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Bus Shelters Turn Wait Times Into Neighbourhood Deathmatches

Web giant Yahoo has installed twenty large touch-screen displays in bus shelters across San Francisco. These displays are not for trailers. Instead, they’re to let people engage in some free multiplayer gaming. It’s called the Yahoo Bus Stop Derby, with commuters able to choose from four simple games to play. While they play, their results…

Meet The Man Responsible For Gaming’s Hottest Tune

Vietnam games and movies often rely heavily on old chestnuts like “Paint It Black” or “Fortunate Son” to capture an era. One Vietnam game enlisted some dude from Sweden instead. Shooter Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam features a loading song that’s referred to informally as the “Operation Hastings loading song”. Commenters on forums knocked heads…

GLaDOS, Your New PC Is Ready

OK, so since she IS a computer, Portal’s GLaDOS wouldn’t exactly need a rig of her own. If she did, though, it’d look exactly like this. This is the Hammerhead HMR989 from DARWINmachine. And aside from the fact it’s in a rather elegant, glowing “case”, its key point is that it’s not really a PC…

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A Brief History Of The First-Person Shooter

First-person games may be the at the top of gaming’s food chain in 2011, but it wasn’t always this way. Join us, then, on a guided tour of the genre’s history, from dark, wireframe beginnings to Call of Duty. This of course isn’t every first-person game of the last thirty years. If it was doing…

The Illustrated Guide To Role-Playing Monsters

Not all role-playing games are played on a monitor or TV screen. Some are played around a table with words and numbers, and when you’re playing one of those, you’re not limited to the monsters a developer has designed. You’re free to make your own. While this would normally be the domain of a role-playing…

Making Video Games Is A Harsh Mistress

Five years ago, Akihiro Hino was coming off designing, writing, producing and directing two role-playing games, Rogue Galaxy and Jeanne d’Arc. He was young, ruddy and full of life. Then, the unthinkable happened. His games started taking over the entire country. In 2007, Hino designed, wrote and produced Professor Layton and the Curious Village. The…

China Is Totally Freaking Out Japan

Big bad China. The Mainland. The second biggest economy on Earth. Communism. And a whole military complex. Neighboring Japan is worried. What about game companies? It used to be the other way — China worried about Japan. During the early part of the last century, Japan romped through Asia in a smash-and-grab, taking land and…

There Is Real Death In This Video Game

Death, along with taxes, is one of only two certainties in life. Yet in games, death is never really death. Its just a speed bump. In this game, though, death is death, and it is final. Beloved niche PC publishers Paradox Interactive today revealed Salem, a free-to-play MMO that wants to make sure that players…

The Outsider May Be On The Outside

Development on The Outsider, a political thriller that was being made by the guys behind Lostwinds, is in trouble. Bummer.

Sorry, Justin Bieber, Even Nintendo Hates You

Obnoxious teen sensation Justin Bieber – or, at least, his people – wanted to use the iconic Super Mario Bros. theme in his upcoming movie. Curiously, Nintendo said “nothankyou.jpg”. Love him or hate him, this kid is one of the biggest things in entertainment right now, and “Never Say Never”, his movie/promotion vehicle due to…

Virtua Tennis Returns With Rare Triple Crown In Motion Gaming

Virtua Tennis 4 will support Kinect when it arrives this spring, making it just the second sports title with versions supporting all three motion gaming flavors: Wii, PlayStation Move and Kinect. By my reckoning there is only one title with currently available versions supported by all three devices – and that’s Zumba Fitness. Brunswick Pro…

Piranha Plant Scarf Will Keep You Warmer Than A Fire Flower

Custom piranha plant scarf by An Enemy Airship, whose work we’ve featured before. Though this item is not available in her Etsy shop, she has supplied the pattern if you’re a knitter. Seen via Hot Blooded Gaming

Cry Havoc And Let Slip The Dogs Of… Metal Gear?!

Tonight’s open thread is brought to you by Kotaku reader John’s girlfriend, a Big Boss action figure and Toby the dog. Photos like this are one of the benefits of having a tips line at Kotaku. John explains how this photo op came to be. “I woke up this morning with these photos in my…

Not Much Bounce In Bouncing’s Step

Bouncing, a rather straightforward knock-out puzzle game from JRSoftWorx, confounded me for a solid 30 minutes until I realized the problem wasn’t the game, it was me. Again, colorblindness rears its head in gaming. In Bouncing, your job is to clear the board of bubbles colored in five different hues. Any grouping of three or…

Fallout New Vegas Map Is Not To Scale, But Fit For A Poster

This take on the map of Fallout New Vegas is by the illustrator Gareth Davies, using his cartoon interpretations of the role-playing game’s characters. Should you want it in poster size, send Davies a message via Twitter.

Facebook Game Satire Continues With ‘Cow Clicker Blitz’

Cow Clicker, the send-up of social gaming absurdity, has expanded its parody of all things Facebook with an application platform that offers “seamless bovine integration.” Cow Clicker Blitz is a proof-of-concept of the robust leverages it can architect. Or something. Ian Bogost, the games scholar who built Cow Clicker, delighted in sending us an embargoed…

Online Game Saves Man From Being (Maybe!) Burned Alive

The strategy game Evony, infamous for its salacious, cleavage-filled ads, has helped do some good. The Facebook version of the game is now credited with helping to save the life of a disabled man. 51-year-old gamer Robert Chambers, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, was at home when a fire, started by his toaster, began to…

Kinect Player Kicks Cat Into Camera — Fake Or Not Fake?

A cat innocently wanders by his owner playing Kinect, and is accidentally kicked across the room directly into the camera. Do you want to watch that? Hell yeah! But is it fake? You make the call! [thanks to tipster Jared.]

Manly Men Show You How To Be A Real Fruit Ninja

Fruit Ninja, the bestselling fruit slicing game for the iPhone, iPad and Android, is better played on a touchscreen than with a razor sharp knife in each hand. For video proof, we present two attempts at real life fruit ninjutsu. Luckily, no shirtless man was seriously harmed during the making of these Fruit Ninja videos.…