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Making Avatars That Aren’t White Dudes Is Hard

Since the majority of video game players in the West are white, when they play a role-playing game, it’s not hard to have their character looking and dressing like them. But what if you’re not white? Fox Harrell (above), an artist, computer scientist and avid gamer, has written of the problems he’s run into in…

Japanese Poll: Only 8% Will Definitely Buy A Nintendo 3DS

The general public has yet to see the upcoming 3D-glasses-free Nintendo 3DS. It will be playable sometime this year. Exciting, no? Well, not to some folks in Japan. Nintendo has described the portable as allowing games to be “enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses”. The Nintendo 3DS will succeed the…

Xenosaga Statue Is Like A High Definition KOS-MOS

Epic sci-fi series Xenosaga inspires devotion in its die-hard fans, and KOS-MOS is a Xenosaga character that inspires devotion in their…hearts. Here’s a new KOS-MOS figure. But be warned. She is expensive Due out later this year, it’s actually a statue, hence the extra detail and inflated price-tag over what you’d expect from a standard…

FarmVille Expanding To “Various Mobile Platforms”

Farm simulator FarmVille launched on social networking site Facebook.com. It then became hugely popular, boasting 80 million users. Know what that means? It means that it’s really, really popular. And it also means that chances are really good the world will see FarmVille on other platforms — you know, like Android and the iPad. Domain…

European Volcano Causes Aussie Game Delays

You know how ash from the Icelandic volcano has disrupted plane travel to and from Europe? Well, we’ve heard there were video games on some of those cancelled flights. Mindscape, the Australian distributor for Konami, has told us that several of its upcoming releases have been delayed as a result of a new cloud of…

Allow Me To Retort

As seen on Reddit via Hawty McBloggy

Art Can Be Games Too, You Know

Games as art? Not my kind of discussion, really. Games can be what they want to be, and what you want them to be. Whatever. But art as games? Now this is something I can get behind. Italian group AIOMI put this together, showing that as dour as the old lady is, the Mona Lisa…

This Guy Is Quite The Villain

That’s Gackt. He’s a bad, bad man. Well, he is in upcoming PC role-playing game Dragon Nest. In real life, he is a songwriter, fashion model, actor, novelist, restaurateur, screenwriter and psychic. Gackt once said he was born in the 1540. But now, acknowledges that, yes, he was born in 1973. He actually has a…

Tron Threadless Pics

A Celebration Of Some Amazing Video Game Manuals

As Ubisoft today bids farewell to the printed instruction manual, other publishers will surely follow suit. I, for one, am a little saddened by this, as some of my best memories in gaming involve…reading the manual. Sounds weird when you type it out like that, I know, but don’t you judge me! Just like few…

A Week In Comments

Current Pokemon Anime Series Coming To An End Comment by: Demonbird Nominated by: puresewas1de Ash, you are 23 years old. It’s time to maybe consider settling down, or at least step up your game and go big. I’ve become the Pokemon Master like thirty times in the last 13 years ash. Thirty times. Come on,…

Nintendo’s Kooky, Room-Moving Wii Accessory Kit

Tired of moving your Wii from one room to another? No, me neither, but just in case you are the type of person who has to shuffle their console from room to room, Nintendo’s new “Wii Migration Connection Kit” has you covered. Out now in Japan, and as an official first-party deal, it’s a box…

Nintendo Blames DS Piracy For 50% Sales Drop In Europe

Nintendo has been cracking down hard on sellers of R4 cartridges (and similar devices) lately. Want to know why? The Japanese company is blaming them for a 50% drop in sales of DS games in Europe. According to a report on the Asahi Shimbum’s website, Nintendo reckons sales of the devices – which allow users…

New Left 4 Dead 2 Achievements Tease New Additions

Valve’s seems quite serious about releasing Left 4 Dead 2’s first expansion, The Passing, this week… or, according to today’s update, “soon.” So it’s probably high time we find out what those new game modes are. While Valve still isn’t telling, officially, it’s hinting at new changes to the game in a new update at…

Kotaku Off Topic: Left In A Bar

Welcome to Kotaku Off Topic, in which nothing that was found in a bar by a drunken employee of a multi-billion dollar technology company must necessarily be discussed. The discussion is officially open. The key takeaway from today’s Gizmodo scoop—or whatever you want to call it—is that I have a new excuse to go to…

Jetpacks Let You Jump All Over Battlefield Heroes’ New Map

Battlefield Heroes, the zany, free-to-play combat game from EA DICE has a new map, a new game mode to play on it, and jet packs to get you around it. The map, “Midnight Mayhem” sets the Heroes in a nighttime environment – the ruins of a military compound. The game mode, V2 Vengeance, is a…

Tony Hawk’s Tony Hawk: Shred Outed By Tony Hawk

Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk may have just officially sent the Activision PR team into a 720-degree tizzy, tweeting about Tony Hawk: Shred, quite possibly the more shred-tastic follow-up to the skateboard-as-controller experiment Tony Hawk: Ride. Mr. Hawk cryptically named something that we’re just wildly assuming is his next project by way of the Twitter, saying…

Two Voice Actors Out Arkham Asylum 2 Villains

Mister Freeze and Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s (Ra?) will be foes in Batman: Arkham Asylum, according to two voice actors’ comments on a podcast and via Twitter. First up, Talia. Stana Katic, who stars on ABC’s Castle, tweeted on Friday that she’d “Just recorded a character voice on the next Batman video game,”…

Star Fox Dog Needs To Do A Barrel Roll

Dog does Star Fox. But where are the real life frogs dressed as Slippy? [As see on IHasAHotDog]

It’s Not Saturday Yet, but It’s Getting Closer in NCAA Football

Some earlier screenshots gave us an idea of the lighting and detail upgrades due for NCAA Football 11. Now footage just released by EA Sports shows what it all looks like in motion. The game gives good visual treatment to its subjects, but right now, things still look a little floaty in some of the…