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Thank You, Pikachu

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Pikachu balloon, floating through Manhattan yesterday. [Pic: AP Photo. This post inspired by SVGL]

Black Friday In Photos

Black Friday still has a few hours left to go, but here’s a look at how it’s going in several California GameStop and Best Buy locations. You’ll notice a lack of insanity and mobbing in the check-out lines. We’ll wait ’til the numbers come in before declaring it a tame Black Friday, though, and maybe…

We’re Up To Our Elbows In Splatterhouse Screens, Blood

Call me cautiously optimistic about the new Splatterhouse, despite the developer switcheroo and year-long delay for the re-imagining of the arcade and Turbografx classic. New screens from Namco Bandai keep me cautiously optimistic. Despite some of the character design choices—that Terror Mask isn’t doing anything for me and, Rick, please pull up your shorts—I’ve long…

Nintendo DSi LL Grabs XL Hardware Sales In Japan

The Nintendo DSi LL, having officially launched in Japan this past week, has outsold everything else to the tune of 100,000-plus units, adding a “wine red” slice to the weekly Japanese hardware chart. Welcome, wine red. After giving up pie chart real estate to Sony for the past few weeks, the ninth hardware platform on…

Microsoft: Project Natal Can Replace The TV Remote

The Xbox 360‘s hands-free motion controller, due to hit sometime next year, could be more than just a new way to gyrate frantically or befriend boys in front of your television screen. It could also replace your TV remote. Xbox Live GM Marc Whitten has designs on replacing the traditional TV remote with voice and…

Q-Games’ Reflect Missile Coming To DSiWare

PixelJunk and Art Style game creators Q-Games have a new, original project heading to the DSiWare shop next week. Reflect Missile looks to combine Arkanoid-style brick smashing with missile management strategy, which sounds potentially fascinating. The official Nintendo of Europe web site has details and first screens on the Nintendo DSi downloadable title, promising 200…

Gaming For Good

Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fats Domino, James Brown – Denver’s historic Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom has seen them all since its inception as a ex-servicemen’s club in the 20s. On a night earlier this month, the people packing into the club didn’t come to listen to the famous sing. They came instead to stand on a…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

Ezio and I will spend a few hours cleaning up the trash this weekend as I explore the world of Assassin’s Creed II. Right now, I’m not much of an assassin, but I’m learning. Other games on the menu this holiday weekend include Demon’s Souls and Borderlands’ new Zombie Island of Dr. Ned downloadable content,…

Review Round-Up: Resident Evil Spin-off, Assassin’s Creed Spin-Off And More

Fans of headphones and spin-offs and Excitebike were hopefully also fans of Kotaku reviews this week. Check out what we reviewed in the past seven days. NCAA Basketball 10 Review: Some Shining Moments In which Owen Good explains how Dick Vitale can be tolerable. Wii Energizer 4X Charging Station Review: Induction Into the Hall of…

Super Street Fighter IV’s Cody, Adon, And Guy In Pictures

If the trailer we posted early this morning was too fast for you, these screenshots and artwork for Super Street Fighter IV’s three new fighters should slow things down nicely. Cody is one of my favorite characters in Street Fighter / Final Fight history. Not only does he share a name with my mother’s dog,…

The Battle Of The Brick Is Coming

Coming in early 2010 from the creator of LEGO Zanzibar, The Battle of the Brick is a 25-minute LEGO Halo video made entirely out of LEGO bricks. Check out the extended reveal trailer below! We featured Alex Kobbs’ impressive LEGO recreation of the Zanzibar multiplayer map back in 2007. Now he’s getting ready to release…

Ubisoft: 3D Gaming Will Be The New Stereo Sound

With a new game coming out that supports 3D glasses gaming, publisher Ubisoft is claiming that 3D glasses gaming will someday be essential. The action-shooter Avatar: The Game hits on December 1, tying in to the upcoming movie of the same name from James Cameron. The film and the Xbox 360 / PS3 versions of…

Alderaan Makes Its Explosive Debut In The Old Republic

BioWare has announced the latest playable planet for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Alderaan – an lovely place to hide your bastard children from their corrupted, guilt-crazed fathers. The planet of Alderaan wasn’t always a smoldering cloud of debris. No, back in the day it was a lovely, peaceful planet – perhaps the closest thing…

Turning The Beautiful Game Into A Video Game

As I’ve said, FIFA 10 comes as close as any sports game I’ve played to being just like the real thing. Begging the question: how do the developers actually turn a sport like football into a video game? After all, football is not like most other sports represented in video games. It is not a…

LittleBigPlanet Online Create Coming Monday

LittleBigPlanet is getting a LittleBigUpdate on Monday, adding new save game functionality, improved connectivity, and the ability to create levels online with up to three friends. Until the new Leerdammer update hits on Monday, the only way to create LittleBigPlanet levels with your friends was to gather around the television set or coordinate online and…

Why Shop When You Can Enter Contests?

Yesterday we rolled out two fairly-easy-to-enter contests for some neat give aways. The first contest has you sending in a photo to prove how metal you are for a chance to win a kick-ass Mishka Brutal Legend Tee. The second involves a bit of Tekken Cosplay with a chance to win a limited edition Tekken…

Black Friday Deals Round-Up

Black Friday is upon us, and that means there are some pretty good video game deals lurking out there. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best. Feel free to add your own! Amazon.com: The Black Friday video game deals are in full swing, with more game discounts being revealed all day long. Right…

$3 Billion Worth Of Call Of Duty Sold

Activision somehow managed to shake off its turkey-induced coma this morning to announce that the Call of Duty franchise has generated more than $3 billion in sales. With Modern Warfare 2 pulling in $550 million in sales within the first five days of release, the $3 billion certainly makes sense. From the original Call of…

How to Comment and Not Get Banned

When we first started our Star commenting system, someone emailed me to ask that their Star be removed. Why? Because they said they didn’t like the pressure of having to think carefully about what they were going to write before they typed it and hit enter. That’s not what we want from Star commenters. That’s…

Talk Amongst Yourselves

TAY pulled a Tony Hawk and skipped its last installment. We’re back, but we don’t support a skate-board-shaped controller. So not quite pulling a Tony Hawk. Anyway, chat here about games. Confused about commenting on Kotaku? Read our FAQ.