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People Complaining About Blizzard’s “Real ID” Have Their Email Addresses Exposed

Sometimes irony can be delicious. In this case, it’s a little bit tragic, with the ESRB publicly releasing the email addresses of people who had written to the board to protest…the revelation of private information. Blizzard’s decision (and ultimate reversal) this week to institute a “real names” policy on the company’s forums led to widespread…

The Video Game Swag That Could Give You Cancer

Klax cigarettes, a curious, dangerous choice of promotional item given to Japanese gamers by Atari. As seen at Incredibly Strange Games via GameSetWatch

Hulk Out!

Open thread. Anything goes. Just don’t call it Kotaku Off Topic. Or do. You make the rules—well, some of them—in this post that’s not about video games, but might be briefly about game shows. Speaking of gaming, I was in Las Vegas this weekend for this year’s EVO fighting game tournament. Despite working some crazy…

Your Only Chance to Pick Up This Achievement Comes Tomorrow

Like an eclipse or an obscure comet sighting, tomorrow is the only day on the calendar you may pick up this Silver PSN trophy or 40 Gamerscore Xbox Live achievement, in MLB 2K10. So be ready when it comes. The trophy/achievement is “Mid-Summer Classic,” and all you have to do to collect it is play…

From Final Fantasy V to Mother 3, A Brief History Of ROM Hacking

What to do when your Japanese role-playing games take months, years or forever to get an English translation? Rip the ROM and hack-translate it yourself. 1UP takes a look at the origins and current state of the brute-force, fan-made localization.

ModNation Racers Gets More ‘Casual’ With Less Aggressive Update

United Front Games will make playing its DIY kart racer ModNation Racers a little easier with its next update. The PS3 game is getting a less-challenging career mode option, according to the PlayStation.blog

Hero of King of Kong to be Enshrined in Hall of Fame

Steve Wiebe, the protagonist of the documentary The King of Kong, famous for his pursuit of Donkey Kong’s all-time record, will be enshrined alongside the game’s creator with the first class inducted by the International Video Games Hall of Fame. Wiebe, an algebra teacher in Kirkland, Wash., is currently the holder of the No. 3…

Street Fighter IV Creator Teases Comic-Con Timed Game Reveal

At this weekend’s EVO tournament in Las Vegas, where the world’s best Tekken 6, Super Street Fighter IV and Melty Blood players battled it out, the man who made Street Fighter IV teased the unveiling of his next game. Yoshinori Ono, the producer of Street Fighter IV and its Super sequel, has been teasing that…

Just Don’t Get Kicked Out of the Circle in NHL 11

There’s plenty you can do on a faceoff other than spam the controls and look like a fool. NHL 11 wants to give you more options this year, as shown in new screenshots released today. As we saw in a video yesterday, you’ll be able to tie up your opponent and kick it back, tie…

Dragon Age II’s New Look, Now In Screen Shots

BioWare’s next big role-playing game, Dragon Age II, will be a very different thing. For starters, the sequel sports a “new visual style,” readily apparent from concept art and newly released first screen shots of Dragon Age II. Game Informer magazine subscribers are already basking in printed versions of Dragon Age II’s new artistic direction,…

PlayStation’s New ‘Terms of Service’ Urges Not ODing On 3D

What are we agreeing to now when we play our PlayStation 3s? For one, to take heed of Sony’s advice while enjoying 3D games or movies, which the legalese-laden, newly-updated Terms of Service agreement says may cause “discomfort.” Sony’s latest addition to the list of things it expects us to follow is about the latest…

Big Patch Accompanies NCAA 11‘s Arrival Tomorrow

Not many people game completely offline, but you’ll want to be connected if you’re bringing home NCAA Football 11 tomorrow. It gets a a day-of-release patch that fixes and tunes a ton of features. I can confirm this is already present; EA Sports put it on the server last Wednesday. The patch not only corrects…

Fat Lip From Fat Head

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Monday, Monday It finally happened. After months of rough housing with our Great Dane, Poe, he finally connected one with his big, beefy paws, clocking me right in the face when I was ducking a particularly exuberant open-mouthed head-butt. His paw, actually his ankle, popped me dead center in the…

Homoerotic Shooter Re-release ‘Cho Aniki’ Outed For PS3

Muscle-bound side-scrolling shooter Cho Aniki is coming to the PlayStation 3, according to a new rating from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. That’s good news for fans of Speedo-wearing studs who fight similarly ripped, nearly naked dudes. Cho Aniki is coming to the PS3 courtesy of Monkey Paw Games, the company founded by the former…

Well Alrighty, Then: Here are the Madden 11 Achievements

The full achievement list for Madden NFL 11 is now out in the open. It includes “Laces Out,” which gives you 40 Gamerscore for kicking a 60-yard-field goal. That sounds makeable – provided Dan Marino’s not holding. Aside from making homages to 1990s comedies, developers use the achievements and trophy sets to condition gamer expectations,…

So That’s Where Tetris Blocks Come From

As seen on Eduardo San Gil’s “Let the Game Continue” t-shirt, now available at Threadless. Thanks INTVGene!

The New Kid Icarus May Explore Another Dimension: Multiplayer

Nintendo is finally creating a new Kid Icarus game, Kid Icarus Uprising, after nearly 20 years of downtime for the character. The Nintendo 3DS game may be modernized with a now-expected feature, online multiplayer, according to its creator. Masahiro Sakurai, Kid Icarus Uprising and the Super Smash Bros. Brawl game designer, tells UK mag Games…

The Expendables Gets The 8-Bit Contra Clone It So Richly Deserves

Step into the boots of action stars Jet Li, Sylvester Stallone, and Jason Statham, in an 8-bit Facebook action game based off of their upcoming movie, Contra The Expendables. You have to like a movie that brings together some of the greatest action heroes of all time into one testosterone-coma-inducing parade of shooting, punching, and…

From Your Glorious Occupiers of the New Korean Federation

Man, this brings back memories from when I lived in Seoul, South Korea as a kid. I actually had a whole stash of propaganda in my bedroom, tucked away in a dresser drawer behind the socks. I collected it over my two years in Korea, finding it all around the city, but someone found it…

Silent Hill Music Man Akira Yamaoka’s Favorite Songs

Composer Akira Yamaoka, perhaps best known for his moody musical contributions to Konami’s Silent Hill series, wants his own funeral to be scored by Ennio Morricone’s “Ecstasy of Gold,” one of the game composer’s five favorite songs. Yamaoka, now at No More Heroes developer Grasshopper Manufacture, tells Nintendo Life that the memorable tune from The…