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Valve Is Bringing Steam To Your TV Today. Watch Out, Consoles.

Today, Valve will launch the beta of Big Picture mode, a version of Steam designed for your television. That’s right. The de facto central hub of PC gaming is now designed to run while you’re lounging in your living room—and with a controller, no less. I’ve tried out Big Picture. It’s sleek, intuitive, and groundbreaking…

Start Building Your Borderlands 2 Character Right Now

Borderlands 2 hits store shelves on September 18. That gives you eight days to build the perfect Assassin, Gunzerker, Commando or Siren in the official Skill Tree Calculator. The 50 skill points one can gain in Borderlands 2 won’t be enough to fill the entire skill tree — it’ll get you one whole branch and…

Even Chinese Olympic Gold Medalists Have To Visit The Gray Market

Chinese swimming hero, Sun Yang won two gold medals at the recent London Olympics this year. Despite getting a free pair of customized Beats By Dre, Sun seemed to still lack a video game system. The above picture, dated July 31, 2012, is just making the media circles in China right now. It shows Sun…

Chinese Gamers Say They Don’t Like Japan But They Like Japan’s Games.

Over the last few weeks tension have been high between China and Japan. The situation over the territorial disputes has led to some brash decisions from all those involved, some of these actions had turned out rather violent. As Kotaku reported, Japanese media was quick to point out some of the ironies of the anti-Japan…

Assassins Creed 3’s Foam Tomahawk Is Totally Harmless

Mercifully, I’m not talking about some bzarre pre-order DLC, which is available only at GameStop and bestows hero Connor with a foam weapon with which to annoy his enemies. I’m talking about a foam tomahawk you can buy, then run around pretending you’re a deadly member of an ancient order of assassins. It’s officially licensed…

Watch a Live Silent Hill Rock Concert (And No, I Didn’t Make That Up)

Famed video game composer Akira Yamaoka, best known for his work on the Silent Hill series, doesn’t just work off stage. The guy, he can shred. Thing is, most people have never had a chance to see him rock their socks off live, because he usually only plays in Japan. But his latest project, dubbed…

Seven Days of Fabulous Cosplay Bring Korra, Zelda & Fallout to Life

This may be the first week in the entire history of Fancy Pants in which I will admit I saw a photo of Kingdom Hearts cosplay and thought “that’s amazing”, instead of the usual “oh God not again“. But then, it’s been that kind of week in the world of cosplay. To see the larger…

Things You Will Never Hear A Gamer Actually Say

As anyone who has played on Xbox Live knows, there is almost nothing a gamer could say that would surprise or shock you. Almost Some things, though, you can almost guarantee would never come out of someone’s mouth. Here are 15 of them. 15 Things You’ll Never Hear Gamers Say [Dorkly]

Sleeping Dogs Almost Looks Better in First-Person Mode

RacerS2 has released a tweak for Sleeping Dogs that lets you play the open-world game in first-person, instead of the game’s default third-person view. While you couldn’t play the game to completion like this – melee combat would be all but impossible – it certainly ramps up the level of immersion you get from United’s…

13 Year-Old Steals Car, Drives 13 Hours To Meet Her Xbox Live “Boyfriend”

Beth Robinson is 13. She recently met a boy, aged 12, over Xbox Live. Beth lives in Houston and the boy, Dylan, lives in Hodgenville, Kentucky. When Beth’s dad didn’t like the fact the two were playing games and “chatting” together over the service, she did what any lovestruck 13 year-old girl would do: went…

What If The Internet Could Fit Inside a Game Boy?

Then it would look like this, and the world would be a much cooler place. gameboy-soft-fake [3liter, via Tiny Cartridge]

These Guys Are Already Playing (Some of) Black Ops 2

While not the full game (impossible, since it’s not even done yet), some enterprising types have managed to get hold of a demo for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. And proceeded to do what you’d expect. Namely, we get a video with the worst soundtrack on Earth, obnoxious overlays of developer interviews…

I Played These Games Last Week. What Did You Play? Anything Good?

I didn’t think I’d be playing much of anything new last week, so I went and reinstalled the wonderful DarthMod for Empire Total War and imagined seven days spent conquering the world. Didn’t happen! These games happened instead. MADDEN 13 – Fun fact: despite my inherent Australianness, I’m actually a massive NFL fan. So I…

Madden‘s Loss of Fantasy Exposes the Reality of Sports Video Games

No one I know seriously plays “Mascot Mashup” in NCAA Football, except for maybe the six-year-old son of a good friend from Oregon, who enjoys slamming the “GoDucks” into 11 of his dad’s Stanford Trees. About the most I ever hear about the mode each year from EA Sports is when a developer jokes that…

These are the Six Playing Pieces of Street Fighter: Monopoly

Vega’s mask, Hadouken, Chun-Li’s wrist cuff, M. Bison, Ryu, and Blanka are take the place of the steam iron, Scottish terrier, top hat, thimble et al. in the specially commissioned Street Fighter: Monopoly version of the board game. Capcom-Unity members chose the six pieces by poll, and they’re included with the game made by USAopoly.…

What to Do When Your Game Accidentally Releases Early? Call It a Beta Test.

Middle Manager of Justice, the latest zany game coming from Double Fine (previewed here by Kirk Hamilton) was one of the most downloaded titles on the iTunes App Store when it released on Tuesday. It just wasn’t supposed to release on Tuesday. While the studio has since pulled the app, it elected to make lemonade…

Madden has 38 “Clutch” Players, but What the Hell Does That Mean, Really?

The NFL is kicking off (checks watch) oh, about nowish. Time for a new season of wins and losses, touchdowns and fumbles, and nonstop clichés from analysts and commentators. One such word is “clutch,” a word that seems to define a top performer in a pinch, but has no real objective measure. It’s an attribute…

Happy 13th Anniversary (of your western release) Dreamcast. Gone, but never forgotten.

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Horsing Around

This week Konami went up-down-left-right-WTF-start when it made you a PlayStation Home offer you couldn’t refuse—horse heads. For, like, no discernible reason other than it’s some crap you can slap on your Home avatar. Lacking any good purpose, we’re going to ask you to invent one, in this week’s Kotaku ‘Shop Contest. Source Image: Konami…

EA Sports Rolls Out Red Carpet for a School Barred From the NCAA 13 Club

The mistaken exclusion of South Alabama, a newcomer to college football’s top division this year, from NCAA Football 13 left EA Sports wiping a crateful of egg from its face back in June. Both USA and the embarrassed label would have to stew for another year, until NCAA 14, before the problem could be solved.…