-
Pink-Slipped Devs Take a Poke at EA in iPhone Game
Four developers laid off when Electronic Arts closed Pandemic Studios have formed “Downsized Games,” and their first offering is slam full of very thinly veiled references to their old employers. BULLETrain, coming soon for the iPhone and iPod Touch, is set in a future in which “giant mega corporations rule the universe.” One of them…
By Owen Good -
Week in Games: Stimulus Response
Not much in the way of big releases this week. Modern Warfare 2‘s “Stimulus Package” of maps are out on Tuesday. WarioWare D.I.Y. is available today for DS, Dead or Alive Paradise is out Tuesday for the PSP. This week’s count: four for DS and 360, three Wii, two for PC and PSP and one…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku’s Top 5 List of Top 10 Lists
Each week throws off several new video game lists ranging from the humorous to the trivial. What’s better? A list of those. Here’s a roundup of the rundowns out there. •Fifteen Modders Who Changed PC Gaming [Gaming Bolt] A little out of my depth here, as a console and Mac guy, but I can certainly…
By Owen Good -
The Power Of The Black Mage Case Mod Compels You
Lurking deep within the darkened Bring Your Own PC room at PAX East, the pixel Black Mage case mod waits, lightning wand in hand, for the right moment to strike. Someone mentioned the Black Mage case mod to me yesterday, after catching sight of my Black Mage tattoo, and I knew I had to get…
By Mike Fahey -
Eyeball-Controlled Pong Could Be Breakthrough for Disabled Gamers
Engineering students in London have developed a controller that enables eye-controlled movements in a video game, signaling the possibility someday for people with severe physical disabilities to enjoy video games for the first time. The students, from Imperial College London, constructed the controller as a pair of glasses containing an infrared light and a webcam…
By Owen Good -
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is $20 for the Rest of Today
Electronic Arts knocked $10 off the PC download of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – and someone else found a promo code that takes an additional $20 off – for any game – making it $19.95 until the end of the day. The offer is good over the EA Store; enter PAXEAST842 in the promo code…
By Owen Good -
The Penny Arcade Expo’s Real Arcade
On the third floor of the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, visitors to the Penny Arcade Expo East get to visit an actual arcade, filled with free-to-play arcade cabinets and pinball machines, just like mother used to make. Okay, technically my mother didn’t make arcade machines, but back when I was a kid she’d send…
By Mike Fahey -
Tetris: The Anti-Nightmare Fuel
Playing Tetris shortly after traumatic experiences helps accident victims and war casualties ward off traumatic flashbacks, British researchers have found. Sounds silly, but given how much of your brain Tetris can end up controlling – to the point of seeing it when you close your eyes – it’s not that farfetched to me. A team…
By Owen Good -
Let’s Shank Again, Like I Did Last Summer
When last I left Shank, it was PAX West 2009. Six months later I got my hands on a whole new, platform-heavy level and word from Klei Entertainment’s Jamie Cheng on quality versus quantity. If you read my Shank preview from PAX 2009, you’ll know that I was incredibly impressed by Klei’s Spaghetti Western take…
By Mike Fahey -
Can Video Games Be Campy?
In a culture so infused with irony, the appreciation of campy works – outrageous movies, terrible art, worse music – is absolutely mainstream. Does it apply to games? Can games strive to be campy? Or are they already so? Michael Clarkson, writing on his blog Discount Thoughts, considers games like House of the Dead: Overkill,…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: X-Ray Edition
Our week began with a nightmarish image, even in x-ray – a giant butcher knife plunged through some unlucky wallhacker’s cranium. Sensitive bastards people that we are, this is great fodder for the latest Kotaku ‘Shop Contest. Don’t worry, we’re not going to show you the super-gruesome real life image. But as we have dozens…
By Owen Good -
Kotaku Off-Topic: Yeah, I Dig ‘Em
A few months back I left my car in neutral and it rolled out of the garage, down the hill and destroyed a bush. I worried that the landlady would notice the missing shrubbery. Then the plumbers showed up yesterday. They’re replacing some damaged sewer pipe, which requires them to excavate all the way down…
By Owen Good -
PAX East Cosplay Gallery: Day Two
We promised you more cosplay for the second day of PAX East, and we have delivered! Check out today’s gallery for more Pokémon, Mario, Final Fantasy XIII, Fallout, The World Ends With You, and this uncanny Jerry Holkins cosplay. Today’s cosplay gallery spits on yesterday’s cosplay gallery, trampling it into the ground like a baby…
By Mike Fahey -
Dead Space 2: More Fun With Severed Limbs
Dead Space’s strategic dismemberment system was a lot of fun, but ultimately a waste of perfectly good limbs. Executive producer Steve Papoutsis tells Kotaku one way the sequel will keep the fun going even after someone loses an arm. I caught up with Mr. Papoutsis in the lobby of the Sheraton, which connects to the…
By Mike Fahey -
Netflix Disc Comparison Says PS3 is Slower than the Wii
So maybe I was a little hard on the loading times for streaming Netflix movies on the Wii yesterday. It could be worse; it could be the same service on a PS3. Not only did this comparison show the PS3 taking 2:53, start to finish, to load up a preview clip (compared with the Wii’s…
By Owen Good