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The App Store's five-year anniversary celebration continues with free Peggle, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge and Flight Control.

Developer Overkill Software has added stealth mechanics to Payday 2, happy news for those who favor sneaking over bursting in, guns blazing. Keep those guns ready, though - we've seen enough heist movies to know that they all inevitably devolve into a shootout.

Here’s what’s going on Talk Among Yourselves, our reader-written blog: TruthTellah talks about why the sorely missed Ryan Davis connected with so many people. PyramidHeadcrab wants to know who your favorite female video game character is. And Neryl shares a remembrance of GTAs past, looking back at Grand Theft Auto 3. And you can always go join the voices talking about video games and life in TAY Classic and in the TAY: Open Forum.

What started off as a satirical joke this weekend at video game convention RTX quickly turned into an invasive prank. Harris O'Malley, known on the web as Doctor NerdLove—an internet personality who gives love and sex advice to geeks and otakus—never anticipated his sticker joke to be used aggressively against women at the convention where he distributed them. In an effort to poke fun at the idea of "fake geek girls," O'Malley created sticker "Fake Geek Girl Advisories"—stickers which were distributed at RTX this weekend, a convention held by Rooster Teeth Productions (you might know them from Red vs. Blue, a popular Halo machinima). The issue began when at least one publicly-unidentified person started to use these stickers in a way that betrayed their original meaning. Maybe they didn't know they were meant to be satirical. Maybe they did, and decided to re-purpose them anyway by approaching unsuspecting women and slapping the stickers on their butts. I emailed with the sticker-maker last night to hear exactly what happened this weekend and how he felt about the repurposing of his joke. "I got to RTX on Friday around 12:30 or so with my wife," O'Malley explained to Kotaku. "She headed directly upstairs to Ballroom G while I took a quick pass around the dealer's room/exhibitor's hall looking for a swag table to drop off some stickers. I had the Fake Geek Girl Advisories, some stickers with QR codes that lead to different articles on the blog and some with the NerdLove logo on 'em. I handed out a couple, deposited others on tables and couches for people to take and headed off to join my wife and friends at the Spill Dot Con panel. "Shortly after the panel ended, the RTX guardians [event volunteers who staff the convention] came and found me and wanted to see some of my stickers - the ones with the QR codes. After establishing that I hadn't had anyone else handing them out for me and that I'd left several out and about as freebies, they told me that somebody was taking them and slapping them onto women's asses and the backs of their costumes. They asked if I could refrain from handing out any more until they got the matter cleared up. Evidently they had a description of the guy and had everyone looking out for him." O'Malley only heard of one person using the stickers in this way, but when we asked if the man got kicked out of the event for harassment, one of Rooster Teeth's founders issued the following statement to Kotaku: We alerted our team of volunteers and convention center security immediately and dealt with the incident as quickly as possible. We do not tolerate any type of harassment and removed a couple of people who were making the event uncomfortable for other attendees over the course of the weekend. When asked to clarify, Rooster Teeth said that it was an isolated incident from a sole person—the "couple of people" refers to other, unrelated incidents. "We do not tolerate any type of harassment," Rooster Teeth said. To that end, the harasser was "booted and banned" from the show. "I'd also like to emphasize that despite these isolated incidents that the event overall was extremely positive and a huge success," the Rooster Teeth co-founder added. Harassment at conventions has been under added scrutiny in the last year, with some opting to take a public stand against it. As for the stickers, they were never intended to be taken seriously according to O'Malley. "The story with the stickers is that they're satire, pure and simple. I don't believe in 'fake' geek girls and I like the idea of mocking people who buy into the idea with their own words, so I mocked up an design patterned after the "explicit lyrics" stickers for CDs," O'Malley explained. "My idea was that since the Explicit Lyrics tags were essentially a joke in terms of effectiveness and a hyperbolic reaction to a non-problem, the Fandom Advisory design would carry the same implications - that it was a meaningless label for a nonexistent problem. "It was originally designed for t-shirts (seen here: http://drnerdlove.spreadshirt.com), but I decided to print some out as stickers for distributing at cons. It is, admittedly, a polarizing design; the people who get it LOVE it, but apparently the ones who don't HATE it." Following the events at RTX, O'Malley is reconsidering the stickers a bit—whether he should explain the joke on the stickers themselves, or if he should discontinue them altogether. "This shit is NOT *CRAG*ING ACCEPTABLE," O'Malley wrote on his blog. "Cons are supposed to be safe spaces for everybody; shit like this drives women out of fandom." If you or anyone you know has witnessed or been affected by the events at the RTX convention, please don't hesitate to contact us with details at tips@kotaku.com Top image via Zoe Quinn

My debut video for Kotaku discusses a problem as old as time itself, fewer video games come out during the summer. But perhaps we shouldn't be calling it a drought.

