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Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: First In Line Winners
Last week, we asked you to reimagine the summit of Isaiah “Triforce” Johnson and Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime at the Nintendo 3DS launch event two weeks ago in New York. As a316sob’s entry (1, above) shows, many items changed hands, and many heads swapped places. Let’s round up the winners. ARYXANDRE (3) brought…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
Is This Metal Gear Solid or Lemmings?
It’s not Call of Duty multiplayer. Master filmmaker Freddie Wong has taken dead aim at the guilty pleasures and accepted norms of many video games. Here he goes after Metal Gear Solid, and the urge everyone has to endlessly replay this fish-in-a-barrel killfest. Want a good laugh? Read through the predictably dumbassed YouTube comments. It’s…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
Modders Take Flight With This Kinect-Controlled Drone
Self-described hacker Tom Zickel serves up the latest Kinect mod – this time manipulating the flight of an AR Drone (this one a Parrot Quadricopter) using hand gestures recognized by Kinect. Kinect Hack: Controlling an AR Drone [Joystiq; first spotted by AR Drone’s Twitter]
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
No Strikes, but One Out as Labor Unrest Hovers Over Video Games
For a brief moment Tuesday, I wasn’t sure we’d be seeing any basketball video game this year, even though I’d taken for granted that NBA 2K12 would release, a death-and-taxes sure thing in October for more than 10 years. When EA Sports decided to pass on publishing an NBA simulation this year, its well known…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
1 vs. 100 Finds New Life on Facebook
People sometimes forget that 1 vs. 100, the MMO gameshow offered by Xbox Live from 2009 to 2010, is based on an actual gameshow of the same name and format, running in several countries, including the U.S. from 2006 to 2008. Though Microsoft declined to bring it back for a third season, it’ll be resuscitated…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
Here’s a Look at Minecraft‘s Weather Effects, Achievements and Stats
Minecraft’s next title update (1.5) will deliver a host of new features, among them an achievement system, a statistics log and, perhaps more importantly, weather effects. The game’s creator released this video late last night showing all those features in action. Markus “Notch” Persson says there’s some tinkering to be done with the weather –…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
Guy Who Casket-Robbed a Game Boy is Headed to Jail
Jody Bennett of Mentcle, Pa., whose coffin-burgling of a Game Boy back in December managed to get the gaming handheld described – for purposes of criminal charges and possibly the first time ever – as a “venerated object,” got two months of probation for his ugly deed. He’s still going to jail, but on unrelated…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
Sportsmanlike Conduct
Twenty-five penalty minutes, multiple fight challenges. Tripping and a short-handed goal in the third period. There were any number of opportunities to ragequit out of this online multiplayer game of NHL 11. But for some reason, perhaps stubbornness, both sides played through. Reader t0ddd prevailed, but it took plenty of will to stay in. Playing…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
The First Four Super Meat Boy Figurines Have Arrived
The official – and tiny – Super Meat Boy figurines from Voxelous and Team Meat have been revealed. Just two inches high, they’re $12 each (plus $3.49 shipping for one, $3.99 for two or more). The first set includes Meat Boy, Bandage Girl, Brownie and the pathetic Tofu Boy. “We want to release toys for…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
Citizens on Patrol
You know, Mahoney, I’d like to spend the next ten weeks breaking you into little pieces. But I won’t. Because you’re bad. You’re bad for morale, Mahoney. Oh, you look like the sweet little boy from next door. But you don’t fool me, oh no. You’re the devil, and you’re rotten to the core, and…
By Owen Good Published April 9, 2011 -
Play This Submarine Strategy Game and Help the U.S. Navy
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which some may recognize as a founding father of the Internet, is developing antisubmarine warfare drones and has released a video game hoping to crowdsource some of the tactical AI behind them. The ACTUV Tactics Simulator, released by DARPA just a few days ago, is a simulator challenging…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 -
AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!
Suck it, work week! We just kicked your ass. Time to celebrate with some cold brews, hot pizza and conversation of a still to be determined temperature! That’s right, we got an open thread people, so let’s talk hard!! Ahem, sorry. Got a little carried away there. Anywho, the most interesting thing that happened during…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 -
Category Shuffle Improves Video Game Composers’ Shot at Grammy
In March, a five-year-old song for Civilization IV became the first original composition for a video game soundtrack to win a Grammy. While no award has been created specifically for video game scores – in fact, more than 30 categories have been eliminated for next year – a renaming of four categories means games will…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 -
Study of 1980s Gamers Finds Them Less Likely to be College Graduates
A researcher at Oxford University queried adults who were 16 years old in 1986 and found a correlation between an interest in video gaming and a lower likelihood of going on to college. The researcher himself is a PC gamer – four hours a week, he says – and appreciates that video gaming as an…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 -
You Won’t Have To Wait So Long For L.A. Noire‘s Pre-order ‘Bonuses’ To Become DLC
Next week, a trio of Red Dead Redemption‘s pre-order bonuses—the Deadly Assassin Outfit, the Golden Guns Weapon Pack and the War Horse—will finally be made available as downloadable content via Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. If you’ve been waiting for those digital rewards, you’ve been waiting for close to year. Rockstar says that won’t happen…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 -
Making a Point About the Pointlessness of Unboxing Videos
Having done only one unboxing – and it was of fried chicken – I feel I may post this video without it being an overt display of my hypocrisy. Unboxing videos have always struck me like childbirth videos, albeit without the blood, umbilical cord, placenta, etc. As YouTube’s Cool Gear Reviews notes, they’re exciting only…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 -
Alice: Madness Returns Returns With Some Very Lovely Images
Spicy Horse’s long-in-the-waiting sequel to 2000’s American McGee’s Alice looks lovelier than ever in a quintet of new images released by Electronic Arts today. See the intricate detail of Alice’s vorpal blade and pepper mill-on-evil teapot action in the gallery above. Alice: Madness Returns comes to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac and PC on…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 -
Sony’s Hosting Provider Calls Anonymous’ Cyber-Attack an ‘Annoyance’
Ars Technica reports that sources within Sony’s hosting provider belittled Anonymous’ cyber-attack as “medium strength,” and something that only “annoyed our network engineers.” The hosting service’s plan is to wait out Anonymous until the attackers get bored. Sony sites have gone up and down through the week, to the point that Anonymous called off an…
By Owen Good Published April 8, 2011 -
The Shadow of E3 Looms In The Distance
Famicom Carts | Mint condition Nintendo games from Super Potato, from a long time ago. (Photo: Michael McWhertor) Bedtime Stories The Time Michelle Pfeiffer Healed a Lizard, and Other Ghost Stories from the Filming of Super Mario Bros: The Movie There’s a reason most people remember The Super Mario Bros. Super Show or The Wizard…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011 -
You’ve Never Heard A Game Boy Make Music Like This Before
Nintendo’s Game Boy is the instrument of choice for some musicians, due to its charming chiptune sound and the prominence Little Sound Dj. But artist Sebastian Bender has taken a different approach to using the 8-bit handheld as musical maker. Listen as Bender flicks, taps, scratches and drums the body of the Game Boy to…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 8, 2011