Kotaku

ico.jpg Oddities

Autographed Copy of ICO Raises Red Cross Funds


Someone is selling a Japanese version of the PS2 sleeper-hit ICO, signed by creator Fumito Ueda, on eBay. If you haven t heard of it, ICO is considered by many to be one of the first, best attempts at making a game an emotional experience. All of the profits for this auction will go to the Red Cross to help with Tsunami relief in South Asia. This is a great find for all of you game fans out there. More »

10:39 AM on Fri Dec 31 2004
By Brian Crecente
178 views

feelthemagic.jpg Flackery

Feel the Merchandising


How many times do I need to ask for a Feel the Magic goldfish shirt before someone breaks down and tells me how to get one? The latest insult to my pathetic need for this bit of merchandising is Sega s other Feel the Magic crap that they are now selling to promote the bizarre Nintendo DS game. You can pick up a mug that changes pictures with heat, a beach towel, a watch and even a DS case, but still no goldfish shirt. What the hell! More »

10:38 AM on Fri Dec 31 2004
By Brian Crecente
53 views

wiredcover.jpeg Oddities

Former Nintedo CEO: Suck My...

I just finished reading through the best story Wired didn t write over at Spanish game site, Gamerah. The scanned article is proported to be a copy of a soon to be published interview with Hiroshi Yamauchi, the former CEO of Nintendo, by a Wired writer named Jack Gleason. Some of the give-aways that this excellent interview isn t real is the bizarre typewriter-like font used, and the fact that article features this enormous pull-out quote of Yamauchi dressing down Microsoft s Steve Ballmer in a board meeting: More »

9:38 AM on Fri Dec 31 2004
By Brian Crecente
307 views

Worst Game Moments of 2004
Instead of boring you with my personal list of the best games of 2004 I ve decided to bore you with a list of my worst gaming moments of 2004.

Apex Cans Their Drop-and-Play PC Console
The much anticipated ApeXtreme, a cool little DVD-like device designed to let you drop-and-play computer games on your TV, has drifted into vaporware.

whelan.jpg Retro Gaming

Video of Record Galaxian Run


Watch the videos of Gary Whelan, the man who wasted two hours a day for a quarter of a century playing Galaxian, beating the world record in the game. You can also watch him avoid an in-game near death and hear him sigh in relief as the game wraps up. No videos yet of him hanging himself after realizing he s wasted his entire life, but you can kind of see that twinkle of realization in his eyes in this photo. More »

12:14 AM on Fri Dec 31 2004
By Brian Crecente
137 views

topdown.jpg Oddities

New Croft Book Studies Phenom


A new book that examines Lara Croft as an icon of both female strength and male objectification has been translated from its original German, and will be published in the U.S. next year. More »

11:15 AM on Thu Dec 30 2004
By Brian Crecente
73 views

farcry.jpg Business

France to Back Ubisoft


France is in an uproar over Electronic Arts hostile purchase of 20 percent of French game publisher Ubisoft. The government may attempt to protect the company from any possible hostile takeover attempts by EA. Meanwhile an angry Ubisoft CEO plans to bring together their largest shareholders to convince them to not support EA in any evil schemes. Ubisoft is one of the only independent game publishers left in competition with mega-publisher EA and them being bought out can t help but homogenize an already pretty bland industry. In recent years, Ubi has been smacking dazzling franchises out of the ballpark with hits like Prince of Persia, Far Cry and anything with Tom Clancy s name attached to it. I mean, who else is going to publish a game based on managing a presidential campaign? More »

9:46 AM on Thu Dec 30 2004
By Brian Crecente
26 views

aligator.jpg Business

Lousiana Tries to Draw Game Industry

Louisiana is trying to lure the video game industry to their state with tax breaks. The state hopes to integrate video gaming into the state s already flourishing entertainment industry. Maybe they should look at changing their labor laws to do away with overtime? That could attract some pretty heavy hitters, especially the ones with double vowel acronyms. More »

9:14 AM on Thu Dec 30 2004
By Brian Crecente
30 views

mrdo.jpg Oddities

Earn Your Gamer Stripes


Looking for a way to end the year with a gaming bang? Try earning your Gaming Stripes by completing the excellent list put together by Way of the Rodent. It includes things like getting the diamond in arcade classic Mr. Do!, earning a bonus for using The Force in the trench on the arcade version of Star Wars and freezing the screen on Defender. You beat Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? Bah! I got 99 percent in Qix! More »

