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The Future of Crayons Ditches the Placemats, and the Fun

Crayons have been around in one form or another since the time of the ancient Egyptians. But there hasn’t been a major tech breakthrough for the stick of colored wax since the 19th Century. Until now! No longer will children be forced to color on placemats, bits of scrap paper from mom’s purse or the…

1991-2010

Brett Favre may have actually retired this week. For good. To give you an idea of just how long this guy has been playing football, check out what he was doing on draft day back in 1991. Gameface is a photographic celebration of the people who make, play and love video games.

Chocobos Do Not Wave Glow Sticks

To: Brian From: Luke Here’s what you missed: Colorbind Is The Excellent iPhone Game I Meant To Buy Portal 2’s Robots Are Trying To Escape Its Box Art Why Minecraft Is So Damn Popular Modern Warfare Creators Taking Damage From Legal Fees You Can Now Install Your Own “Custom” PS3 Firmware Gaming’s Newest Console Is…A…

Follow The Fortunes Of Fighting Game Fans

I don’t know what it is about fighting game fans that makes them so passionate about their genre of choice they go and make documentaries about it, but I like it. “Run It Back” is a short doco by Zaid Tabani, which takes a look at a group of Street Fighter players working their way…

Not A Creature Was Stirring, Except For These Video Game Heroes

We know, Christmas was so last week, but indulge us. This is so good it doesn’t matter what time of the year you watch it. This is “8-Bit Holiday”, by Andrew Jive, and shows what the video game characters of yesteryear get up to in the dead of night while we humans sleep and wait…

THQ Raids Mattel’s Toy Box

Publisher THQ just got the rights to make video games based on a whole range of Mattel toy properties. Think Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher Price and, most promising, Masters of the Universe

Blowing Up Blocks Rarely Looks This Good

Would it be premature to say this already looks like one of 2011’s prettiest games? It’s Voxatron, an indie shooter in development at Lexaloffle. Sure, it’s a bit sparse, but games don’t look good on the basis of how many textures and models you can cram on the screen. They look good by virtue of…

From Boring Laptop To Awesome Arcade Cabinet

Lenovo – yes, boring old Lenovo – has one of the more interesting gaming-related products on show at this week’s CES: a box that transforms a laptop computer into a pint-sized arcade cabinet. All you do is pop the stick open and there’s room to slide in a laptop. Close it back up and you…

Kinect Can’t Just Read Your Motions, It Can Capture Them Too

We’ve already seen one way Microsoft’s Kinect can be used to help bedroom game developers, but here’s another, just as practical way: it can allow for home-grown motion capture. For professionals, motion-capture work is time-consuming, highly specialised and expensive. Indeed, it’s one of the big reasons Rockstar’s LA Noire has been so long in development…

Gaming’s Newest Console Is…A Bunch Of Blocks?

Meet the newest video game console on the market. It’s for kids and casual gamers, looks like a bunch of building blocks and is the most original piece of gaming hardware we’ve seen in years. The Sifteo is the brainchild of former MIT students David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi, who wanted to develop a gaming…

You Can Now Install Your Own “Custom” PS3 Firmware

Some tools released online overnight claim to allow the installation of “custom firmware” on a PlayStation 3. Capitalising on the work done last week by the fail0verflow team in breaking the PS3 wide open, KaKaRoTo has released a set of tools that allow users to alter their PS3’s firmware, making this the first practical step…

Modern Warfare Creators Taking Damage From Legal Fees

According to new documents released today, the ongoing legal battle between the creators of Call of Duty and the franchise’s publishers is beginning to take its toll on those involved. Last month, Activision sought to expand the scope of the lawsuit by including Electronic Arts, the publisher that is now home to the new studio…

PSPhone Shots

PSPhone Menu

Why Minecraft Is So Damn Popular

Minecraft was the undisputed indie success story of 2010. Yet much of its appeal seems to lie in what it’s not, rather than what it is It is, first things first (and before I am lynched by Minecraft fans), a good game. Maybe even a great game. It’s got an iconic look, it’s widely accessible,…

Portal 2’s Robots Are Trying To Escape Its Box Art

The first Portal’s marketing and art design was all about minimalism. Cold, stark science. Portal 2’s box art, on the other hand, says “we spent a lot more time and money on this game”. Those robots don’t seem terribly impressed, though, and are rightly trying to make a getaway. Portal 2 will be out on…

Viva Las Vegas

With the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show beginning, in a sense, tomorrow, portions of Kotaku are already in Las Vegas, ready to eat, drink and write—just no gambling. So, let’s talk about Vegas. As we do (almost) every night, take part in a little off-topic conversation while Mr. Crecente and I find some steakhouse or sushi…

Could This Be The Best Gaming Headset Of CES?

The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off tomorrow, and there Turtle Beach will be showing off the new Ear Force PX5 Programmable Wireless Surround Sound Headset, among other things. Is this Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 headset really worth $250? Hopefully McWhertor or Crecente will get a chance to check out the PX5 during the show…

PlayStation Store Update: High Definition Tetrominoes

The PlayStation Store of North America rings in 2011 with a sample casual, addictive downloads, including seminal puzzle game Tetris for the PlayStation 3 and smash hit Angry Birds for the PSP. While the appeal of high-definition, 5.1 surround sound Tetris may have you opening up the wallet, other efforts like surgical shooter MicroBot for…

Colorbind Is The Excellent iPhone Game I Meant To Buy

When I misheard a friend’s iPhone game recommendation, I wound up accidentally buying Colorblind. Today, Kotaku’s iGame of the Day is the game my friend was actually recommending: Colorbind Colorbind is a puzzle game that has you drawing ribbons over circles. That’s as complex as it needs to be. You’ll see. You can download the…