Kotaku

The PS Vita Store Is Now Live [Blip]

Brian Ashcraft — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:15:00 EST

As of tonight, the Vita Store is live in North America, selling games and renting movies. Check it out. More »

A Zelda Movie Could Never Look This Cool [Zelda]

Luke Plunkett — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Come on, be honest. Someone, somewhere along the line would find a way to screw everything up. So these make-believe movie posters are probably as good as we're ever going to get! More »

Buy Your Own Life-Size Portal Gun [Portal]

Brian Ashcraft — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:50:00 EST

The cake might be a lie, but this 1/1 scale Portal gun looks as real as one can get without being able to shoot holes in walls. More »

Thanks to You, Skyrim Now Has Fancy Crabs, Spider-Man and Tiny Nords [The Elder Scrolls]

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:30:00 EST

Skyrim's offical Creation Kit hasn't even been out a week (or half a week!), and already, there is some amazing stuff being done. More »

Nintendo Employee Reported "Missing" [Nintendo]

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:00:00 EST

Meara Lynn Nichols, an employee at Nintendo of America, has been reported missing by her husband after failing to return home from an appointment at her son's school. More »

Whatever, Hot Nazi Moon-Chick. Sarah Palin's Going to Kick Your Ass [Open Thread]

Kirk Hamilton — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:30:00 EST

Greetings, Kotaku readers, and welcome to our hump-day open-thread. Hey, we've reached the peak! It's all downhill from here. More »

Kinect-Enabled Shouts and Dragon Mounts: Will Skyrim's 'Game Jam' Experiments Ever See the Light of Day? [Updated with Video] [Video]

Owen Good — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:26:55 EST

At D.I.C.E. 2012, Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard just showed an amazing highlight reel of mods the studio built into The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim during a week-long "game jam" after the game's release. Features like mounted combat, a lycanthropy skill tree, and one enormous mudcrab, the width of the horizon, were all shown. And that was the tip of the iceberg. More »

The Darkness II: The Kotaku Review [Review]

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:00:00 EST

The first Darkness game was released in 2007. With some original ideas for the genre and a setting that wasn't space or a war, it was a surprise hit, and people still say nice things about it today. More »

PSN Update Shows Vita Titles Discounted Between $3 and $5 [Ps Vita]

Owen Good — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:30:00 EST

The most recent PlayStation Store update has quietly delivered five PS Vita titles—discoverable by search—that show the digital versions costing between $3 and $5 less than their retail versions. More »

This Is All The Free Stuff You Get If You Attend the DICE Gaming Summit [Video]

Stephen Totilo — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:15:00 EST

People pay thousands of dollars to hobnob with their fellow captains of the video game industry here at the DICE Summit just outside of Las Vegas. Or they call themselves a gaming journalist (that's editor-in-chief to you!) and attend for free. More »

What Will Skyrim's Boss Say as D.I.C.E. 2012 Opens? Watch Here. [Dice 2012]

Owen Good — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:00:00 EST

Todd Howard, the game director for Bethesda Game Studios (The Elder Scrolls, Fallout) is the keynote speaker opening the D.I.C.E. Summit, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' annual conclave in Las Vegas at 9:30 EST. Howard's address, whose livestream, courtesy of GameSpot, is embedded below, will cover "Why We Create, Why We Play." More »

The Creators of Monkey Island & Day of the Tentacle Are Trying To Make Another Old-School Adventure Game [Video]

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:59:00 EST

Tim Schafer, an adventure game legend for his days working on old Lucasarts titles, has just put his Double Fine studio to work on a Kickstarter project. To "make an old-school graphic adventure". Oh boy. More »

America's Next Top Model Winner: World of Warcraft "Really Dropped the Ball With the Pandas" [Video]

Chris Person — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:30:00 EST

Yesterday we posted an interview with former America's Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry, in which she tried to sell Stephen Totilo on her new pheromone fragrance Erox. In the end, though, we mainly talked about armpits. More »

Do We Own Our Steam Games? [Steam]

John Walker | Rock Paper Shotgun — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:00:00 EST

Republished from Rock, Paper Shotgun. More »

