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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. •Top 10 Games That Got Canned [Brave New Gamer] Duke Nukem Forever, Battlefront 3 and Perfect Dark 2 are the sainted martyrs atop this list;…
By Owen Good -
Tomb Raider Dev Wants Multiplayer Designers for … Tomb Raider?
Well. Color me shocked. Crystal Dynamics has put out a help-wanted ad seeking a designer to lead “multiplayer vision and design effort for “one of the most prestigious AAA franchises in the industry.” Whatever could that be? Given that Crystal Dynamics hasn’t done much of anything other than Tomb Raider since 2005, and given that…
By Owen Good -
Dead Space 2 Teaser Message Decoded (by Many)
For the record, just past midnight Saturday Kotaku commenter pablopdlc deciphered the Unitology scrawl on the Dead Space 2 Twitter teaser image. “The nightmare is over but it will not end.” Well, isn’t that contradictory. Readers Vulcan Has No Moon and rabidhamsters, plus the site Helldescent figured it out too. Here’s a handy Ovaltine decoder…
By Owen Good -
Metroid is Also the Name of a Band, Apparently
When you think of “Metroid,” this band hopes you’ll think of them, and not just cannon-armed space pirate hunters. “Metroid” bills itself as an indie/electro/pop band “somewhere at the intersection of rock and the score to your favorite video game.” You can pick up that T-shirt (if you dig barfing robots) and some free mp3s…
By Owen Good -
‘Completely New’ Transition System in Mass Effect 2 is … Loading Screens
The demise of the elevator waiting-rooms from Mass Effect 1 was confirmed a while ago. BioWare said in April they’d be replaced by something that “turns the loads themselves into part of the game experience.” In other words, loading screens. Here’s what was said back in April, by BioWare’s Ray Muzyka: We have a completely…
By Owen Good -
Toys ‘R Us Enters Holiday Sales Fray
Toys ‘R Us has kicked off a buy 1, get one half-off promotion – so, two AAAs for $90, basically. While not as eyepopping as the price war between Walmart and Gamestop, it does cover the retailer’s entire game stock. It’s also running a free-shipping promo that isn’t all that glamorous, but is worth a…
By Owen Good -
Freezing Issue Forces EA to Take Down Fight Night DLC
After struggling with freezing problems during the download of its Champions Pack 2, released Thursday, EA Sports has taken the unusual step of just pulling the content back from Xbox Live Marketplace, until it can roll a fixed pack later. “Our goal is to have Champions Pack 2 back up for users to download before…
By Owen Good -
Glitch Traps Some in Assassin’s Creed II
Word going around the Ubisoft forums and on another site has some Assassin’s Creed II players getting stuck in “Hideout,” a sequence about 11 chapters into the game, with no way to get out or advance the game. The glitch appears to be triggered if one turns off the console right after the autosave at…
By Owen Good -
Conan O’Brien Now Picking on 60-Metascore Games
Conan O’Brien’s really on the video game humor bandwagon – especially if he’s going after disappointing film adaptations and skewering pompous trailer motifs. If the point here is “Avatar: Prepare to be Underwhelmed,” we had that covered long ago. Click to view Then again, some Rock-em-Sock-em Robots stumbling all over each other might be more…
By Owen Good -
ME2 Engineers Get By With a Little Help from Enemies
Christina Norman, BioWare’s lead combat designer, breaks down the retooled engineer class in Mass Effect 2 in an IGN interview. Engineer players who hack into and control mechanical enemies will find their control over their pets is more complete – more like a “charm” ability seen in other RPGs. Engineers can also summon combat drones…
By Owen Good -
Handmade Fable Fortune’s Tower Card Set: a Limited Edition of One
Shawn Baxter, aka the Capcom-Unity all-star contributor Snow_Infernus, thought for certain someone would have made a Fortune’s Tower card set based on the Fable II Pub Game. When no one did, he got tired of waiting, and made his own. The attention to detail put into this thing is simply mindblowing. For the cards, Baxter…
By Owen Good -
FTC Report Lauds Game Industry as the ‘Most Responsible’ Entertainment Marketer
The Federal Trade Commission, in a report to Congress, lauds the video games industry as best among all entertainment producers when it comes to responsible marketing and advertising. “Outpaces,” is the word the FTC’s report uses in describing the games industry’s conduct among its peers, noting the 80 percent prevention rate in keeping M-rated content…
By Owen Good -
Mario Theme: One-Hand Me, Good Sir!
Here’s a virtuoso piano performance of the Super Mario Bros. theme – using one hand. If I’d remembered anything from my piano lessons beyond playing Old MacDonald on the black keys, I could probably describe how difficult this is. A commenter asks “Was that one hand for left AND right hand, or was it just…
By Owen Good -
Dragon’s Lair Heading for the iPhone
The 1983 laserdisc classic Dragon’s Lair will follow its cousin Space Ace to the iPhone; Electronic Arts is handling the port. Now you can enjoy Dirk the Daring’s inquisitive grunting and Princess Daphne’s coquettish cooing in a convenient portable format. The game will feature an arcade mode, faithful to the content of the original cabinet…
By Owen Good -
Infinity Ward Says Javelin Cheat Fix ‘In the Pipeline’ for PS3
Modern Warfare 2 update 1.05 has gone out for the PS3, but everyone will have to wait for patch 1.06 to fix the infamous Javelin glitch. Let’s hope Sony approves it fast, since they seem reluctant to police the cheaters. Robert Bowling, the Infinity Ward community manager, tweeted that 1.05 fixed some matchmaking issues. Update…
By Owen Good -
Half-Contra: The NES Classic Goes 3D
Machinima put this up last week, following the Castlevania and Mario reconstructions in Half-Life 2. Anyone who’s ever played Contra – that should be all of us, right? – will want to watch this start to finish. More than once. Pretty shrewd how the level’s creator (M0rtanius) staggered the platforms so you could shoot up…
By Owen Good -
The Straight Story of ‘Gay Tony’
Calling it “the straightest Grand Theft Auto ever,” largely for effect, PopMatters’ G. Christopher Williams says The Ballad of Gay Tony hews to some hetero-driven crime-novel representations of both sexualities, but in the end is about much deeper themes. Warning, this discussion will contain spoilers of “The Ballad of Gay Tony,” released Oct. 29. “Club…
By Owen Good -
Sticks Up, Lacrosse Breaks Into the Xbox 360
Let’s be real. It would take a nuclear war for lacrosse, even though it’s literally more American than football or baseball, to displace either game on TV. It would take even more to put it in a retail video game box. “A lot of people have been demanding this in a video game for a…
By Owen Good