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Gears Of War 3, Coming April 2011

Somebody at Microsoft appears to have flicked a switch a little early, with an advertisement appearing on the Xbox 360 dashboard tonight for Gears of War 3. There’s the trademark Gears of War logo, and a tagline that reads “The epic story concludes April 2011”. The ad appears to have jumped the proverbial gun, with…

What’s With The Nuns, Japan?

Whether it be action title Bayonetta, fighting game Guilty Gear or role-playing game Rune Factory, habit-wearing characters have made appearances in video games. Many Japanese games simply use nun accoutrements. But why? Nuns are part of the Japanese landscape. While they are not as readily visible in public as Buddhist priest zipping around on their…

Plants vs…Aliens? No, That’s Not Right

Man, I love me some Plants vs Zombies. Not sure how much I would have loved the game’s original premise, Plants vs Aliens, though. A post over on Ars Technica points out that, when it first began development, the hit tower defence game wasn’t about the eternal struggle between plants and the living dead. It…

Love Plus Brought To Life With Cardboard And Cross Dressing

Because what says “Love Plus” better than that? Japanese website Megwin.com (think Japan’s answer to Mega64) has created this send-up of Love Plus with a tune about always being with the game. The “girl” at the end does say, “I want to kiss”. The popular DS title is coming to the Apple iPad and iPhone/iPod…

The Table Of Elements Now Features Tiberium, Imulsion

Unless you make your living from science, a table of elements is a pretty boring thing. But not when it includes gaming concoctions like Imulsion (Gears of War), Tiberium (Command & Conquer) and Element Zero (Mass Effect). They and many more can be found on Russell Walker’s Periodic Table of Imaginary Elements, which also includes…

F.3.A.R. Trailer Features Pregnant Lady Scary

Click to view The debut trailer for the third installment in the F.E.A.R. franchise is largely life-action with a few flashes of footage of the game.

Heavy Rain Sells A Million

Outdoing early guesstimates on its retail performance, Sony’s PS3 thriller Heavy Rain has managed to sell over a million copies worldwide since launching in February. The game’s creator, David Cage, says pre-release estimates had the game selling only 200-300,000 copies. Which for a major first-party release with a big marketing campaign would have been a…

What’s So Great About Escape From New York?

Man, everything! Game-wise, the film’s protagonist Snake Plissken inspired the character of Snake from Metal Gear Solid, and even, to an extent, the vibe and look of the games. (Realize that MGS was also inspired by a huge number of other movies as well.) Escape from New York’s director John Carpenter is involved in upcoming…

What, Exactly, Is DRM?

We’ve been mentioning DRM, or Digital Rights Management, a lot lately here on Kotaku. It’s an important topic! Thing is, we’ve been made aware a lot of you don’t entirely know what it is. If that’s you, here’s a guide. What is it? – Digital Rights Management is, as the name suggests, a means for…

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Product Placement Explained!

From Axe body spray to Doritos chips, upcoming stealth game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is wall-to-wall product placement. Game designer Hideo Kojima explains why. “Concerning the current tie-ins, various things are being said in the news in the business sense, but I have singular reason,” Kojima wrote via Twitter. “It’s because I want to…

Zombies Overrun Team Fortress 2

One of the advantages of both Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 sharing an engine is that it’s relatively easy to share content between the two. Like, say putting zombies in a Team Fortress 2 map. This crossover takes TF2 classic Badwater Basin and drops it into Left 4 Dead 2, meaning you…

Microsoft Hasn’t Given Up On The Halo Movie

Once upon a time, Microsoft was going to make a big budget Hollywood version of the Halo franchise. Until it spectacularly fell apart. That doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen, says the company. Back in 2005, a film version of Halo was first penned by Alex Garland, writer of The Beach novel and 28 Days…

Star Wars: Battlefront Online Binned As Developers Laid Off

Bad news, Battlefront fans: sources tell us a new entry in the series, in development at SOCOM: Confrontation developers Slant Six, has been canned, and a number of staff at the studio laid off as a result. Slant Six managing director Brian Thalken told GameSpot “Our current project needs do not align with our current…

New Pokémon Games Revealed: Pokémon Black & Pokémon White

Get ready for new Pokémon games, Pokéfans, as the latest entries in the popular monster-collecting series – Pokemon Black & Pokemon White – have just turned up on the internet’s doorstop. We’ve got a logo, two names, and…that’s just about it! We’ll apparently be learning – and hopefully seeing – more come April 15. What…

Pat Brown

For The Love of God, This Week’s Rock Band Tracks

This week’s new batch of downloadable tracks for Rock Band all have one thing in common. Did you catch it? The post-Easter releases from bands like Anberlin, Hawk Nelson and Skillet all fall under the “Christian rock” label. That’s a fact that wasn’t overtly publicized by MTV Games and Harmonix, who simply referred to the…

Kotaku Off Topic: Coleslaw

Who wants to talk about anything? You? Then get yourself into this Kotaku Off Topic post and chat, seek advice, find like-minded Kotaku readers or share with us some news that we missed. I won’t bore you with a long and involved intro, so make your way to the day’s off-topic links and dive into…

Educator Claims ‘Damning Evidence’ Against Games, Offers Little

An evenhanded study last month about kids and schoolwork found “nothing evil about video games,” but not a Kansas educator, who bootstraps those findings to his claim that games are responsible for the widening achievement gap between boys and girls. John Richard Schrock, writing for The Wichita Eagle speaks of seeing “mostly women’s faces” when…

Is Portal 2 Coming To The PlayStation 3?

Developer Valve hasn’t announced a PlayStation 3 version of upcoming first-person puzzle game Portal 2—only Xbox 360, PC and Mac versions are official—but one magazine seems to think its coming, naming it among its “must-play PS3 games.” PSM3, an unofficial PlayStation-centric magazine from the UK, implies that Portal 2 is indeed coming to Sony’s current-generation…

To Make The Show Better, Go to the Minor Leagues

The mad geniuses at Operation Sports have put out a custom roster file that comprehensively updates one area that MLB 10: The Show cannot, according to its contract: Real minor league players. Any minor leaguer who has never appeared in the majors is off limits to Sony San Diego (it has to do with group…