With talent like comic book artist Mike Choi and award-winning science fiction author John Scalzi attached to it, an interactive comic book tie-in for upcoming mobile shooter Morning Star was a no-brainer. But Morning Star Alpha is much more than a game supplement — it's a fresh new idea that every game with a rich fiction should steal. We've not seen much about Morning Star proper since the mobile game was announced back in December of last year. There were brief glimpses of gameplay, some kick-ass concept art by Choi, and a snippet of back story, courtesy of Mr. Scalzi. In February we were introduced to Morning Star Alpha, the interactive comic book prequel that tells the story of what happens aboard the MSRV Joplin research vessel as it prepares to embark on the critical mission that picks up in Morning Star. Industrial Toys founder and president Tim Harris promised an interactive experience unlike any other digital comic book, with decisions made in one game affecting character and plot interactions in the other. During a recent interview with the entire team — Choi, Scalzi, Harris and Alex Seropian, Bungie co-founder and CEO of Industrial Toys — Harris explained the reasoning between the two different-yet-connected games. "How do you tell a story in a game when players on mobile are expecting to spend anywhere from 30 seconds to 120 seconds at a time with your game?" Harris asked. "If you look at what's successful, i.e. what people want, it's quick interactions. On the flip side, people sit with their Kindle and they'll read for hours. Seemed like a pretty cool idea to do both of those in the same universe." While Industrial Toys certainly has the talent to pull off a highly-compelling graphic novel-style prequel, it wasn't enough for artist Choi and writer Scalzi to stop there. They aren't simply building a game — they're building a living, breathing universe from the ground up. Though the Morning Star shooter experience will be a 3D affair, Choi's concept art is the basis for every model. With so much of himself invested in the project, Morning Star Alpha had to be more than another comic book. "If it was just a case of me doing another graphic novel ... I probably would have just kept on doing what I had been doing up to this point," said Choi. "Marvel and DC stuff, my own book, or whatever. This was definitely a situation — not just a brand-new challenge where I feel I can definitely bring something to the table, but also exposing myself to a brand-new field which I haven't had much experience in. "Morning Star Alpha is the culmination of everything I've learned in the video game industry, but also what I learned over a decade in comic books, where I can actually show that shit off." Meanwhile, on writing duties, John Scalzi has written a great many things. He's written the story for the game. He's written character bios. He's written a timeline leading up to the events in. He's written dialogue and attitudes that change base on your actions. You'll get Scalzi's words and Choi's art in Morning Star proper, but in Alpha they really get a chance to shine — to show off a universe so vast and fully-realized you'll get the feeling that there are countless other stories going on outside the frame of these two titles. It's much more work than one would expect for a pair of mobile titles. "We don't want people to feel that just because they're going to a mobile environment that they have to sacrifice things," Scalzi explained. "That they don't get the same sort of immersiveness, that they don't get the same sort of context, that they don't get the same sort of energy from the entire project. "We wanted to make sure we break free of the prejudices we have in terms of platforms. That you can have this sort of rich, immersive experience whether it's on a console, whether it's mobile — wherever." So what does Morning Star Alpha do that other comic book tie-ins don't? Check this out. It's the branching dialogue and choices of a Mass Effect. It's the high-octane, Americanized evolution of the Japanese visual novel. It's a Choose Your Own Adventure book that keeps going after the final page is turned. It's an incredibly cool concept that hopefully won't stay a rarity in the game industry. Morning Star Alpha and Morning Star are due out later this year on iOS.

The dear departed Midway found a good deal of success in the arcade sports model, notably under NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, titles that were bought by EA Sports and re-released over the past three years. NHL Hitz was not picked up—but that doesn't mean it can't get an update, too. Modder John Mazzocchi has just released version 2.0 of "NHL Hitz 2013" for GameCube (screenshot above), and it has an impressively deep list of features. Yes, updated rosters (current as of June 2013) are included, but that's only the beginning. National teams on the roster also have been updated, play-by-play commentary has been adjusted to accommodate nearly every player, and even the boards and rink advertisements have been changed to reflect current arenas. "In my opinion, it's the greatest hockey game ever made, and as far as I know this is the first major roster update ever released for any NHL Hitz game," Mazzocchi told us in an email. It took him about six months to polish this update, which improves upon the 1.0 version he released in January (followed by more incremental updates in April and during the playoffs.) NHL Hitz had three releases on the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube—Hitz 20-02, 20-03, and Pro. It featured 3-on-3 hockey full of power-ups and exaggerated action: checking players through the boards, knocking their helmets off and, of course, catching on fire. As Mazzocchi himself illustrates, the game has maintained a solidly loyal following 10 years after its last release on standard definition consoles. The link to download the mod, and instructions for doing so, are below. NHL Hitz 2013 VERSION 2 Released!, A NHL Hitz 2003 roster update by Mazz [NHL 04 Rebuilt 2013] To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Apogee has released the source code for their classic 1994 FPS, Blake Stone: Planet Strike. Here's Apogee's Terry Nagy: "When we were selecting games for the Throwback Pack, (...) I knew we had a golden opportunity to finally release the source code. Nice to know that those old 3.5″ floppies retain data for so long!"

