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Beat Hazard Ultra, the procedurally generated twin-stick shooter by 1-man indie powerhouse Cold Beam Games, is now available as a Universal App for iOS devices. As with the PSN, XBLA and Steam versions, Beat Hazard Ultra uses music stored on your device to generate its levels. The game can also use streaming radio apps as its musical muse, a feature which is unique to this version.

Beat Hazard Ultra supports Game Center leader boards and achievements, although the PSN version's online multiplayer fails to make the jump to iOS. Between Survival, Boss Rush and Chill Out modes, though, it certainly sounds like you'll get your dollar's worth out of the title, which happens to be the app's limited introductory price.

#theelderscrolls This is an update to the Portal Core Space mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and it references the Meme Who Must Not Be Named. But it does so quite hilariously—and loudly. Turn your volume down before playing. It's not NSFW, just loud. More »

#themoneysaver There are eight days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training in baseball. More importantly, there are 24 until Shepard, Alenko and Liara report for duty in Mass Effect 3. Pre-order deals on the sci-fi epic RPG already are out, along with savings and credits on this week's UFC Undisputed 3 and Twisted Metal. More »

In the first hours of Yakuza: Dead Souls, I witnessed the fictional Kamurocho neighborhood of Tokyo's red-light district becoming ravaged by a zombie nightmare, with wrecked buildings, flaming cars, and thousands of hungry undead taking to the streets.

With the help of a DVD store's secret weapons cache, altruistic loan shark Shun Akiyama becomes a dual-pistol-wielding killing machine, cutting a path through the horde of former businessmen, students, and gangsters to get help for his sick assistant Hana.

Though the premise seems (and is) absurd, and there's little sense to making a zombie shooter out of a series best known for its uncanny representation of a realistic Tokyo, I couldn't help but appreciate the care Sega put into setting up the adaptation. Every change to gameplay, environments, or story required to adapt the game into a shooter shows evidence of deliberation and forethought. It's not just a matter of adding zombies and guns. Sega took its assignment very seriously, even though Yakuza: Dead Souls delivers its entertainment in a campy, b-movie way.

Dave and Vinny seek to exploit every tactical advantage, including nudism.

For some, Valentine's Day is a sweet occasion. Happy couples the world over will be lounging back, nibbling on an array of chocolate delights before partaking in the annual somersault contest that ensues. You know, like how our parents used to do before they got all old and stuff.

For us loners, the holiday is a day of self-indulgent sobbing and darkness, but it doesn't have to be. If you're in the market for some iOS or Android games, you can snuggle up to Sonic and company through Sega's Valentine's Day sale starting today and running through the 14th.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 and Sonic CD lead the charge of discounted downloads for iOS and Android users, both half off, while iDevices also see considerable price cuts down to $.99 on Streets of Rage, Golden Axe and Super Monkey Ball. Gunstar Hero, Altered Beast and Virtua Fighter 2 are also on sale for a buck each.

For the full list of what's on sale, hit the source link below.

In an ancient ritual that dates all the way back to 2009, here’s my weekend deals roundup, with all the best value PC downloads compiled into a convenient list for your consideration. When you’re done reading this, why not pop over to SavyGamer.co.uk and have a scan of the other cheap games available now. You didn’t need that money anyway. Here’s your bucket: (more…)

In the future, your brain will be infused with special technology to unlock the massive potential within you. Also, the company you work for will be headed by a surly Scot and a beautiful wherever Rosario Dawson is from.

EA's announced both Brian Cox and Rosario Dawson will lend their voices to Syndicate, the Starbreeze reboot of the classic strategy game from the '90s. Joining them is Michael Wincott, who you may remember as the bad guy from The Crow. Gamers may better recognize his pipes as The Prophet of Truth in Halo 2, and as Death in the upcoming Darksiders 2. Dawson will play Lily Drawl, a "rising star" at EuroCorp; Cox plays Eurocorp board member Jack Denham and Wincott plays veteran agent Jules Merit.

