A Night of Deadly Improv in Dishonored

Improvisation is a word normally associated with jazz and comedy. You are presented with a situation, it changes, and you adapt. You start out with a key and a tempo or an audience suggestion and a scene but you end up with something different by the end through key changes, an unexpected turn of phrase,…

If Mario Were a Mexican Jumping Bean, This Would Be His Game

Imagine that you are playing Super Mario Bros 3. Now imagine that instead of Mario, you are a Mexican jumping bean. With a tiny little sombrero. And you have a quest. Bean’s Quest, in fact. This determined little bean was not always a legume. He once was a man, on a picnic with his girlfriend,…

We Should Be Calling The Designer of These Games Some Kind of Genius

You probably don’t know his name. And you might have ignored his games. But Luke Schneider deserves your respect. And your money. Schneider’s turned out more than a dozen games in two years, a feat that’s impressive no matter what you think of his output. And that output from his RadianGames studio has been very,…

6 Helpful Tips To Make Slender Less Scary

Have you played Slender yet? It’s fairly simple, which is part of why it’s so terrifying. YouTube user DMJared put together six tips to make the Slenderman slightly less frightening. Some are more successful than others. How to Make Slender Not Scary [YouTube via Reddit]

God of War, Infamous Collections Coming To PS3 August 28 [UPDATE]

You’ll be able to play new versions of some old games on your PlayStation 3 soon. New collections of God of War, Infamous, and Ratchet & Clank are all coming to PS3 on August 28, Sony said today. They’ll be available “starting at” $30, Sony says. Update: Sony’s Cristian Cardona has taken to the comments…

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It Looks Like Doom 3, But Better

Here are some fresh QuakeCon screenshots from Doom 3 BFG Edition, a remastered version of Doom 3 that will be out in October for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Although developer Id has promised that they’re all working full-force on Doom 4, we might not see much of that for a while. So at…

Gamestop Exec Says 70% of Used Game Credit Goes to Buying New Releases

Gamestop CEO Paul Raines knows that his business isn’t exactly a favorite of most developers, who see the retailer’s profits from pre-owned games as a big insult. But, he insists that Gamestop isn’t the bad guy. Used games actually help people learn about the medium, Raines says in a Gamasutra interview: “A lot of our…

When a PlayStation Hit-Maker Created a Facebook Game…They Tried Not To Pull a Zynga

If you buy the argument that there are people who make real video games and there are people who make things that merely pose as video games—and if you are convinced that these fake “games” threaten to undermine real video games—then a game called Outernauts should have filled you with hope. Outernauts is a science-fiction…

Has GLaDOS from Portal Invaded the Olympics?

It’s been a long time since I’ve played Portal, but this Olympic Stadium rig sort of looks like GLaDOS from Portal Kotaku tipster Ian summed it up: “Anyone noticed the speakers hanging from the athletics stadium at the Olympics kinda look like GLaDOS?” No, but now that you mention it… As several Kotaku readers have…

Forget the Booth Companion Insanity, What Makes this Game Expo Are the Gamers

Every year over the past decade, China Joy has been delighting video game fans in and outside of China. The most memorable parts of the show that are caught on camera often focused on the booth companions and some times the games. What gets left behind by all the glitz and glam of China Joy…

This Is the Olympics of Cosplay

Just as the Olympics in London kicked into high gear, the annual World Cosplay Championships came to a close on August 5. The event, which drew participants from twenty countries, duke it out in colorful outfits for the title of cosplay champ. Held every year in Nagoya, 2012 saw new countries, such as the UK,…

China Bans TV Shows Based On MMOs

Currently Chinese TV viewers (myself included) have very limited options when it comes to what to watch. The government run China Central Television (CCTV) currently offers 22 channels of mindless drivel, revisionist historical dramas. The other twenty-odd provincial Satellite channels only offer mildly entertaining reality TV shows. But with the new guidelines that leaked out…

This Olympic Medal Winner Has a Dream. She Wants to Voice Video Games.

Twenty-one year-old Satomi Suzuki won two medals at the London Olympics: a silver for the 200m breaststroke and a bronze for the 100m breaststroke (she also scored a team bronze medal for the relay). Winning three medals is the stuff of dreams. But Suzuki, has another dream entirely. She wants to voice video game and…

Man Sells Family Fortune To Play MMO, Then Claims He Was Robbed

A Chinese man in the northern Shandong province of China sold off 38 kilograms worth of gold bars to fund his online gaming habit. In order to explain why the family fortune was suddenly missing, he went to the police to report that he was robbed. Midday on July 30th, the man, surnamed Yan, reported…

First Look at the New BlazBlue

Here’s the latest entry in the BlazBlue fighting game series. It’s called BlazBlue: Chronophantasma and features new characters Amane Nishiki, Bullet, and Azrael as well as new moves for your favorite BlazBlue characters. Chronophantasma begins arcade location tests in Tokyo this month, and it will be released at game centers across Japan this winter.

Why Eating Sushi Off a Naked Person Is a Bad Idea

Nyotaimori— often translated as “female body arrangement”—is the practice of eating sushi off a woman’s naked body. It is not mainstream in Japan by any stretch. Yet, as sister site Jezebel points out, the tradition survives in the West. During the 1990s, thanks to Hollywood movies like Rising Sun and a flurry of media coverage,…

If You Don’t Use Your Dragon Quest X Character Online, It’ll Get Erased

Unlike previous Dragon Quest games, Dragon Quest X is an online MMO. So far, the game’s online experience has been surprisingly painless. But here’s one thing that some players *might* find painful. According to Square Enix, if you do not log in for online play for over three months, it’s possible that the game’s server…

How a Judo Olympian Spawned an Anime Meme

Nearly a week ago, Japan’s Kaori Matsumoto took Olympic gold after defeating UK judoka Sarah Clarke Romanian judoka Corina Caprioriu. Matsumoto’s spirited judo and her ensuing Olympic win have spawned a meme online in Japan that compares the gold medal winner to Neon Genesis Evangelion Unit 01—the unit piloted by Eva hero Shinji Ikari. This…

Valve Getting Ready For Its “Next Gen” Source Engine?

Valve’s Source Engine has been powering the company’s games for nearly a decade now, having made its debut all the way back in 2004 with Half-Life 2. While it’s done an admirable job in recent years for games like Left 4 Dead, updates and revisions can’t mask the fact it’s getting a little long in…