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The 2012 Gawker Media Census Results Are In
You might have noticed that over the past few weeks we’ve been bugging you to take the 2012 Gawker Media Census. Well, try not to cry too hard, but the most exciting survey on the whole World Wide Web has come to a close. We learned all sorts of fun facts about the 2,647 Kotaku…
Sponsored post Published June 20, 2012 -
Valve Gives Away Portal 2 for Free to Teachers with ‘Steam for Schools’
If you’ve played games like Team Fortress 2 or the Portal titles, you know that Valve loves making players learn. The company’s already got a foothold in bringing their games into the educational space and that commitment’s going to get bigger. Today, at the Games for Change conference, Valve’s Leslie Redd and Yasser Malaika announced…
By Evan Narcisse Published June 20, 2012 -
Thanks, Split! For Letting Me Team Up with My Own Smarty-Pants Self
It’s a shooter that doesn’t let you shoot. A puzzle game without any blocks. It’s Split! and it’s surprisingly sharp. Touchy Interactive’s retro-styled iOS games has you controlling two soldier types who bust out of some kind of imprisonment. Red Dude and Blue Dude need to make their way through various levels of an enemy…
By Evan Narcisse Published June 20, 2012 -
E3’s Cutest Booth Babe?
I was going through the final unused pieces of my E3 reporting and realized I never posted this video. It’s nothing big, but it was one of my favorite sights at E3. Just a person in a giant LittleBigPlanet Sackboy costume. Later, I happened to walk by a rest area outside the PlayStation area. Sackboy’s…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 20, 2012 -
Talk Amongst Yourselves
Welcome to Kotaku’s official forum, known affectionately as Talk Amongst Yourselves. This is the place where we gather on a daily basis to discuss all things video game and existential. Want to talk about new games, old games, games that aren’t even out yet? Knock yourselves out! Is this painting a representation of the Gods?…
By Tina Amini Published June 20, 2012 -
Take a Bite from Steel Battalion‘s Most Unsanitary Moment
Bad enough I got drafted into Steel Battalion’s janky, totally unplayable war, but what made things worse was having to fight alongside a guy with pee-covered hands. Oh, and another guy who apparently likes having unholy relations with Vertical Tanks. The moment captured above happens in Steel Battalion‘s tutorial and it stuck out to me…
By Evan Narcisse Published June 20, 2012 -
The Strange, Scary, Fascinating, Exciting Future of Video Games, According to A Giant
You are, presumably, a person who plays video games and probably not a rich executive. Maybe you own an Xbox 360 or play games on your iPhone or maybe both. You have some favorite video games. And there are some series and some types of games that you hate. Maybe you keep up with gaming…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 20, 2012 -
Lingerie Football League Is Ready to Tackle Video Games
Those garter wearing gridiron warriors are coming to video games. That’s right, the Lingerie Football League inked a deal with Japanese developer Yuke’s Co. for a line of games destined to hit yet unspecified platforms. “As a leading sports and entertainment focused company, we have to keep a pulse on what is the next big…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 20, 2012 -
Attack Ads Come to Game of Thrones and Show How Dirty Politics Are
As summer heats up, so do the political attack ads. But it’s not only the Presidential campaign that is seeing it fair share of mud slinging. Westeros is, too. Warning: This post might contain spoilers. Here are a handful of commercials created by Super-PACs, like the the Committee to Protect Dragons, that ask very probing…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 20, 2012 -
2012 Saint’s Row Expansion Cancelled, Shifted into 2013 Saint’s Row 4
We are no longer getting a standalone $30 expansion to the insane open-world crime game Saint’s Row: The Third this year, as publisher THQ, emboldened by a change in leadership has nixed the project in order to expand it into a full-sized new Saint’s Row next year. Here’s new THQ president Jason Rubin on what…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 20, 2012 -
This Is Your Portal to GLaDOS
Oh, GLaDOS. Cruel, cruel GLaDOS. Here, the villain from the Portal games comes to life, in costume and utterly free of cake. Mean, witty, and slightly crazy, GLaDOS is one of the most memorable gaming characters in recent memory—no wonder she’s a fan fav. And no wonder all these folks decided to dress up as…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 20, 2012 -
Why the Days of Copycat Video Games Might Soon be Over
There are few things more heart-breaking in this world than a cloned video game. A game that takes something someone else has done and, with little effort, shamelessly copies it in the hopes of riding some coattails to a cash register. This industry is full of them, across all genres, from first-person shooters to strategy…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 20, 2012 -
Destroying a Room Can be a Beautiful Thing in This Video Game
This gorgeous video was put together using some new maps for multiplayer shooter Battlefield 3. They’re part of a pack called “Close Quarters”, which will emphasise combat in…close quarters. So your face will be close enough to appreciate all that debris and damage that’s going to be flying around those rooms once the bullets and…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 20, 2012 -
Hey, Darth Vader, Stop Being so Dramatic
It’s the lowest point in Darth Vader’s career, and possibly the lowest point in any of the six Star Wars movies. But we don’t need to be so sad, for unintended reasons, when the Sith Lord screams out in anguish. There’s still room for a laugh. These shirts show that such cries are actually pretty…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 20, 2012 -
Murderous Game Developers Have a Soft, Two-Wheeled Heart
You think Rockstar Games, you think about mean things. Angry men, drugs, dingy bars, fast cars, explosive firearms. Which is totally understandable, since the company’s most recent games are about a drug-addled hitman, a vengeful cowboy and a Puerto Rican who shoots up half of New York. But that murderous veneer hides a secret. Co-founder…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 20, 2012 -
The Shooter That Changes Every Time You Die
Indie developers Wolfire built this shooter, Receiver, in seven days. But that’s not the cool part. Or parts Instead, Receiver is interesting for two things. One, it focuses on a single weapon, the Colt 1911 A1, and takes it very seriously, using “high detail gun mechanics”, which means you can “manipulate each part of the…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 20, 2012 -
Here Are Your Official Nominations For The Best Games of E3 2012
Every year, representatives of the world’s biggest video game websites (this one included) get together and nominate which games they thought were the best ones they played at E3 (or in the week before E3, at special judge’s events). Note that condition: according to the awards’ rules, in order to be nominated for a major…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 20, 2012 -
I’m Not Sure I’d Pay $30K for the Iron Throne, Even Though Joffrey Left a Positive User Review
Greetings, Kotaku, and welcome to the Tuesday open thread. You may have heard that HBO is selling a real, life-sized replica of the Iron Throne for #30,000. What you may not have heard is that the characters from the show have begun to leave user reviews of the Throne. I saw that today on The…
By Kirk Hamilton Published June 19, 2012