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Some of Ocarina‘s Original Glitches Were Deliberately Kept in 3DS Version
In building the 3D remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the mandate for the developer Grezzo was to preserve fans’ memories of the original as much as possible. That meant, where possible, that bugs from the original Nintendo 64 game were intentionally left in. “As programmers, we wanted to get rid of…
By Owen Good -
Unearthed, the Saudi-Made Uncharted Knockoff, is Available for Everything but the 360
Does this look familiar? Aside from the wooden animations, of course. This is Unearthed: The Trail of Ibn Battuta by Saudi Arabia-based Semaphore, and even this Uncharted copy won’t be playable on the Xbox 360. Unearthed has versions on everything else it seems: PC/Mac, iPhone/iPad and Android, and PlayStation 3. The game follows fortune hunter…
By Owen Good -
Flow It, Show It, Long as I Can Grow It
Each week throws off several new video game lists ranging from the humorous to the trivial. What’s better? A list of those. Here’s a roundup of the rundowns out there. •Top 10 Outrageous Haircuts in Gaming [Gaming Bolt] How come I’m not on this list? Hell, how come Crecente isn’t on this list? •Top 10…
By Owen Good -
Lulzsec Hackers Call It Quits
Whether planned retirement (or, more likely, hounded into disbanding), Lulzsec, the unlovable clowns behind hack operations against BioWare, Sony, Nintendo, EVE Online and Minecraft, ended its brief reign of semi-terror today with its final dump of stolen data, highlighted by 550,000 user names and passwords for the Battlefield Heroes beta of 2009. Another 50,000 users’…
By Owen Good -
EA Sports Won’t Say MMA’s Dead, but Won’t Say It’s Getting a Sequel, Either
To many, the UFC’s acquisition of the competing fight series Strikeforce in March spelled the end of EA Sports MMA. While EA Sports’ chief of development did not say that a sequel is in development, he did not say the label was quitting the sport altogether. “A world where we’re not involved in fighting is…
By Owen Good -
Inside the Seven-Year Labor Pains of L.A. Noire
It took seven years. It spanned two console generations. It was the biggest undertaking in Australian games development. And the seven years it took to bring L.A. Noire to store shelves was consistently an unhappy time for many who worked on the game, reports IGN. The freelance journalist Andrew McMillen, writing for IGN, gives a…
By Owen Good -
Caught ‘Em
This week the FBI finally bagged the notorious gangster Whitey Bulger, after he had spent nearly 16 years on the lam. We’re gonna try to get topical here for the latest Kotaku ‘Shop Contest. Yes, given this theme and the headline, Pokémon are fair game. But the overall gist of this exercise will be to…
By Owen Good -
Weekend Talk Amongst Yourselves
Hey folks. Welcome to Sunday morning, and another reminder that Talk Amongst Yourselves, the official Kotaku forum, is now open for business. It always is, at the tag #tay, but a little morning reminder never hurt. Feel free to discuss anything on your mind in the world of video games. Once again, thanks to Incursor…
By Owen Good -
Bobbyball Winners
The big moosie slobbering all over me, that was Bob. Kotick. Rattled by the Activision CEO’s cameo appearance in Moneyball, we decide to revise Hollywood history before it was revised for us. That meant inserting Bobby Kotick into Brad Pitt movies in last week’s ‘Shop Contest, or vice versa if necessary. Turned out vice versa…
By Owen Good -
Don’t Hate the Game, Hate the Player
The lie I faced on the seventh green at Costa Navarino was so steep, it’s a wonder I didn’t need rappelling gear to address the ball. My caddy, who has recommended twisting shots that skip over bunkers and thread between trees, suddenly had no advice. Without any starting point for my read, I had no…
By Owen Good -
The Week in Gaming Apps
Whoops! Week in Gaming Apps returns, sans your usual host Fahey, who has been playing with the high-stakes tamagotchi called “newborn babies.” When they cry, you had better goddamn well feed ’em. What games offer less risk (and, admittedly, not as much reward?) This week I flicked some balls on a virtual golf course, Luke…
By Owen Good -
Chrome Skins are Gears of War 3‘s Unlockable Reward for Loyal Gears Players
In December, Epic Games creative boss Cliff Bleszinski said Gears of War 3 would feature unlockables that fans can acquire by playing other Epic games, such as the first two Gears of War. Yesterday, Gears 3‘s executive producer let slip what some of them will be. “If you did something in ‘Gears’ PC you get…
By Owen Good -
Is ‘Familyville’ Zynga’s Answer to The Sims on Facebook?
Some URL sleuthing by the domain-watching site Fusible revealed that the domain familyville.com has changed hands and hosts in a manner similar to URLs for Zynga properties like Cityville What most ties familyville.com to Zynga was its brief ownership, in March, by IPCybercrime, which acquired the domain cityville.com on behalf of Zynga in June 2010…
By Owen Good -
By Wisdom and Courage
Giving hope to a hopeless franchise is part of what makes season modes in sports video gaming so fun. But in FIFA, a side that comes up from nothing finds itself with new big-league obligations, and when the money runs out, can answer them only with heart. Sean (Kotaku user seanomatopoeia) created an 18-year-old Be…
By Owen Good -
Video Game “Poems” Get a Luxurious Special-Edition Release
A Slow Year, the anthology of “video game poems” Dr. Ian Bogost wrote for the Atari 2600, has published a special edition befitting a work of art. The box is hand-crafted and bound in red leather, with foil-stamped gold lettering. The set sells for $500 and only 20 are available, but admiring it is free.
By Owen Good -
You Can Learn a Lot, Watching Things Eat
When you decide to be something, you can be it. That’s what they don’t tell you in the church. When I was your age they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I’m saying to you is this: when you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference? The FBI bagged Whitey Bulger…
By Owen Good -
Microsoft Sounding Out Developers for Free-to-Play Xbox 360 Games?
From Develop comes a rumor that Microsoft is now contacting studios “to discuss possible free-to-play game deals,” while it builds an operating system for the 360 that incorporates a microtransaction service. Develop says Microsoft offered no comment when contacted about the plans. The report attributed the rumor to “several sources connected to the matter.” This…
By Owen Good