Killzone's PSN Release 'Delayed Indefinitely' [Blip]

Owen Good — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:47:39 EST

The Killzone official Twitter feed today said the PlayStation Network release of the original Killzone has been indefinitely delayed. It had been scheduled for a Jan. 24 release. [h/t LulzJager] More »

Midweek Moneysaver: Into The Darkness [The Moneysaver]

dealzon — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:30:00 EST

This Wednesday edition of Kotaku's The Moneysaver catches all the offers, promotions and bargains that can't wait until the weekend. The Midweek Moneysaver is brought to you by Dealzon. More »

Elegant Portraits for a More Civilized Age [Note]

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST

Elegant Portraits for a More Civilized Age | Terry Fan has released more of his Victorian-era portraits of Star Wars characters. C-3PO and Yoda also have posed. The portraits are available for sale. (Terry Fan, via Neatorama)

A Follow-Up with David Jaffe About that Oral Sex Remark [Twisted Metal]

Kate Cox — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:30:00 EST

In a promotional video interview that went live on February 6th, David Jaffe included a statement that I and others found objectionable. So I objected. After the piece ran, Jaffe reached out to me through Twitter and we agreed to schedule a call. Yesterday evening, we spoke about the issue by phone for roughly half an hour. More »

You Can Hire These People To Write Term-Papers About Anything, Even Video Games [Shady]

Kirk Hamilton — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST

If you want, you can buy your college term-papers. This has been true for as long as there have been academic institutions—some students just don't want to deal with the agony and all-nighters required to pull together a massive paper. They'd rather be socializing than sitting in front of a computer, bleary-eyed, cranking out half-coherent paragraphs about a topic they barely understand. More »

Find Out What SoulCalibur V’s Online Modes Have to Offer in the Updated Kotaku Review [Blip]

Evan Narcisse — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:15:00 EST

DLC, patches, new modes… games evolve over time, so why shouldn't our reviews do the same? When SoulCalibur V came out last week, the online lobbies were empty, waiting for intrepid warriors to fill them with the sounds of sword-clashing. Now that people are playing online, we've updated our review of the game to evaluate the multiplayer portion of Namco's medieval martial arts game. Head here to see how it fares. More »

Game Developer Sentenced to Death in Iran Asks Obama for Intervention [Amir Hekmati]

Kirk Hamilton — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:00 EST

Amir Hekmati, the U.S.-born game developer sentenced to death in Iran for allegedly engaging in espionage for the CIA, has asked the Obama administration to do whatever it takes, including a prisoner-transfer, to save him from execution. More »

The Romance and Enchantment of Rift's In-Game Marriage System Makes Me a Little Queasy [Video]

Mike Fahey — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:15:00 EST

I was going to title this post "The Romance and Enchantment of Rift's In-Game Marriage System Makes Me Throw Up a Little in My Mouth", but that's far too long, and while spoil the cake? More »

Shank 2's Launch Trailer Paints the Walls Red [Video]

Pierre Bienaimé — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST

This launch trailer for Shank 2 is a spectacle of gore and cartoony style. One of the sequel's additions to the original downloadable game is Survival Mode, which you can get your bloodthirsty eyeballs on right here. Both there and in the game's single-player, rest assured that yes, you will feel like Rambo (and that's not new to the sequel). More »

Watch a Spartan Take Down a Banshee in this Fan-Made Halo Trailer [Video]

Pierre Bienaimé — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:30:00 EST

Take a look at yet another Halo-centric fan film, made in mid-January by a team of three dedicated members on zero budget. More »

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Leveled Up Considerably During the Review Process [Kingdoms Of Amalur]

Mike Fahey — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:00:00 EST

Now that we've put the ever-questing of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning through its paces, it's time to see how it fared in the face of the assembled game critics. As far as I can deduce, it's either horrible or the best thing ever. More »

BroShep Takes on Humans, Reapers and His Own Conflicted Longings in These Mass Effect 3 Screenshots [Mass Effect]

