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Scientific America Looks at GTA, Calls for Non-Sexist, Non-Racist, Non-Violent Video Games

The problem of using science to determine whether or not violent video games like Grand Theft Auto do harm to our children is neatly summed up in one article on Scientific American – there’s always good news and bad news. In an article titled “Grand Theft Auto Is Good for You? Not So Fast…,” Scientific…

Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s ‘Onslaught’ Update Deployed (Mostly)

Want more Bad Company 2? Today’s your day to get more Battlefield-style action with the four-player “Onslaught” cooperative mode, which is shipping on time for at least one of the console’s it was promised for today. EA and DICE have deployed the new update to PlayStation 3 owners in North America, with owners of that…

City Of Heroes Goes Rogue In August

Gripping moral decisions come to NCSoft’s super hero MMO City of Heroes this summer, as the company sets an August 17 release date for the game’s second major expansion, Going Rogue. Mark your calendars!

Transformers: Robots In My House

Hours after running this morning’s review of Transformers: War for Cybertron, a package showed up on my doorstep featuring the toy versions of two of the game’s Autobot stars. I’ve been actively seeking these two figures out for a couple of weeks now, just in case they slipped out into stores early. I’ve been collecting…

Nintendo Files Downloadable Games Strategy In ‘What We Don’t Do So Well’ Category

Nintendo’s approach to downloadable games for Wii and DS is something the company “do[es]n’t do so well,” Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told Kotaku last week. He promises an unpredictable solution. “We look at what we do well. We look at what we don’t do so well,” he said during an interview at E3…

Slayer Pinball Shows No Mercy On iPhone Today

Not since Electronic Arts’ Crüe Ball hit the Genesis in 1992 have we been this excited to experience the unholy marriage of pinball and heavy metal. Thanks to thrash metal outfit Slayer’s new iPhone game, heavy pinball is back! Slayer Pinball Rocks HD combines the loud, fast and evil sounds of Slayer with traditional pinball…

Smuggling Myself Into The Old Republic

As Kotaku’s resident massively multiplayer online gamer, you’d think I would have gone hands on with Star Wars: The Old Republic before last week. Was it worth the wait? Following a brief presentation of a couple trailers for The Old Republic, BioWare representatives led me to a small room lined with computers and asked me…

Sin & Punishment 2 Screens

A Brief Taste Of True Crime: Hong Kong

One of Activision’s big fall games is a revival of its open-world True Crime series, the closest thing the publisher has to a Grand Theft Auto. At least one part of the game that I saw at E3 had me thinking more Assassin’s Creed. And I’m not talking about the part on motorcycles. True Crime:…

There’s An APB Out For Kotaku’s Next Podcast

What do you want to know about Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds’ new online cops and crooks game APB? Ask the game’s lead designer, who will be joining us on this week’s episode of Kotaku Talk Radio, anything and everything. In addition to fielding your calls about all things E3—PlayStation Move, Nintendo 3DS, Kinect for Xbox…

Missed Connections – Rift: Planes of Telara

Dear Trion Worlds. I am terribly sorry I missed our appointment at E3 2010. If it’s any comfort, the E3 trailer for your MMO Rift: Planes of Telara looks very pretty. Rift is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game with a very intriguing concept. The land of Telara is being ravaged by rifts opening in…

Ghost Recon Future Soldier Does Three Things Almost All At Once

According to some text I saw on the screen of Ubisoft’s big new Tom Clancy game, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier takes place “sooner than you think.” Good news. That means we’re getting octo-camo soon, and three friends we can trust in a firefight. I was allowed to look but not touch a demonstration of spring…

Tron Images

Disney Is Completely Serious About These Tron Action Figures

Disney unleashes the first product shots of their massive Tron Legacy toy and electronics line, including mice, keyboards, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 controllers, and action figures with cutting-edge impulse light projection technology that makes them extremely ugly. You can expect plenty of Tron Legacy junk on store shelves come this December, including the 12…

Like Fancy Dress Parties and Candy? Modern Warfare Devs are Hiring!

Infinity Ward, the studio behind Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, may have lost founders Jason West and Vince Zampella. Nearly 30 employees may have left in a mass exodus. Parent company Activision may be entangled in lawsuits, but that won’t keep the studio down. Infinity Ward is hiring in a big way, buying banner…

Call of Duty Black Ops Spoiler: Stuff Blows Up Impressively

Call of Duty: Black Ops benefits from a large screen. The bigger the screen the better, I learned last week. That is because Call of Duty games are giant acts of detonation. We are no longer storming Normandy Beach in Call of Duty. We are no longer one of many against an overhwelming force. From…

XCOM By Any Other Name Could Be Great

The reason I love XCOM so much, why I’m so worried about its future has likely more to do with a stolen car and an obscene amount of hoagie sandwiches than it does the Sci-Fi strategy game. You see, in the summer of 1994 I was between jobs. Having been fired from the arcade I…

Packing Tips From A Tetris Master

Have you ever seen a skilled Tetris player performing and thought to yourself, “He must be great at packing a moving truck?” We put that notion to the test, assembling several handy moving tips from a Tetris pro. Tetris masters aren’t that easy to find. There are no large, organized tournaments for the game and…

Suicide Bombers and Razor Wire Make Gears of War 3 a Real Beast

Tucked away in the dimly lit back room of a defunct subterranean power plant in downtown Los Angeles, music pulsing, crowds surging, I concentrate on the task at hand: Blowing myself up, taking as many people with me as I can. Scurrying along the dusty ground, skirting low walls and coils of razor wire, I…

Four Play For The Price Of Two With The Xbox Live Gold Family Plan

Microsoft gears up for the launch of family-friendly Kinect this fall with the Xbox Live Gold Family subscription plan, delivering four Xbox Live Gold memberships for the price of two, plus a host of new features and family-exclusive content. This is why I need kids. Starting in November, Microsoft’s new Xbox Live Gold Family Pack…