Fanfiction often has surprising visits from other fictional places, although the fact that I’m here and not writing on that other lovely PC gaming site means it happens in real-life as well. Super Mario Bros Crossover 2.0 is the gaming equivalent of fanfiction, bringing characters from all over the Nintendo universe and having an office party with them in the Mario world.(more…)

#crime Cops in a northeastern Pennsylvania community booked a man on attempted murder charges, saying he tried to strangle his wife with "a video game cord." Either he was playing with wired console controllers from a generation ago, or the guy went and grabbed the Xbox 360 brick to choke his spouse. More »

Tuesday is Valentine's Day, and in addition to being a day full of expectations and guilt, it's now a day where you can be rick-rolled by a damn video game in the sanctity of your own home. The "Gold Star My Heart" Pack drops Tuesday in North America and Wednesday for European PS3 users, and includes four love-centric tracks to get you into (or very quickly out of) the mood.

Peep the full track list after the break, and see if you're the kind of person who'd rather be playing Rock Band 3 on Valentine's Day. (Please invite us.)

#openthread Greetings, camp Kotaku. It's friday evening, and that means it's officially the weekend! I hope you had a fun week. I sure did. We welcomed more simultaneous voices to Kotaku than... maybe ever? More »

Crowded as it is with farting massage simulators, it can be hard to find worthwhile titles on Xbox Live Indie Games. That's why we sift through all that rough to unearth a few gems. That way, you get the skinny on quality games and we get to indulge our secret passion for fart machines. This week, we try out Nyan Cat Adventure, a platformer from 21st Street Games. Indie developer 21st Street Games has found a niche: bizarre platformers. Its previous offering, Techno Kitten Adventure, was a visual assault backed by a simple gameplay mechanic, and the studio's latest is no different. The Xbox Live Indie game Nyan Cat Adventure takes the popular internet meme into the realm of single-button arcade gameplay.

But the most surprising thing about Nyan Cat Adventure is the variety I found in such a simple experience. True, the game only uses one button, but what that button does constantly changes throughout the game's main mode of play, dubbed 'Party.'

#deadendthrills Since we ran a feature on Duncan Harris, the groovy "video game photographer" behind the website DeadEndThrills, I've been sharing some of his work each week here. More »

Earlier today we posted up some pics that featured Konami headquarters with smoke billowing from the top. These pics made it all the way back to Konami, and they've stated that there was no fire at the offices. Looks like this smoke is more like steam.

Nobody expected Demon's Souls to be the hit it was, least of all Sony, the game's publisher in Japan. When Atlus decided to publish the game in North America, it took a risk -- one that paid off. The duty of publishing the sequel, Dark Souls, would then go to Namco Bandai.

Does Sony regret passing on publishing Demon's Souls in North America? Senior VP Shuhei Yoshida thinks so. He told Game Informer the company passed on the game after seeing an earlier build of the game. "What happened with Demon's Souls was until very late in the game's development, we were not able to play the game through. There were framerate issues and the network was not up and running. We underestimated the quality of the game and to be honest, the media in Japan did the same."

But still, even after a few hours with the final product, Yoshida remarked that he just wasn't able to see the value in the game. "For my personal experience with Demon's Souls, when it was close to final I spent close to two hours playing it and after two hours I was still standing at the beginning at the game. I said, 'This is crap. This is an unbelievably bad game.' So I put it aside." In the end, Yoshida admitted Sony "dropped the ball from a publishing standpoint" and was not able to "see the value of the product."

Vinny and friends join an all-star cast for a trip into cyberspace to hunt down the one and only RIPPER.

#wedontneednowater An image circulating Twitter earlier today seemed to imply a Konami office building in Japan was burning. It most certainly was not, a spokesman told Kotaku. All is well. More »

The Indie Royale website is back at it with a brand new bundle of games for sale, this time scheduled for Valentine's Day. On this one, paying either the minimum price (currently just above $4) or above will net you five different indie titles: The impressive FPS (and IndieCade finalist) Zeno Clash, the excellent and underrated Hoard, the gorgeous adventure title Lume, and top-down puzzle crawler Soulcaster and its sequel. Plus, buyers also get both Hoard DLC packs, and anyone who pays higher than the minimum will pick up the "Music to Play Games by Too" compilation album.

