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Half-Life 2’s Strider Comes to Life With This Custom Action Figure
Actually, calling it an action figure does it a bit of a disservice. The term “action figure” conjures all sorts of images, mostly of very small men. This custom Strider from the Half-Life universe is not very small at all. Not only does it look awesome, but its builder, nomadamusic, says it was almost entirely…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 17, 2012 -
Buy Yourself a Real Dragonborn Helmet
You’ve seen Dragonborn helmets made out of yarn. You’ve seen Dragonborn helmets made out of bacon. Both were awesome, but hardly practical. Now, this real Dragonborn helmet, you could crack some skulls with this. This replica helmet is actually about as authentic as you could hope for, as the seller claims it was cast from…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 17, 2012 -
Valve’s $100 Joke Ends in Half-Life Delay Gags
Valve’s $100 Valentine’s Day gag was actually taken up by a lot of people, who figured the money was well spent since it gave them a chance to broadcast a message to the entire Team Fortress 2 community. What resulted, then, were not actual engagements, but people making Half-Life 3 jokes for the whole world…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 17, 2012 -
Damn It, Link, Put Those Eyes Away
Artist OMOCAT takes Zelda and dials the cuteness up as far as it can go without making you puke. Even the Zelda stuff that’s already cute, doesn’t matter, it gets cuter Those with a high tolerance for sweetness head through the gallery above. If you make it out alive, OMOCAT’s got plenty of other awesome…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 17, 2012 -
KOTOR, Mass Effect & Dragon Age Writer Leaves Games Behind
Drew Karpyshyn, who’s been a writer at BioWare for over a decade now, will be walking away from the games business to focus on his novels. In that decade, Karpyshyn contributed to some of the best-written video games of all time, including Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, the first two Mass Effect games…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 17, 2012 -
You Better Think!
Hello, Kotaku! It’s been a wild day—we launched our first installment of Kotaku Melodic, and I think it went really well. I hope you were out there reading. But now it’s time for the open thread. Here are a few things from around the internet for your perusal: Walk on grass, endlessly. – I don’t…
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012 -
Reset Glitch May Wipe Out Gotham City Impostors Data
A glitch coming when a user updates Gotham City Impostors‘ trial version to a full game is causing reset of some players attributes and statistics, developer Monolith has said, which is particularly troubling since some players have boosted their attributes with paid upgrades. Monolith, answering a lengthy (and upset) thread on the game’s official forums,…
By Owen Good Published February 16, 2012 -
Insomniac Programmer Michael Kuehl Passes Away
Michael Kuehl, a programmer with Resistance developers Insomniac – and who had also worked at Infinity Ward and Electronic Arts – has tragically passed away at the age of 32. Kuehl was struck by a car while riding his motorcycle, and died from his injuries. Our thoughts go out to his family and colleagues.
By Luke Plunkett Published February 16, 2012 -
His Creations Come to Life
For Reals | COPENHAGEN, DENMARK: Minecraft creator Notch witness his work made real through the magic of Lego. (Photo: Imagur) Gameplay and Story Are Exactly Like Music and Lyrics Look, okay. Let’s press “pause” on the debate. You know the debate I’m talking about, right? That endless disagreement in the video game world about gameplay…
By Mike Fahey Published February 16, 2012 -
Looks Like the Persona Fighting Game is Coming to the West
Earlier today, Atlus teased an announcement for it loyal fans in North America by sending an image of a giant black rectangle. A little PhotoShop work reveals that image to be a teaser for what looks like Persona 4 The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena Or, as most people call it, The Persona 2D Fighting Game…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 16, 2012 -
Why the Chrono Cross Soundtrack is My Favorite
I think I know part of the reason Chrono Cross is less acknowledged than its predecessor, Chrono Trigger. It’s because it’s a sequel in spirit only, keeping some conceptual commonalities and a sparse few plot ones. On the most basic level they’re about the same thing: The deeply disorienting idea of a world exactly like…
Leigh Alexander Published February 16, 2012 -
Fallout 3‘s Tunnel Snakes Rule, and So Does This Amazing Classic Remix
Who could forget the Tunnel Snakes, the dorkiest, least menacing group of post-apocalyptic greaser wanna-be gangsters to ever grace a role-playing game? I sure couldn’t. And who could forget this classic video, which though it’s a few years old, still holds up remarkably well? Not Jenn Frank, anyway, who was kind enough to remind me…
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012 -
The Mind-Numbing Music of the PlayStation Vita
Every time I boot up my Vita, I get into an elevator. This elevator takes me to all kinds of cool places—fun games, great graphics, really cool online features, and a highly functional and enjoyable PSN experience. But there’s a catch: on this elevator, they’re playing incredibly tedious background music. It loops over and over…
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012 -
Check Out the Wicked-Grooving New iOS Game Beat Sneak Bandit
Today, Simogo’s rhythm-puzzle game Beat Sneak Bandit arrived on the Apple App Store. Our own Evan Narcisse already wrote it up for us, but I’ve been playing it too and it is terrific. I highly recommend checking it out.
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012 -
A Lovely Video Game Ballad To Invigorate Our Jaded, Shrunken Hearts
Last year’s To The Moon was an emotional game, a throwback storybook that really wore its heart on its sleeve. I liked it a lot. A big part of the game’s emotional oomph came from the music, which was composed by its creator, Kan Gao. But the song that many people will associate with it…
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012 -
Gameplay and Story Are Exactly Like Music and Lyrics
Look, okay. Let’s press pause on the debate. You know the debate I’m talking about, right? That endless disagreement in the video game world about gameplay versus story. “The two things are incompatible,” say some people. “Video games are not a narrative medium! Video games are games! Why do you think most video game stories…
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012 -
Avishai Cohen, One of the Great Composers of our Time
Who says that all the music we listen to during Kotaku Melodic has to be video game music? No one, that’s who. For this “listen here,” I want to highlight one of my all-time favorite musicians, the Israeli bassist, pianist, and composer Avishai Cohen. Avishai got his start playing in the pianist Chick Corea’s band…
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012 -
What do Robocop, Washing Machines, Dilbert & Lil B have in Common?
The answer? A song. In 1989, the British developer Ocean created a tie-in video game for the movie Robocop. The game was released on many platforms and featured an eerie yet serene theme song totally unlike the Basil Poledouris theme featured in the movie Fast forward a few years: The washing machine brand Ariston needed…
By Chris Person Published February 16, 2012 -
This Noble Theme Will Get You in the Mood for Psychic Heroism
Look, no one really knows what’s going on with this whole Notch-Tim-Schafer-Psychonauts 2 thing. But that doesn’t mean we can’t sit back and listen to what might be my single favorite piece of music from the original Psychonauts! The Psychonauts soundtrack was composed by Double Fine mainstay-maestro Peter McConnell. While no soundtrack may ever replace…
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012 -
From Far Cry 3 to It’s a Wonderful Life, Dubstep Makes Everything Better
Far Cry fans the world over have gotten a fresh taste of Ubisoft’s coming open-world shooter via a trailer that was released yesterday. It looks… well, as a known Far Cry 2 obsessive, I’m not quite ready to say how it looks. But I can talk about how it sounds, and it sure sounds dubsteppy…
By Kirk Hamilton Published February 16, 2012