• Culture

  This Week in the Business: ‘PlayStation is the Most Powerful Game Brand in the World’

  What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “PlayStation is the most powerful game brand in the world.”—Jack Buser, Director of PlayStation Home, gives his obviously biased opinion on Sony’s gaming brand at a CES panel on the future of consoles QUOTE | “I think it’s over, and Zynga…

  Steve Peterson Published January 27, 2012
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  Glasses-Free 3D

  Glasses-Free 3D | Spike Lee, screening his latest feature Red Hook Summer at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, enjoyed some downtime with a 3DS at a promotional event held by Nintendo this past weekend. (Jason Merritt, Getty Images). The Soul Still Burns for the Week in Gaming Apps How does one of the greatest…

  By Owen Good Published January 27, 2012
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  Red Dead Redemption Voice-Actor Details Cast’s ‘Redneck Zombie Romantic Comedy’ quasi-reunion

  The cast of Red Dead Redemption are no strangers to rednecks, nor to zombies—Rockstar’s wild-west open world game featured plenty of the former in its original incarnation, and added an invasion of the latter added to the game via downloadable content. As we found out last fall, several members of the cast are reuniting to…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
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  The Soul Still Burns for the Week in Gaming Apps

  How does one of the greatest fighting games of all time wind up one of our least favorite gaming apps of the week? Was it the power of Chopin, the combination of Minesweeper and Minecraft, or the $11.99 price tag? I’m going to go with the price tag. If SoulCalibur for iOS was just a…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012
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  Check Out The Dramatic, Not-Quite-Emo New Trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines

  Slow-mo trailers are all the rage these days, usually depicting extreme violence set to moody, emo pop music. It’s certainly become a popular practice in gaming advertising, and with good reason—those moody, introspective ads for intense action games can be pretty cool. Case in point—the above trailer for Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines, which IGN posted…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
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  How BioWare Writes A Mass Effect Game

  You may think, with all the fighting and decision-making of two games, that you’re the one who ultimately controls the fate of Mass Effect‘s player-created hero Commander Shepard. You do not. The person actually in control of your Shepard’s destiny is BioWare lead writer Mac Walters, who heads up the team of writers who’ve been…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 27, 2012
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  Everybody Was Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fighting, Even Chase the Chocobo

  Yesterday Square Enix released a video demonstrating all of the nifty things you can do instead of fighting in Final Fantasy XIII-2. Today? Today is all about the battles, which are arguably as entertaining. My favorite aspect of Final Fantasy XIII-2‘s battle system is definitely the ability to recruit monsters to your party. Every time…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012
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  Warning: I Dared To Imagine What Famous Video Games Would Smell Like.

  The 2012 Consumer Electronics Show has come and gone, and still no smell-o-vision inventor has stepped forward to wave the flag violently enough. The next big thing in movies—once they figure out 3D—is probably going to be smell-o-vision, and this will be pretty awesome, as long as you’re watching independent films about bakeries or pizzerias.…

  Tim Rogers Published January 27, 2012
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  Scientists Discover a New Pac-Man Frog

  Look at that badass up there! That, ladies and gents, is a Suriname horned frog, dubbed the “Pac-Man Frog.” According to Prensa Latina, scientists in the South American country of Suriname found 46 new species of animals, from insects to fish to frogs. One of those frogs was a new species of Pac-Man Frog, which…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
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  Racial Epithet Shows Up on Minecraft Menu, Developer Apologizes [Update]

  The newest version of Minecraft greets players with the sentence “You are a NIGGER,” if they switch their language settings to Afrikaans, the language spoken in South Africa and Namibia. It appears to have been the doing of an unruly Minecraft user who was among many people who worked on language translations of the popular…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 27, 2012
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  Mass Effect 3’s Multiplayer Turns You into Part of Shepard’s Kick-Ass Strike Team

  It was kind of surprising that Mass Effect 3‘s multiplayer looked better than expected. But this trailer makes it look like must-play content. You’ll see the various races of BioWare’s sci-fi universe playing through skirmishes as several classes, with missions that appear to happen all over the galaxy. Does this make you more excited or…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 27, 2012
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  Developer Makes Disabled Gamer’s Wish Come True With an Arrow Click

  When a commenter on the website of Legend of Grimrock asked about clickable on-screen arrow navigation for the upcoming indie dungeon crawler, developers said they had no plans to implement such a feature. When they found out why the commenter asked, they quickly changed those plans. Legend of Grimrock commenter HarpoonIPA is a disabled gamer,…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012
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  Watch a 3DS Make a Kid Puke and Other WTF Craziness in This Nintendo News Video

  Nintendo announced a bunch of actual news over the last few days—the release window for the Wii U, the Nintendo Network, a new Mario side-scroller for the 3DS—but Next Media Animation doesn’t care about any of that. Instead, the Taiwanese news animators give us Nintendo president Satoru Iwata popping out of a warp pipe and…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 27, 2012
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  Jimmy Fallon’s Most Consoles Played in One Minute Record Shattered

  In July of 2010 late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon attempted to play ten different games on ten different consoles in one minute. He only played nine. Not ten, but still impressive, at least until Ohio’s Ryan Sullivan did 13. Recorded in the RecordSetter Book of World Records, Ryan Sullivan’s record-breaking feat took place…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012
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  To-Do in Washington, DC: See Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and G.I. Joe Invade in the Mushroom Kingdom in a CGI Art Exhibit

  What happens someone who grew up on the N64 makes art? You get Cammy, Sub-Zero and G.I. Joe rolling up on Mario’s stomping grounds in tanks. That’s part of what you’ll see in the premise of Jonathan Monaghan’s The Sacrifice of the Mushroom Kings, which is currently showing at the Curator’s Office gallery. Here’s their…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 27, 2012
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  They Turned My City into a Video Game (And Got it Mostly Right!)

  There’s a certain joy in hearing your country being mentioned in a movie or a video game. Then there’s this moment of bliss when you see a city from you country featured in a movie or a video game. I live in Pakistan. I play video games in Pakistan. But many of the movies I…

  Azim Durrani Published January 27, 2012
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  Best Buy Gets an Incredibly Boring Prototype 2 Preorder Bonus

  In Prototype 2 Sgt. James Heller is infected with a mutagen that gives him access to an amazing variety of super powers. One would think Best Buy and Radical Entertainment could come up with a preorder incentive more compelling that vehicle armor. But no, placing five dollars down at Best Buy gets you Sgt. James…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012
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  For the Love of Moogles

  Today’s episode of Speak Up on Kotaku tackles a very topical and sensitive subject: How much everyone loves Final Fantasy’s fluffy white friends, the Moogles. Commenter Paradox Me kicks off the lovefest with a short and simple comment. Kupo! Moogles might just be my most favorite game characters ever. Doesn’t matter which form they take…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012
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  See How Armored Core V’s Multiplayer Will Change Mech Multiplayer in This Video

  With Dark Souls already out in the world, dev studio From Software’s moving from magic to science with the upcoming Armored Core V. This video runs through the basics of multiplayer and shows off the new Operator role in action. It looks like there’s going to some tower defense elements in coming to ACV, when…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 27, 2012
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  Talk Amongst Yourselves

  When you’re facing down a gigantic alien that’s one part cheetah, one part man in a turban, sometimes all you can do is kick back and discuss video games in Kotaku‘s official forum. dabeezkneez84 returns to TAYpic dominance with today’s twisted Contra III miniboss. Join in the fun and submit your own TAYpic. Please do…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 27, 2012