Remember, the way the bundle works is that the price goes up as more people buy the bundle, but it drops when people spend more than the minimum (so giving more actually makes it cheaper for everyone, and supports the game's developers as well). Purchased titles are available on both Steam and Desura, and the bundle is on sale through Valentine's Day.

#theweekingamingapps Balls were kicked. Knights were wound. Towers were defended. Passwords were hacked, and the dead rose to detect among the living in another spectacular Week in Gaming Apps. More »

#gamemusic Hey, why should indie game developers get to have all the bundling fun? Game composers should get to experience the joy of bundling too. I'm glad to see that they finally are. More »

Square Enix has released another Taito shmup on the App Store, and as with pretty much all Square releases, we can't help but be aghast at the price. Given the source material, however, maybe $11 isn't that bad.

Dariusburst Second Prologue is based on both the PSP Dariusburst and its arcade followup, Another Chronicle -- the two latest iterations of Taito's long-lived shmup series about shooting enormous robot fish. The PSP game content is all here, along with a remixed mode with new enemy patterns and stuff from Another Chronicle. There are also four new tracks by Taito's Zuntata band.

In other words, if it were on PSP, there'd be no question of its value. We admit we're still kind of balking at the App Store price anyway. That's just how the market is on that platform!

#masseffect EA has put a "Mass Effect 3 Mission Command" app on Facebook, through which fans can unlock some Avatar items and possibly get chosen for early access to the game's upcoming beta. There's also a big sweepstakes opportunity to win one of two custom Xbox 360s, painted in the game's Paragon and Renegade themes. EA sent us these pictures earlier today. More »

Adam Adamowicz died of cancer yesterday, and while his career may have focused on building digital worlds, his impact can be felt just as intensely in our physical lives. As the concept artist for Fallout 3 and other Bethesda titles, including Skyrim, Adamowicz shaped the reality of some of our favorite video-game experiences, regardless of whether the wider world knew his name.

Awesome Robo offers an in-depth, heartfelt glimpse into Adamowicz's work and life, highlighting the hand-drawn process he used to create Fallout 3's vault jumpsuit, weapons and super mutants, among dozens of other integral pieces that made up the game's universe.

#masseffect Many of us here at Kotaku like Mass Effect. And as people who like Mass Effect are wont to do, we really like to talk about its protagonist, Commander Shepard. Specifically, we like to talk about our Commander Shepard. More »

Every year the game industry's bigwigs descend on Las Vegas for DICE, an event designed to allow for intimate discussion and thought-provoking presentations. This is not like GDC, which tends to focus on the sharing of innovations. Nor is it all like E3, which is a crazy bazaar. It's contemplative, ...

Filed under: PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, First Person Shooters, Online, RPGs, MMOThis is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.
Morality systems have become role-playing. Or at least, a significant amount of people have come to believe this. To take one example, this review of The Old Republic is premised on the concept that BioWare's style of moral choices are effective character-building mechanics. It's a fine review, but it's one that I can't agree with because I find the model of game morality used in The Old Republic and many other role-playing games ineffective at creating a moral system.

In order for a moral choice to have weight, it needs to have two components. First, meaningful choices have to cause the player to lose something in order to gain power. Something has to change, or be expected to change, within the game in order for the decision to matter. In Mass Effect, at one point in the game, you have to choose which of two party members to rescue - the other dies. Or, in Fallout: New Vegas, working with Caesar's Legion turns the New California Republic into an enemy, and vice versa.

Second, a moral choice has to be a difficult choice. The old adage "If doing the right thing were easy, everyone would do it" applies here. This is where games usually fail. They can do it with little choices, like with stealing even when you won't get caught in New Vegas. Take the owned items and you'll lose karma, which might be a small hit compared to the benefits of a new weapon. Alternately, in some games, honorable characters will simply refuse payment for quests, forcing money to be acquired by other means.