8:45 AM on Thu Dec 30 2004
By Brian Crecente
67 views

commodore.jpg Retro Gaming

Commodore Brand Sold


A company actually paid $32.5 million for the Commodore brand. Yeahronimo Media Ventures picked up the classic computer name from Tulip who had used it to create a short-lived run of Windows-based PCs and a popular plug-and-play joystick. The C64 Direct-to-TV unit features 30 classic Commodore games and just recently started shipping to retailers. I m sort of surprised that Tulip only managed to get one joystick out of their license in seven years and then decided to sell. Commodore is a great nostalgia brand that deserves to live on. More »

8:33 AM on Thu Dec 30 2004
By Brian Crecente
56 views

astroboy.jpg Media Criticism

Best Sleeper Games of 2004


Let s face it: Nowadays most console games, no matter how good or bad, are going to get some coverage. Sure, it might not be Halo 2 coverage, but you hardly hear of sleeper Xbox, PS2 or GameCube games anymore. Wired News took a stab at trying to root out a list of 2004 games you should have played, but didn t. It s a good list of games that should have done better than they did, but it still misses the mark when it comes to listing true sleeper hits. What are your thoughts? Any games out there that you think are totally unheard of and should have done better? I loved Tournament Poker No Limits Texas Hold Em, a PC and Mac game by Eagle Games. It s an excellent trainer for learning how to fleece your friends on poker night and even has some options to help your own serious real world games. More »

7:30 AM on Thu Dec 30 2004
By Brian Crecente
171 views

Announcements

Kotaku is Back in Business

Weeeeeee re baaaaaaack! More »
dyson.jpg Flash Games

An Ad Game That Doesn't Suck


Dyson, the people who make that really cool telescoping vacuum cleaner, have a surprisingly addictive flash game on their site. The game is based on the whole telescoping part of their cleaners. Basically, you have to telescope or vacuum a ball into a hole. Initially it s pretty easy, but as you progress it becomes increasingly more difficult and involves multiple vacuum cleaners. Trust me, it s fun. More »

3:47 PM on Wed Dec 29 2004
By Brian Crecente
101 views

Oddities

Pac-Mondrian

Pac-Man gets a Jazzy facelift in Pac-Mondrian. The Pac-Man remake is more art than game, but is still a blast to play. Toronto art group, Price Budget for Boys, created the amalgam of game and art by taking Mondrian s 1942-43 painting Broadway Boogie Woogie, which is in essence a collection of multicolored squares on a maze of yellow lines, and using it as the maze for Pac-Man. The group replaced the thrumming music of the original game with a jazzy, boogie-woogie. The whole thing is pretty cool, check it out here. More »

12:37 PM on Wed Dec 29 2004
By Brian Crecente
19 views

Retro Gaming

Kids On Retro Games

1Up rounded-up a bunch of punk-ass kids to mock gaming history in their second installment of Child s Play. The six kids, aged 10 to 13, got a chance to sit down and play such classics as Star Wars, Defender and Adventure and then shit on them. Here s a little outtake from their time with the first-ever role playing game, Adventure: More »

9:42 AM on Wed Dec 29 2004
By Brian Crecente
108 views

Playstation 2

GTA Inspires Half-Assed Vandalism

A group of stupid middle school kids were inspired by Grand Theft Auto to tag 16 buildings, including a museum, church and synagogue, in the Pittsburgh area. The five boys spray painted the initials GKU on the buildings. They later told police their graffiti was inspired by GTA and that the initials stood for Gangster Kids United. How pathetic is that? They can t even work up a enough of a video game-inspired rage to kill a bunch of people. What are today s kids coming to? I suppose playing Manhunt would have inspired them to toilet paper their neighbors houses. More »

8:21 AM on Wed Dec 29 2004
By Brian Crecente
82 views

PC

Nine Disabled Gamers Inhabit One Online Avatar

Nine severely physically disabled people share the single online consciousness of Wilde Cunningham in the massively multiplayer game Second Life. The group, all but one of which are confined to wheelchairs, were introduced to the game by a woman who works at their care center on the East Coast. They gather to collectively control their democratic creation.

How did we decide on what we would look like, and our gender? We formed the man avatar first, because that day, we had more men in the group. We always wanted a female one, but we haven't taken the time to create her yet. Mary and Johanna would like that very much. We decided on how wilde would look first by starting with skin colors. We have both black and white in our real life group, and didn't want to have those because neither is better than the other. So we picked orange.

It s an interesting take on how persistent online worlds can have a powerful impact on the real people who play in them. Beyond, of course, giving them a chance to amass a digital fortune or kill a crapload of Orcs. More »

12:13 AM on Wed Dec 29 2004
By Brian Crecente
95 views

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