Nothing Says Valentine’s Day Like Tiger & Bunny

On Valentine’s Day in Japan, women are supposed to give men sweets (men give women sweets a month later on White Day). And next Valentine’s Day, ladies can give Tiger & Bunny cake with a chocolate mousse and green tea chocolate mousse filling. Priced at ¥3,990, it comes with a Kotetsu T. Kaburagi figure. He’s…

Lollipop Chainsaw Turned into a Japanese Porno

You know the rule: If it exists, there’s a porn of it. Well, video game Lollipop Chainsaw exists (we have the review to prove it). And now there is the inevitable adult video version of it. Slated to be released next week, the movie is called Tia’s Geek Cosplay FUCK! (ティアのヲタコスのFUCK!), and it comes per…

Halo 4 Launching in Japan Is Pretty Much What You’d Expect

Japan has never been crazy about the Xbox 360, save for the few instances when it had exclusive role-playing games folks wanted to play. But generally speaking, it’s been an uphill battle. That being said, Halo 3 did okay! For a first-person shooter. On the Xbox 360. In Japan. Earlier this week, Halo 4 launched…

At McDonald’s Japan, these Special Burgers Sure Are…Creamy

If you’ve been to McDonald’s while visiting other countries, you know that things can be a little different. McDonald’s Japan, for example, has two “new” burgers—probably the likes of which you’ve never seen. That is, unless you’ve been to Japan. In winter. These are the “Gracoro Burgers”, with “gracoro” (“gurakoro” or グラコロ) being short for…

What If Pyramid Head Were a Lady?

Pyramid Head is one scary looking dude. The stuff of nightmares! Cosplayer UndercoverEnvy reimagines the Silent Hill bogeyman as the Silent Hill bogeywoman. The results are terrifyingly wonderful. To learn more about Pyramid Head, check out the Silent Hill wikia. Silent Hill [UndercoverEnvy@DeviantArt via ObviousWinner]

Your Guide To Killing Zombies

Before there was The Vampire Combat Manual, there was The Zombie Combat Manual. In the excerpt below, author Roger Ma tackles the vulnerabilities and regions of attack for zombies. The Zombie Skull Although the majority of the populace is aware that destruction of the brain is the only known method to terminate an undead attacker,…

Grand Theft Auto‘s Writer Talks Women, Writing—and Creative Larceny

Dan Houser, the 39-year-old chief writer of Rockstar Games and a co-founder of the studio that’s delivered the Grand Theft Auto series, admitted to some screen-looking in an interview this weekend with The New York Times: “Anyone who makes 3D games who says they’ve not borrowed something from Mario or Zelda is lying,” he said.…

Duke’s Basketball Opener Features Some Spartan Ops, Too

Duke University’s student body is often stereotyped as carpet-bagging one-percent Yankees, and it’s true that is a powerful constituency at that university. But take it from me, most of the kids I’ve encountered at Cameron Indoor Stadium are harmless math camp counselors, like our geeky friend here who attended the season tipoff in this royal…

Get Hot, Bothered and Hungry With Fifty Shades Of Chicken

I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey. I kept hearing about it, and seeing people reading it on the bus, but I wasn’t sure what it was until I finally got curious and looked into it. Okay, so it’s a book about kinky bondage sex-play. And I don’t believe I’m in its target demographic. I…

Darkstalkers‘ Sultry Succubus Has Never Looked Quite So Good

Morrigan Aensland from Capcom’s Darkstalkers is one of the most widely depicted characters in video games. Her distinctive features have spawned dozens of statues, hundreds of cosplays and thousands of pieces of fan art. Of her myriad appearances, this statue from E2046’s Gathering line might just be my favorite. Let’s just get this out of…

The Guy Who Wrote Little Miss Sunshine Will Write Star Wars: Episode VII

The next episode of Star Wars has its writer. As rumored yesterday, Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) will indeed write episode VII, announced when Disney bought Lucasfilm last week and slated for release in 2015. No word on whether he’ll be including Luke, Leia, and Han. Also no word on whether if…

Backhanded Box Quotes: No Need for Creed

Welcome back to “Backhanded Box Quotes,” a collection of measured, thoughtful criticism from the user reviews of Metacritic and elsewhere. Assassin’s Creed III Released: Oct. 31 Critic: elgringo (Metacritic) • “They pulled off Mass Effect 3 with this game.” Score: 0 Critic: Skycrimson (Metacritic) • “I thought I was actually playing AC2 again because GS…

Nintendo’s holding a midnight launch event for Wii U at the Nintendo World Store in New York City. Reggie’ll be there!

Here Are 28—Yes, 28—New Persona 4 Golden Videos

Those crazy folks at Atlus have released a whopping 28 new videos to celebrate Persona 4 Golden, their upcoming Vita remake of the critically-acclaimed PS2 role-playing game. Persona 4 Golden is out November 20. Look forward to the official Kotaku review—which, and get excited for this, may wind up being a collaboration between me and…

Xbox 360 Supports 32GB USB Drives After Latest Update

Xbox Live’s latest dashboard update also delivered an increase in the size of the USB hard drives the console will support. The Xbox 360 can now save to drives up to 32 gigabytes in capacity, double the old limit if 16GB. Joystiq noted the capacity change and sought to confirm it with a Microsoft representative,…

No. 1 in the Polls Doesn’t Mean Much in Sports Video Gaming Either

Around sports video gaming’s water cooler, much is being made of NBA 2K13 clocking in as October’s No. 1 seller on the NPD charts, and it is indeed an affirmation for sports video gamers as a whole. Sports video games are, culturally, treated as an outlier in core video gaming, yet they routinely send two,…

A Wretched Hive of Scum and Gaming Apps

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Week in Gaming Apps. Its continuing mission — to explore strange new apps, seek out new games and game applications; to boldly make thematically incorrect quotes in an article with a Star Wars title. Space played a large role in this week’s selection of Gaming…

Virtual Tourism Has Never Felt More Real

There’s this small problem I’m having with Assassin’s Creed III. It’s nothing to do with the game itself, actually, and everything to do with me. The problem is this: Assassin’s Creed III is turning me into a kind of obnoxious person. I’ve developed this running commentary while the game goes on. It has nothing to…

Puzzle & Dragons… It’s All Right There in the Title, Isn’t It?

GungHo Online Entertainment’s Puzzle & Dragons is a game that contains both puzzles and dragons. It’s generated more than three million downloads in Japan. I’d say a good half of those downloaded it simply because the game’s name features all anyone really needs in a video game. Puzzle & Dragons is an amazing combination of…

I (Kirk) went on the radio to talk about XCOM, PC modding, and Slender. Check it out, we talk games at 27:00