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Check Your Inbox for an Invitation to LittleBigPlanet Karting‘s Beta
The closed beta for LittleBigPlanet‘s racing spinoff, LittleBigPlanet Karting begins on Tuesday, with codes and invitations going out very soon to the anointed participants. If you haven’t yet signed up, fear not—codes will be distributed during the entire beta period, which lasts July 10 to July 31. You can register here, but the only way…
By Owen Good -
Something in This Image will Probably be Featured in Medal of Honor‘s Multiplayer Trailer This Week
Medal of Honor‘s community operation is out there trying to gin up a ton of activity on its Facebook page, promising the release of the Medal of Honor: Warfighter multiplayer trailer once they reach 100 percent of … something. We’re told we’ll get there if we vote, like and comment on every poll and cover…
By Owen Good -
Feel Free to Mod Borderlands 2—You’ll Just Have to Do It Without an Official Toolkit
For a time, Borderlands‘ makers considered developing and releasing an official mod toolkit, but realized that its community had hacked the game apart and already accomplished much of what a software development kit would deliver. So SDK plans were shelved as redundant and unnecessary. “The best thing we could do for the community was get…
By Owen Good -
Red Dawn‘s Writer Didn’t Actually Write Homefront‘s Script, Say Ex-Developers [UPDATE]
In a superb autopsy of Kaos Studios, closed three months after it finished Homefront for THQ, Gamasutra‘s Leigh Alexander paints a vivid picture of a studio doomed by meddling, duplicitous executives, and filled with underqualified managers, overworked developers and even an overflowing urinal. There’s a lot of anonymous sourcing, which means there’s a lot of…
By Owen Good -
Halo 2 High-Definition Remake Said to be In Development
The latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine UK says that 343 Industries, maker of last year’s Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (and, of course, this year’s all-new Halo 4), has similar plans for Halo 2 “Following the success of remake Halo Anniversary, 343 Industries has now started development of Halo 2 Anniversary,” the magazine says in…
By Owen Good -
Sci-Fi Author’s Sword-Fighting Game Hits its Fund Raising Goal
Coming into the final two days of its fund raiser, CLANG, the arena sword-fighting concept proposed by renowned science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson, was short about $50,000 of its total $500,000 goal. Overnight it made up that difference and then some, standing at about $504,000 (from more than 8,000 contributors) with more than a day to…
By Owen Good -
DayZ Creator Ponders a Free-to-Play Standalone Version
DayZ, the Arma II mod that places players in a tense, realistic survival against a zombie outbreak, is easily one of the most compelling PC games of the year. It’s amassed more than 400,000 users since its release in April and, if its current rate holds, will surpass half a million sometime in the next…
By Owen Good -
Give ‘Em a Hand
Creating a night light out of a severed hand probably isn’t a great way to reassure children frightened of the monster under the bed. An Assassin’s Creed retracto-blade gauntlet probably isn’t an age-appropriate toy, either. These are our two exploitables for this week’s edition of the Kotaku ‘Shop Contest. Unhand me! I’ll post the source…
By Owen Good -
Weekend Talk Amongst Yourselves
Wait, what the hell? Where’s Weekend TAY? Where’s regular TAY? Sheesh. Go on vacation for 10 days, come back and they completely change everything. No more WTAY posts, no more TAYpics dominated by Pan1da7. Alright, looks like I’m supposed to “remind” you to visit the TAY forum at this link and do what you’ve always…
By Owen Good -
Halo 4 Forges Ahead With New Mapmaking Capabilities [UPDATED with Video]
Halo 4 will get mapmaking support under the Forge toolkit that has long followed the series. A panel today at Rooster Teeth’s RTX event in Austin, Texas revealed the new Forge’s feature set. [Update] That video above shows the toolkit in action. It’s footage from the RTX panel discussion on Saturday. A “ton of new…
By Owen Good -
Add The History of Sonic the Hedgehog to Your Bookshelf This October
Amazon now is taking preorders for The History of Sonic the Hedgehog, a huge tome detailing every Sonic game, both 2D and 3D, with breakouts on spinoff games and Sonic’s many cameo appearances in and crossovers to other video games. The rest of the book is filled with character profiles, a detailed history of Sonic…
By Owen Good -
A Video Game Must Draw the Line Between Immortal and Unbeatable
Archie Griffin is the only player to win two Heisman Trophies. The last guy to win a Heisman and finish as high as second for the award in another year was Herschel Walker, 30 years ago. I wouldn’t know where to begin in rating either player for an appearance in a video game. For what…
By Owen Good -
Club Nintendo Gifts Suck Less Now That You Can Download a Free Game
It happens every July: Club Nintendo announces its loyalty gifts for members who reached gold or platinum status in the past year, and everyone craps all over them. Well, if you don’t want another poster or desk calendar (and I quite enjoy mine, thank you very much) now you may pick a free game from…
By Owen Good -
Street Fighter X Tekken Puts Its On-Disc DLC on Sale at the End of July
A dozen new fighters in Street Fighter X Tekken will go on sale July 31, Capcom said yesterday at EVO 2012. It’ll cost 1,600 Microsoft Points/$19.99 to unlock them from the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 disc where they reside. Now, those with a PS Vita may still wish to wait, as its version of…
By Owen Good -
Game of Thrones‘ Jaime Lannister and Eddard Stark Fight With Lightsabers
YouTube user Joel935M was fooling around with rotoscoping in After Effects and picked a duel from Game of Thrones as a test case. A hundred thousand views later, he’s beset by demands to rotoscope other fight scenes from the show. “Hey, I know this guy (distracted him constantly throughout the making of this video),” says…
By Owen Good -
Is Paul McCartney Writing Music for Halo‘s Original Studio?
Back in January, Paul McCartney—yes, the former Beatle—said he was working on music for an unnamed video game. It now appears that video game is being made by Bungie, the original studio behind the Halo franchise. McCartney today Tweeted that image above (and posted it to his Facebook page) with the caption: “I’m really excited…
By Owen Good -
Persona 4 Arena is Region-Locked Because the Dollar is Weak Against the Yen
Many did a double-take when Atlus confirmed Persona 4 Arena is region-locked on the PlayStation 3—that means, only Japanese consoles may play the Japanese version; North American consoles can only play a North American version. It’s the first time since the PS3’s release in 2006 a game has featured complete region-locking. (The Xbox 360 version…
By Owen Good -
Forward-Looking Deals
The Moneysaver returns this weekend with a long look at things to come—such as PC games releasing in August that can be preordered now at a discount. For the here and now, Best Buy is running a combination sale, and Max Payne 3 is down to $40 on the consoles. Software • Best Buy has…
By Owen Good -
The Best of Kotaku, This Week
Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week’s best content. First up is the image above which, if you’ve gotten to know me virtually since I started here at Kotaku, you’ll know I can’t resist a good Adventure Time reference. You might have seen our Facebook page littered with…
By Tina Amini
