Your First Dragon Age 3 Screenshot is Tiny, Blurry

BioWare revealed the first screenshot for the upcoming Dragon Age III yesterday at… the Bradford Animation Festival in England. It was only shown for a few seconds, but according to this report on Eurogamer that was long enough for an attendee to grab a shot. As you can see, Dragon Age III will feature both…

Black Ops II’s Ending Sure Was Terrible (For Me)

Stephen made a great point earlier in the week when he compared Black Ops II to, of all things, Mass Effect. The way the game is punctuated with moments that can re-shape an entire experience with a single decision is an unexpected and welcome move for a series that’s so often criticised for being little…

Over 100 Million Friendships have Been Made Over Xbox Live (And Over 200 Billion Achievement Points)

Amidst all the back-slapping and high-fiving going on at Xbox Live today, Microsoft released a statistic related to the service that I found pretty interesting. Seems that since Xbox Live’s inception in 2002, over 100 million friendships have been made. 122,265,266 at time of printing, to be exact. No word on how many friendships were…

Oh No Big Deal, It’s Just A Thought-Controlled Robot

I mean we all knew this was coming, but it’s still cool to see. Here’s a video of the progress of researchers working on a thought-controlled robot in a joint venture by the CNRS-AIST Joint Robotics Laboratory and the CNRS-LIRMM Interactive Digital Human group. We know this starts innocently enough, but it’s only a matter…

Spike VGAs Announce Nominees for Best Video Games of November

Assassin’s Creed III, Dishonored, Journey, Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead are the nominees, announced today, for Game of the Year at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards. The rest of the list contains, as you might expect, a number of nominees that were just released only days ago, if at all. Halo 4…

Next Year, Gabe Newell Becomes a Video Game Hall of Famer

John Carmack’s in there. Will Wright’s in there, too. So are Tim Sweeney, Peter Molyneux and Shigeru Miyamoto. And now Gabe Newell will be joining all of those video game luminaries in the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame According to the AIAS, the Hall of Fame Award goes to “game creators…

Black Ops II‘s Zombie Mode: a Bit of Left 4 Dead, a Bit of Adventure Games, and a Whole Lot of Fail

When I had enough of Call of Duty: Black Ops II’s campaign, I decided to spend some time with its more fantastical mode, Zombies. These are my thoughts. There are three game types: the story-based “Tranzit,” the classic “Survival,” and, less excitingly, the maliciously spirited “Grief.” All overtly have the same premise: using teamwork, survive/kill…

The Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation Soundtrack Is A Stealthy Success

Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation , the new portable entry in Ubisoft’s popular historical adventure series, offers up a few genuine surprises. It’s impressive how well Ubisoft managed to cram a fully-packed Assassin’s world onto the handheld PSVita, and players might be surprised at the myriad ways that historical tropes from the African-American experience show up…

The Sounds And Stylings Of Black Ops II‘s Kick-Ass Soundtrack

I haven’t played enough of Black Ops II to render a real verdict on how I feel about as a game, I can say for sure that I really enjoy the soundtrack. It’s a cut up from past games in the series, an exciting, diverse blend of whirling orchestral parts, ethnic instruments and atmospheric electronics.…

For Your Consideration: The Second Annual Saxxy Awards

Valve has opened the voting for the second annual Saxxy Awards, celebrating cinematography in Team Fortress 2, and a winner shall be crowned on Nov. 30. Why so soon? Well, because the best overall winner is going to be announced at the Spike Video Game Awards on Dec. 7, and the video is going to…

The Lead Designer Of Guild Wars 2 Is Answering Your Questions Right Now (Q&A Closed)

ArenaNet’s massively multiplayer Guild Wars 2 has been out for a few months now, and many of us here at Kotaku really like the game. Like any MMO, it’s already changed quite a bit since launch, and ArenaNet has begun regularly adding new content, quests, and gear to extend the game’s life well into the…

The Best (Worst) Grand Theft Auto V Trailer Comments, Immortalized

I’m excited about Grand Theft Auto V. You’re probably excited about Grand Theft Auto V. And with so many people excited about Grand Theft Auto V, pretty much everyone out there with a keyboard an functioning brain has taken to the internet to voice their opinion about the impressive second trailer that Rockstar released yesterday.…

Star Wars: The Old Republic‘s free-to-play option is live now. Update the game; get a killer robot pal in the process.

Now Facebook Games Can Create User Groups to Fill With ‘Add Me’ Posts

The second Zynga posts a message on the app page for a game like FarmVille 2 it fills with posts from people seeking friends to help them in-game. Now there’s a new feature in beta for Facebook developers that will allow for apps and games to create their own groups, giving players another place to…

Just when you thought it was safe to switch to Android, the fiendishly addictive Dragonvale is released on Google Play

From Pong to Mass Effect 3: Time Names 100 Best Games of All Time

In what is ultimately sure to be a fool’s errand, Time magazine has compiled a list of the 100 best video games of all time. Coming up with lists of the bests is harder than it looks, and any set of criteria used will have flaws in it. Curation is hard, and lists change all…

The Odd Gentlemen Return With a Distinctively Different Music Puzzle Game

Way back in the golden days of 2010, small developer The Odd Gentlemen released a pie-collecting platform puzzler on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam called The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. It was genius. Then The Odd Gentlemen disappeared into the mists, never to be seen again. Well, they did do a thing for PlayStation Home…

What’s Wrong With League of Legends?

League of Legends is a beast. An unassailable success that every other games developer or publisher is trying to figure out. Based on hours of play, it’s the most played video game in the world, notching upwards of 1 billion hours logged every month. Millions of people jump online every day to battle it out…

At Least Black Ops II Doesn’t Lecture Me Every Time I Die

“The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” It was General Douglas MacArthur who said that, and his words are as true now as they were in his time. The reason I know MacArthur said that is because…

We Didn’t Ask For This: Sinister Director To Helm Deus Ex: Human Revolution Movie

The movie based on the third Deus Ex game, announced this summer, now has a director: Deadline reports that it’ll be Scott Derrickson, the guy who directed… the supernatural horror movie Sinister (62% on RottenTomatoes). And… the supernatural horror movie The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (44% on RottenTomatoes). I guess someone must have asked for…