The Most Insane Minecart Levels In Video Games

There was a time when mines and minecarts dominated video games. If a platformer or RPG didn’t have a mine stage or a mine-themed dungeon, it wasn’t a game. We felt like mines—where actual mining was eschewed in favor of racing around on minecarts—were the most natural things in the world, just as common as…

Kinect + Department Store Mannequins = Horrible Waking Nightmare

Microsoft exec Larry “Major Nelson” tweeted out this melding of Kinect and commerce earlier today. Nelson is likely proud of the execution here, since it shows the flexibility of the company’s motion-sensing camera in a non-gaming setting. But me? All I can think of is how utterly disturbing it would be if a mannequin in…

Here’s How You’ll Build Your Own Superhero In The Crazy-Ambitious Project Awakened

Pretty much everyone wants to play as a super powerful badass, roaming the city, saving lives and causing mayhem. But not everyone wants to do it the same way. Do you want to be a Nightcrawler-like teleporter? Or a Magneto-like manipulator? Or maybe you just want to suit up like The Punisher and blow people…

Another Excuse To Boot Up Skyrim: So You Can Kiss Everyone

Forget about compulsively collecting every useless bauble, or heck, even normal adventuring in Skyrim. That’s not worth going back for. This is. Check out this strange but hilarious mod by rsv_rsv. It gives you the ability to kiss everyone in Skyrim. Well, almost everyone. You can’t kiss creatures, mannequins or corpses—which is bullshit, because I…

You Have to Kick These Cats. It Keeps Them From Exploding.

If you’re going to make a game about juggling cats in the air using your head and feet, you better have a damn good reason for the simulated animal cruelty. I’d say the threat of feline impact craters fits the bill. This is Hackycat, a game by artist-illustrator Ken Wong, also known as the art…

Ten Modern JRPGs Worth Playing

Let’s make something clear. Japanese RPGs are not dead. They have never been dead. They will not be dead any time soon. I’ve written about this subject before, but every day it seems like there’s a new screed, a new attention-grabbing editorial or essay. “Are JRPGs Obsolete?” “Do JRPGs No Longer Matter?” “Has The Age…

VGLeaks has what it says are early screens of a purported Gears of War strategy game. Delta Squad looks so… small.

EA And Zynga Are Done Suing Each Other Over A Facebook Game

EA and Zynga have been tied up in mutual lawsuits over their Facebook games The Sims Social and The Ville since last year, but All Things Digital is reporting that today both cases were dismissed in California court. The companies issued the statement that “EA and Zynga have resolved their respective claims and have reached…

NeoGAF has pulled together some leaked pre-order materials for Bungie’s next game, Destiny

Video Game Plates So Gorgeous You’ll Pause Before Dropping Your Filthy Food On Them

Wait! Before you go reaching for your wallets, you should know that the 8-bit styled dinnerware pictured above doesn’t actually exist. The images come from superstar graphic designer Olly Moss‘ Tumblr and are the result of some noodling around while he had time on his hands. Moss says that the dishes riff on the famous…

If You Run a Warehouse, You Don’t Need To Turn Work Into a Game. Really.

Recently, people wanted to gamify things. That’s “game-i-fy,” as in “turn stuff into games,” which more or less meant “add points to stuff we don’t like to do to make those things more fun.” One of the patron saints of this stuff was supposed to be Jesse Schell, a game designer and teacher who described…

It’s Too Bad Epic Games Considers Female Protagonists Tough To Justify In Gears of War [UPDATE]

Because seriously, how badass would a female protagonist be? Recently, OXM published excerpts of an upcoming interview with Epic Game’s Chris Perna where they talked about Gears of War: Judgement and female characters in the Gears universe. It got me thinking. When Gears of War 3 debuted playable female characters, I realized first-hand just how…

ChefVille ‘Last Ditch Convection’ Quests: Everything You Need to Know

We’ve reached the halfway point in Colby’s Convection Oven event in ChefVille, and it’s time to unlock more Valentine’s Day dishes before it’s too late. Colby has brought three new quests to the game in a “Last Ditch Convection” series, and we’re here with a guide to helping you finish them off (thanks to Zynga)…

Gamasutra: Nintendo sold under 60,000 Wii U’s in the U.S. in Jan. A lower monthly total than Xbox 360 or PS3 ever hit.

This is the First Gameplay Footage of the new Dreamfall

Just as Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey got near its $850,000 funding goal at Kickstarter, developer Red Thread Games put up an early prototype gameplay video. You can see the heroine Zoe running around a rich, fully explorable, shiny forest environment called Riverwood, as well as the new hybrid interface that combines freeroam movement and…

I Have No Idea What’s Happening In This iOS Game, But I Like It

A lot of mobile games don’t make sense. Why are pigs and birds enemies? How many times do you need to keep running through that temple? What’s a science lab doing with so many electrical zappers? Jool, a new iOS game by a German developer named ROSTLAUB, makes the least sense of any mobile game…

Watch Dogs Will Be Out This Holiday For ‘All Home Consoles,’ Leaked Poster Says [UPDATE]

Watch Dogs, the impressive-looking game that stole the show at last year’s E3, will be out this holiday for “all home consoles,” according to leaked marketing materials received by Kotaku today. Check the images below to see both the front and back of the marketing materials, which mention a quote from G4 about the game…

This Is an Incredibly Odd Way to Experience The Wizard of Oz

When I was growing up, every holiday season was punctuated by a television airing of The Wizard of Oz. We’d gather around the television and watch Dorothy and friends learn a little something about themselves in the span of 101 minutes. The Wizard of Oz Facebook game has been around for four months, and we’re…

Finally, A Decent Look at The Star Trek Game

If you’re like me, you’ve wanted to actually see what the upcoming Star Trek tie-in plays and looks like. You have to put up with a lot of movie executive blather but there’s a bunch of gameplay on display in this promo clip for the Digital Extremes-developed title. It seems like players will be abe…

What People Used To Say About The Game Boy

3D without glasses? No thanks. I’ll take my monochrome sprites and go and have some real fun. The Game Boy was kind of a big deal. Revolutionary, even. Console-quality games on the go? Great Scott. Let’s look at what people thought of that. “Game Boy promises ‘any game, anywhere.’ It has a 2 1/2-inch LCD…