At South By Southwest in Austin, Gearbox debuted a teaser trailer that hints at the addition of a new character to Borderlands 2. The character isn’t fully shown, but looks to be some sort of melee-focused badass. The video above comes via Polygon, who are on the ground at SXSW. “A new vault hunter is…

Wow, Someone Basically Invented Mass Effect’s Medi-Gel

Without medi-gels—the life-saving healing salves in Mass Effect—our Commander Shepards would be toast. Out in the real world, though, we can’t just apply medi-gel to our injuries: it doesn’t exist. Or well, it didn’t, not like this. Not until recently. According to Mother Nature Network, Joe Landolina, a college student at NYU, has invented something…

Tomb Raider‘s PC Version Is Good, Despite A Few Stray Hairs

After about seven hours with Tomb Raider, I’m on board with Evan’s endorsement. It’s a very good game, and a strong example of the whole “game that’s like a movie” thing that Uncharted laid out a few years back. But what of the PC version? I’ve been putting it through its paces, and can happily…

Not One Server Problem or Disconnect in This Week in Gaming Apps

Want to know what it’s like to be unfamous Kotaku mobile editor Michael Fahey for a week? Play around 30 gaming apps across three platforms while attempting to connect to SimCity in order to write a review of a game that you assure everyone will think is pretty good once they can connect to it.…

This Was In Lord British’s Backpack

Richard Garriott, aka Lord British, was carrying a backpack full of fascinating things, when he stopped by Kotaku‘s offices last week to talk about his next game, Shroud of the Avatar What was in the backpack? His very first computer role-playing game—he’s holding it in his hand right here; it’s all in ASCII code on…

The maker of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset leads an all-star panel about VR that you can watch live at 7pm ET.

Funcom’s Three MMO Worlds Are In His Hands. What Will He Do?

Just a few short years ago, Funcom’s Joel Bylos was in charge of level 20 through 40 of Age of Conan, a massively multiplayer online game that was, at launch, widely criticized for a lack of quality content past level 20. Now he’s the creative director in charge of Age of Conan, Anarchy Online and…

EA Admits Games Can Do Better For The LGBT Community

Yesterday in New York City, Electronic Arts held a special event focused on queer issues in gaming. And it happened mostly because the company itself was willing to face its own stumbles in presenting gay characters in its video games. The impetus for Thursday’s Full Spectrum event—co-sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association and the Human…

BioWare’s final Mass Effect 3 meeting is happening right now. Read Tweets from it and about it

The Many Ways We Didn’t Get To Play SimCity This Week

Looking back on this week’s SimCity launch debacle, it isn’t just remarkable that the game’s servers failed, it’s remarkable how many different ways they failed. The spectre of Diablo III has loomed over this entire affair, as Blizzard’s action-RPG is certainly the easiest point of reference for an always-online PC game that fell on its…

The Noisiest, Dirtiest Bars and Taverns in Video Games

Bars, clubs and noisy taverns are always crucial locations in a story-driven game. They are save points, places where we can sell useless stuff from our inventory, gather information, meet a key character, or just simply get into trouble. We have selected bars and inns that look the grittiest. Bars that are perhaps most memorable…

This Animated, Sixty Second Version Of The Matrix Is Better Than The Actual Movies

It’s been a long while since I watched the Matrix movies, but watching this ‘speedrun’ rendition by 1A4STUDIO brings it all back to me—including how silly and absurd some parts of the movies are. Also—obviously, the bullet time in the movies is rather ‘video gamey,’ but this highlights that those aren’t the only things that…

Proof That American Gamers Really Do Want Japanese RPGs

Does the world still care about Japanese role-playing games? Do people still want to buy them? Do they still deserve our attention? Ask your average gamer—or your average game developer—and they’ll tell you that the JRPG is a dying genre. They’ll tell you that Japanese RPGs haven’t evolved, or that nobody buys them anymore. That…

Report: EA Suspends SimCity Marketing In Light Of Launch Disaster

In light of SimCity‘s disastrous launch week, publisher Electronic Arts has suspended the marketing campaign for the game, according to an internal email obtained by Polygon The email, which was sent to all of EA’s marketing affiliate partners, informs them that EA is deactivating links through LinkShare and that “we ask you to please remove…

EA shoots down more SimCity banning theories, won’t ban gamers for bank disputes.

Epic Violinists Dressed Up As Journey Characters Epically Playing Journey Music

I always felt as though my Journey character would’ve been pretty good at the violin. And what do you know, that seems to be the case, as demonstrated by violinist Taylor Davis in this new video tribute. I liked this video, partly because it’s more reserved than the more histrionic exploits of Lindsey Stirling, as…

In This Lovely Fairy Tale Game, Your Right Thumb Is Your Little Brother

I’ve been waiting to see more of the world of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The downloadable game looks so different than most of the games that Starbreeze has put out and seems to be an eye-catching mix of exploration and co-operative puzzle-solving. The twist, though, is that you’ll need to co-operate with yourself.…