Walter White, Wonder Woman and Jon Snow Walk into a Bar: Toy Fair 2013, Day 1

Toy Fair descends onto Manhattan’s Jacob Javitz Convention this week, bringing with it loads of plastic you don’t care about. But Toy Fair also shines a spotlight on the weirdest, coolest collectibles and playthings that you’ll be lusting over for the next twelve months. In these images—taken by Kotaku video editor Chris Person—you’ll see statues…

Nintendo Fan Is Happy With Nintendo’s $620 Answer to His $570 Wii U Problem

On Friday, we brought you the story of Jon, a Nintendo fan who spent $400 downloading old games to his Wii, but, through a mistake of his own and due to Nintendo’s unusually strict digital-downloads policy, found himself with access to none of those games. The lesson: a Nintendo machine isn’t like an iPhone; your…

Galaxy on Fire Strategically Goes Massively Multiplayer

The premiere mobile space sim, Galaxy on Fire and its sequel have pleased countless fans of Privateer-style combat and trading. Now German developer Fishlabs Entertainment prepares to open up the universe to colonization in Galaxy on Fire: Alliances Set in a remote corner of the Galaxy on Fire universe, Alliances is a free-to-play massively multiplayer…

Square Enix Won’t Release Final Fantasy Type-0 In North America, So Fans Are Taking Over

It’s been a year and a half since Square Enix released the PSP role-playing game Final Fantasy Type-0 in Japan, and the publisher has not yet said a word about a possible U.S. release. Enter the fans. A group of dedicated translators are doing their best to release an English version of Type-0, and you…

For Once, a Politician Defends Games, Saying They’re Not the Cause of Violence

The drill is familiar: a lawmaker goes on a newsmaker show, puts on a Real Serious Face, is teed up some opportunity to tell everyone that scary scary video games bear some responsibility for America’s love affair with gun massacres. Well, that wasn’t the drill yesterday on Fox News Sunday. Not for Rep. Nancy Pelosi.…

Parkour-Powered Vector Races Gracefully to Android

Nekki Games’ stylish free-running platformer Vector is one of the coolest games on Facebook. In December it became one of the coolest games on iOS, and now it’s one of the coolest games on Android. Funny how that works. Vector for Android brings the smooth and sexy silhouette parkour action of the Facebook and iOS…

Chinese Actress Claims To Be Super Gamer, Supposedly Plays 5 Different Games Simultaneously

Chinese actress Li Xiao Ran (李小冉）is known for many things in China; she’s famous for her roles on both the big screen and the TV screen as well as her prowess as a dancer. The one thing that she really isn’t known for is being a gamer, and now she’s out to change that. Best…

Eurogamer: LittleBigPlanet‘s developers are teasing something. Note the question marks and the games page. UPDATE: Old

This Metal Gear Solid Figure Kept You Waiting

To mark the 25th anniversary of stealth series Metal Gear, Japanese figure maker Kaiyodo is releasing a figure of Naked Snake from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. This figure is part of Kaiyodo’s posable Revoltech Yamaguchi line. The figure will be priced at ¥3,980 (US$43) and will be out on April 15. Pre-orders start on…

Terrible 19-Year-Old Threatens Suicide To Get Money For In-Game Equipment

Previously we’ve translated a report about a young woman in China threatening suicide after receiving a fake iPhone—well now, there’s a young Chinese man in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, threatening to commit suicide over video game equipment. Late last month, 19 year-old Zhou (same surname as me!) wanted to buy a set of equipment for an…

Our car-loving brethren at Jalopnik just got a big, beautiful change.

From Iron Robots to Frilly Dresses, This Is a Parade of Delightful Plastic

The main draw at this weekend’s Wonder Festival was all the plastic on display. The twice a year event showcases recently released and upcoming figurines and statues, as well as rare, customized ones. Websites Gigazine and Akiba Hobby checked out the figure festivities, as did sister site Kotaku Japan. Have a look at the gallery…

Notorious Chinese Hacker Caught After Extorting Game Company

Last Thursday, a notorious Chinese hacker was arrested in Qingdao, Shangdong province. The hacker, a 24-year-old surnamed Zhang, has been plaguing many Chinese internet companies over the last year. iFeng.com reports that Zhang was arrested in an internet cafe in Qingdao, doing the very thing that made him a criminal: using other people’s money to…

Former Popstar Now Plays Video Games Up to 30 Hours Straight (Apparently!)

Once upon a time, Maki Goto was a huge mainstream popstar in Japan. She was also a huge gamer and even appeared in Monster Hunter commercials in 2011. Now, supposedly, she’s just a huge gamer. Goto’s private life had been rocky in recent years with its share of tragedies and at the end of 2011,…

When Cosplay Gets Wild and Wonderful

This weekend, the winter Wonder Festival barreled through Tokyo. The twice a year event is primarily for figurines, but hey, where there are nerds, there are cosplaying nerds. Here’s a sample of some of the cosplay on hand, with photos from Gigazine, Akiba Blog, Otaku.com, and Asagawo Blog. Some of the most interesting cosplay were…

When asked about a Killer Is Dead Vita version, game maker Goichi Suda said, “The Vita… Let’s wait and see for now.”

The Arrest of Japan’s Most Wanted Troll Leads to Cute Cat Pic

Well, they caught him. Apparently. After turning an anime director’s computer into a Trojan Horse for menacing messages, after threatening to blow up Nintendo, and after sending a Japanese cops on a wild goose cat chase, the man believed to be the country’s most wanted (and dangerous) troll is in police custody. The suspect is…

These Dragon Age Characters Aren’t Real, But They Damn Well Should Be

I showed you the Mass Effect entries in CGHub’s big BioWare competition last week, so today, it’s only fair that Dragon Age gets its turn. Perhaps because of its less iconic visual design, perhaps because people got all cold on the series after 2, but there aren’t as many entries as there were for Mass…

Luke McMillan has played over 3500 shmups. His genre history is good reading

A Gaming Room For Which The Word “Room” Doesn’t Really Do It Justice

Reddit user ScienceBrah has a personal trainer, and that personal trainer’s name is James. I tell you this only because James has one of the most kick-ass gaming rooms I’ve ever seen. There are so many games—organised properly, thank the Maker—down there he could hand out plastic cards and call it a game library my…