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So, Tell Me About Yourself, Video Game

Video games need more “Call Me Ishmael.” That quote is one of the most famous opening lines in all of literature. Sure, its popularity is owed largely to being the first sentence in Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. But that introduction is also memorable because you’re learning about an important character from the very…

EA Sports Gets to Work Putting Assassin’s Creed Canoeing Into Madden

Best Buy got a little too enthusiastic with its promotional copy for Madden NFL 13, promising features such as “slow-motion chain kills,” pickpocketing unsuspecting victims, and a new pursuit system involving a canoe. Truly, this is how you innovate in the sports genre. Yes, obviously, some Best Buy web manager accidentally copypasted a bullet point…

Ode To The Final Fantasy Games That Weren’t Really Final Fantasy Games

Let’s go back in time. It’s 1990. The Company Then Known As Squaresoft is living large, riding the waves of success earned by 1987’s surprise hit Final Fantasy. Piles of money. Mountains of cocaine. You know the deal. Fueled by glory and riches, Square decides to localize a bunch of their Game Boy RPGs and…

A Nefarious Plot To Repackage And Sell A Free Open-Source Game

Imagine if a bunch of flight-sim enthusiasts got together and spent years assembling a free, open-source, constantly updated flight simulator. Wait actually, you don’t have to imagine that: It’s a real thing, and it’s called FlightGear. The open-source simulator has been around for years. Now imagine some nefarious do-badders have co-opted the free game and…

This Could Be Redemption for the Teddy Bear Murder Simulator That Broke My Heart

In June of 2010, 505 Games and developer Behaviour broke my tiny plush heart. Naughty Bear was to be everything I’d ever wanted in fluff-soaked teddy bear gore. Instead, it was simplistic, unattractive and unsatisfying. I wanted Dexter. They gave me Texas Chain Saw Massacre Lite. Can the downloadable Naughty Bear: Panic in Paradise give…

A Better Look At How The Wii U Controller Works In ZombiU

One of the hardest things to communicate about ZombiU is the way the Wii U’s new controller is integrated into the game. In the first part of this “making of” documentary from Ubisoft, executive producer Guillaume Brunier walks us through the basic setup of the game (roguelike-like-meets-Demon’s Souls) and show how the touch-screen is used.…

Now You Can Play With Left 4 Dead And Gears of Wars Characters In Minecraft for Xbox

Skin Pack #2 is out for the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft today. It’ll run you 160 Microsoft Points and come with the following skins, via Microsoft: 1. Enderman Man – Minecraft 2. Pig Man – Minecraft 3. Sheep Man – Minecraft 4. Naked Sheep Man – Minecraft 5. Spider Man – Minecraft 6. General…

The Subscription MMO Is Dead

The era of the subscription-based online game has well and truly ended in 2012. It had a good run, really. Fifteen years is quite a long time for anything to stay static in the land of gaming. Ultima Online introduced the idea back in 1997, when those of us who had internet access were mostly…

Here’s the Trailer for Mass Effect 3‘s Leviathan DLC

The long-awaited single-player add-on for BioWare’s sci-fi threequel gets an underwater preview in this teaser. Our own Kirk Hamilton enjoyed his hands-on time with the DLC. Everyone else gets to play Leviathan when it becomes available next week.

Peter Molyneux’s new game gets a name change, but not, sadly, to Cube of Duty. It’s Curiosity: What’s Inside the Cube

Here’s How Activision Justifies Charging More For Angry Birds On Console

Pretend (?) you run a gaming company. If you could bring the biggest mobile game there is purchasable in stores, would you do it? If you’re the largest game publisher in the world, then it’s not such a tough question. Surprise surprise, Activision is publishing Rovio’s Angry Birds for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and…

Look At This Sneaky Bastard In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

First things first: headphone users beware. [Video spoilers] Granted, this guy probably should have known to check that nifty little camp spot. And nobody likes campers anyway. But it’s still pretty hilarious that he got caught with his pants down, so to speak. How to shit your pants in CS:GO [YouTube via Reddit]

1313 Will Take You Down to Star Wars Hell

It’s always pretty clean and well-lit in Star Wars movies, isn’t it? Even a place as wretched as the Mos Eisley cantina seems like it wouldn’t have a problem passing a health code inspection. So, where does all the dirt go in the Skywalker-verse? Apparently, it’s all going into Star Wars 1313 The video above…

Only A Truly Devious Villain Would Make You Solve Riddles To Destroy Him

I was the sort of child who always had a bunch of brain-teaser and riddle books lying around in her room, and I grew into the sort of adult who enjoys Professor Layton games. The Curse, for me, is a natural extension of that impulse to solve everything. In fact, The Curse could be considered…

Alongside next week’s Rock Band Blitz, Harmonix is launching community app Rock Band World on Facebook.

Sega’s Got You Covered If You’re Searching For ‘Disgruntled Shooter’ On Tweetdeck

The good people at Sega want to make the most of the world’s love of Twitter, so they’re being vigilant about people who Tweet in the voices of their characters and they’re trying to get blurbs about their games in front of people who are just searching for stuff… You know, like if they’re searching…

Yep, The Comments Are Changing A Bit—Now You Can See More of Them At Once

Around 8am ET today, readers of Kotaku were able to see the next iteration of the Kinja discussion platform that was designed by our parent company Gawker Media. To be less jargony about it, you’ll notice that the parts below the articles look different, the parts where many readers post replies. (You call them “comments”;…

Square Enix Thinks This Mobile RPG Is Worth $30

The folks over at Square Enix Europe are charging a whopping $28.99 for upcoming mobile RPG Final Fantasy Dimensions, they revealed this morning. Presumably Square Enix USA is using the same price scheme, as the Europe blog lists prices in U.S. dollars too. Here’s what they have to say about the game, which is out…

This New XCOM: Enemy Unknown Trailer Puts All the Pressure on You, Commander

Sure, lots of other games make you responsible for saving the world but this new “Casualties of War” teaser for XCOM: Enemy Unknown makes the stakes seem incredibly high and oddly personal. The Firaxis-developed successor to the beloved PC strategy game—which our Kate Cox was very impressed by when she played it—comes out in October.…

Anders Behring Brevik—the Norway killer who used games to hide and to sharpen his aim—will go to prison for 21 years