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What Are Zaxxon and Breakout Doing in The Week in Gaming Apps?

Each week dozens of new gaming apps are released across the various mobile platforms, imaginative original works trying to build a name for themselves in a crowded market. I’m not saying Zaxxon Escape and Super Bunny Breakout aren’t fresh and entertaining—they’ve just got a bit of an unfair advantage. It’s hard to not have a…

Here’s Some New Footage From Notch’s Next Game

Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson tweeted this out today: it’s a minute-and-a-half of footage from 0x10c, his new space game. PC Gamer’s got a great interview with Notch on 0x10c: The goal is to have it feel a bit like Firefly,” says Notch. “You can try to land on a planet but you mess up…

Take A Blood-Soaked Stroll Through ZombiU‘s Tower Of London

I haven’t been to London in a long time, but from the looks of this latest gameplay video, it seems like Ubisoft’s upcoming ZombiU will let me refresh my memory of the city’s famous locations. Virtual tourism never looked so bloody and zombie-laden.

How Would You And Your Friends Fare If You Woke Up In Resident Evil?

While the internet has seen no shortage of goofy fan-made zombie and Resident Evil homages, this one still made me chuckle. It comes to us from the mad folks at Rocket Jump—it was directed by Des Dolly and sports some damned impressive production values. “Where’s the helicopter key?” “We don’t know. Like I literally have…

It’s Bubble-Popping in Space, With Buddies

Coming soon to iOS and Android from the creators of Jewels with Buddies, Dice with Buddies and Casual Sex with Buddies (he’s lying about that last one), Bubble Galaxy with Buddies combines turn-based asynchronous multiplayer with the joy of Bust-A-Move. In spaaaaaaaace. Developer Scopely has done quite well with its “With Buddies” line of games,…

Ellie’s Backstory To Be Revealed In The Last Of Us Prequel Comic

We saw, over the summer, that the post-apocalyptic future in The Last of Us is one where fourteen-year-old Ellie has never seen a movie, because movies have ceased to exist. But what about the rest of this young girl’s life? What transpires, in a ruined world, that ends up pairing her off with Joel and…

You Can Keep Your Big Open Worlds—I Want A JRPG

While in Seattle a few weeks ago for PAX Prime, I went out to dinner with a few game designers and Kotaku colleagues. Somewhere between the sirloin and the bananas flambée, conversation turned to Skyrim We sat there for a while, telling stories about the cool things we’d found in Bethesda’s popular role-playing game. We…

There’s A Dinosaur Loose At New York Comic-Con

You’re at comic con. You think you see a cool cosplayer, off in the distance. You can’t quite tell if it’s supposed to be a Velociraptor or a T-Rex. You move closer, cautiously, not wanting to alert him to your presence. Then suddenly, to your right, you hear a sound. You look over and the…

Sony Wants To Make a PS3 Controller That Gets Hot Or Cold

OK. My mind is blown. Sony published a patent this week for a video game controller that heats up or cools down as you’re playing a game. It sounds kind of dangerous. And it sounds kind of awesome. You can read the patent application here and gawk at all the patent imagery, but let me…

Farming Gangnam Style

I could do without the song, but I firmly believe the world would be a better place if everyone took a moment now and then to dance as if they were riding a horse while really having to pee. Apparently someone at Zynga agrees. If you’re playing Farmville 2, keep a close eye on your…

The Tale of a Young Boy And His Beloved Game Boy Micro Is Too Cute To Miss

This is the most adorable gaming-related story I’ve read all week. Over at Wired, gaming parent Andy Roberston’s young son spotted a Game Boy Micro in a shop window, and more or less fell in love. In the way that kids can so brilliantly do, he became utterly convinced that the Micro—a petite variation on…

Meet Scott Maxwell: Star Wars Fan. Gamer. And, Oh Yeah, He Drives a Rover on Mars.

Some people have cool jobs. And then there’s Scott Maxwell, who has one of the best gigs on two planets. He’s one of the people who drives the Curiosity Rover on Mars. How do you get that job? What’s it like? And how does it compare to all the sci-fi and video game fantasies we’ve…

New Book Lets You Look Inside the Dragon Age Universe

Whether you love or hate what BioWare’s done with their fantasy action series, most people who’ve played the Dragon Age game would have to admit that they’re filled with impressive art and design. A new book from Dark Horse Comics will provide glimpses of the all the artwork that goes into making Dragon Age feel…

Mass Effect 3’s Best Action Hero Is Getting His Own Comic

“This one doesn’t have time for your solid waste excretions.” If you’re like me, you “watched” every gripping minute of Blasto 6: Partners in Crime, the film featuring the first Hanar Spectre inside Mass Effect 3. The rules-breaking renegade did whatever the hell he wanted in pursuit of justice, even if it meant smashing up…

Zaxxon Returns with an Ordinary Escape

There had never been anything like Zaxxon when it released. At the time, kids considered it the first 3D game, even if it achieved that look through isometric projection. Still, it communicated sophistication, technology and, to an 8-year-old, difficulty. Sega resurrects its space shooter franchise with Zaxxon Escape but, unfortunately, it’s neither a return to…

The Drama Of Life In the UNSC Continues In This Live-Action Halo Webseries

The second episode of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn picks up after the first, and delves farther into the trials and tribulations of Hastati Squad. The visual reminders of Battlestar Galactica do hang around, as we follow the group of young cadets adapting to the requirements of their military life. And we get a glimpse…

Harvey Smith Has Mixed Feelings About Whether There Should Be A Dishonored 2

Have you played Dishonored yet? The folks who made it wrote out a great deal of lore to flesh out the game’s steampunky, alt-fiction, whale-filled world. So it stands to reason that they might want to make a sequel. But designer Harvey Smith isn’t sure. Speaking to me in an interview last week, Smith said…

New iPhone Game About Foxconn Draws Attention to Worker Suicides

In a Permanent Save State is not meant to be particularly fun. It’s a serious game, by artist Benjamin Poynter, following the imagined stories of Foxconn employees who committed suicide The conditions for workers at the Chinese factories where iPhones, iPads, and nearly all gaming consoles are made continue to stay in the headlines, with…

Mass Effect 3‘s Omega DLC will be out on Nov. 27, will be “double”-sized and cost $15, according to a Eurogamer report

Report: Blizzard Considered Putting Diablo On Game Boy

Blizzard considered making a game called Diablo Junior, ShackNews reports. Not to be confused with the Whopper Junior. Or Carl’s Jr. According to David Craddock, an author who is writing a book about Diablo creator Blizzard North, the team considered bringing Diablo to the Game Boy after the release of Diablo II “Following Diablo II‘s…