Evan Narcisse — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:45:00 EST

Hard choices are going to have to be made in the final part of BioWare's sci-fi trilogy and the screen above seems to pose one such crossroads. The look on the male Commander Sheperd's face here seems to say "How do I choose?" Maybe he could just buy them both Twisted Metal and see what happens… But, before there can be any slo-mo null-gravity space love, there must be shooting. And lightning storms. Mass Effect 3: Space Opera for our times. More »

Shank 2, Gotham City Impostors, Catherine New This Week on the PlayStation Store [PlayStation Store Update]

Kirk Hamilton — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:30:00 EST

This week, there's a good amount of solid stuff new at the PlayStation store; it ain't the horn of plenty that we've seen in the past, but it's certainly better than the cursed wasteland that was last week's PlayStation Store update. More »

Real Life Gotham City Impostors Looks More Entertaining Than the Game [Batman]

Mike Fahey — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST

Whoa there, viral marketeers! You have to be careful not to overshadow your product with the promotion, as these lovely shots of everyday people dressing up in Gotham City Impostors garb readily demonstrate. More »

Epic Fan-Created Battle Rages Across Skyrim [Video]

Kate Cox — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:30:00 EST

The Rules of Religion, and Why The Next One Just Might Be a Game [Video]

Patricia Hernandez — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:00:00 EST

The things that make us reconsider who we are and what we believe in are often bizarre, random, coincidental; sometimes completely unremarkable save for the sudden realization that concusses you. Lately, things I've been reading and playing have coalesced into a divine cognizance for me. I've been reconsidering my faith. More »

What? Battleship is Evolving... Into a First-Person Shooter? [Battleship]

Jason Schreier — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:30:00 EST

Battleship was once a strategic board game in which players had to guess where their opponents had placed their war ships. This summer, it will be an action-packed movie in which ships blow each other up. And this May, publisher Activision said today, it will be a video game in which you shoot people. More »

This Lil’ Cablinasian Will Grow Up to Make Huge Stacks of Cash If You Play Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 Right [Video]

Evan Narcisse — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

Announced yesterday during EA's Spring Showcase, PGA Tour 13's Legacy Mode will let players of the publisher's next golf sim step inside the golf great's cleats at various points of his life. Including, apparently, Tiger's awkward yet fashion-forward adolescence. More »

That Battlefield 3 iOS Game Just Spawned Into the App Store [Blip]

Evan Narcisse — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:45:00 EST

Anyone who's been watching EA knows that the publisher's going to be tethering portable spin-offs to its big releases. Last year's Dead Space game for iOS and Android proved such games could be great and yesterday we saw the debut of Mass Effect Infiltrator. This sector's a big deal for EA. More »

Funky-Cute Rhythm Stealth Game Beat Sneak Bandit Creeps Onto iOS Next Week [Video]

Evan Narcisse — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:30:00 EST

We've gotten a few peeks at Beat Sneak Bandit, the charming cartoony larceny game from indie devs Simogo and the thing looks like all kinds of smooth. More »

Sign #589 That the Wii Is On The Wane [Blip]

Stephen Totilo — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:15:43 EST

There will be no Wii version of EA's Tiger Woods series this year. There could be a Wii U version, but EA confirmed to Kotaku that the Wii is out. A couple of years ago, the Wii was the series' flagship platform. This year, Xbox 360 Kinect gets the spotlight (PS3 is still supported, too.) More »

Remembering the Pre-DLC Days, When Free Unlockable Content Flowed Like Wine [Speak Up On Kotaku]

Mike Fahey — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:00 EST

Back in the day we'd spend countless hours unlocking every hidden character, special costume, or magical weapon in our video games. Today we simply buy them outright. Commenter Superlocke laments this unfortunate evolution in today's Speak Up on Kotaku. More »

EA, Atari Founders Unite for Gamers At Work [Books]

Jason Schreier — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:40:00 EST

EA founder Trip Hawkins and Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell both lend their stories to Gamers At Work, a new book that features interviews and anecdotes from a whole bunch of well-known game designers and developers. More »

Talk Amongst Yourselves [Official Kotaku Forum]

Mike Fahey — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:20:00 EST

Welcome to the official Kotaku forum, Kupo! This is where we converge on a daily basis to discuss all things video game and video game related without fear of being thrown to collect treasures. Also, Kupo. More »