In Japan, your typical conveyor belt sushi restaurants keep a slow and steady flow of food flowing. This is not your typical conveyor belt sushi restaurant. This is Uobei. Like many other sushi chains, it's not so expensive—one plate of sushi is 105 yen (around $1). And according to online reviews, the sushi you pretty much what you expect for this kind of place: not amazing or great, but serviceable. The food is not what makes the chain's Shibuya branch unique. There are some differences. For example, the Shibuya branch only has counter seats. This is unusual because at most sushi chain restaurants, there are counter seats and booths. Another difference is that each seat is outfitted with an Android powered tablet that allows customers to order. Touch panels are fairly common, but Android-powered tablets are not. The inside of the restaurant looks kind of like an internet cafe! What's more, there touch panel menu also language options for English, Korean, and Chinese as well as Japanese, of course. Many sushi chains do not. The real draw is the "high-speed" rails that send sushi hurdling towards you at a breakneck pace. See, the Uobei Shibuya branch doesn't have any slowly rotating conveyor belts. Instead, there are three stacked rails that send trays able to hold three plates of sushi. After you get your food, you press a button to send the empty tray rocketing back to the kitchen. According to Japanese site IT Media, only a minute after ordering, it took about 8 seconds to travel roughly 23 feet. That's not fast for, I dunno, a Ferrari, but that's pretty quick for sushi! Uobei boasts that its "high-speed" system is an industry first in Japan. If you are in Tokyo and interested in visiting the Shibuya branch, it's located behind Shibuya 109 in Dogenzaka. 魚べい渋谷道玄坂店DS [GenkiSushiGroup@YouTube] お寿司が高速で直進する「回らない回転寿司」が想像以上に近未来だった [IT Media] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

As we head into July, we finish up the spring anime season and head into the summer one. But with over 30 new anime in the pipeline, how do you know which ones to watch? Check out the trailers and brief blurbs about each to see what catches your interest. [*Note: Series are grouped loosely by genre] Danganronpa: The Animation Genre: Action Premier Date: July 4, 2013 Where to Watch: Funimation (Page Not Yet Updated) What It’s About in One Sentence: To graduate from this very special high school, you must kill one of your classmates and get away with it. Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East 2 Genre: Action, Fantasy Premier Date: July 7, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: This is the second season of an anime about two friends with mystical powers in a medieval setting. Gifu Doudou!! Kanetsugu to Keiji Genre: Historical Fiction, Action Premier Date: July 3, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: Two samurai fighting through one of Japan's most dangerous eras. Kingdom (Season 2) Genre: Historical Fiction, Action Premier Date: June 8, 2013 Where to Watch: No Western Simulcast Announced What It’s About in One Sentence: The second season of an anime following a war orphan who aims to be the world's greatest general and a young king who will one day become emperor of all of China. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya Genre: Magical Girl Premier Date: July 6, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: This is an alternate universe tale starring the characters of Fate/Stay Night as magical girls. Senki Zesshou Symphogear G Genre: Magical Girl, Action Premier Date: July 4, 2013 Where to Watch: No Western Simulcast Announced What It’s About in One Sentence: The second season of an anime about magical girls who sing songs to transform and fight aliens. Fantasista Doll Genre: Magical Girl Premier Date: July 6, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: Cute dolls who power up with special cards and fight evil. Il Sole Penetra Le Illusioni ~ Day Break Illusion Genre: Magical Girl Premier Date: July 7, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: A group of girls use magical tarot cards to battle while they solve mystical mysteries. Monogatari: Second Season Genre: Japanese Fantasy, Romance, Comedy Premier Date: July 6, 2013 Where to Watch: Daisuki, Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: The third anime series about a high school boy finding love and battling supernatural threats. Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories Genre: Supernatural Premier Date: July 14, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: This series uses traditional Japanese cut-out animation to act out traditional folktales and urban legends surrounding the supernatural in Japan. Sunday Without God Genre: Fantasy Premier Date: July 6, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: In a world where God has disappeared and thus no one can die or have children, a girl must help the would-be dead find peace. Gatchaman Crowds Genre: Sci-Fi, Action Premier Date: July 12, 2013 Where to Watch: No Western Simulcast Announced What It’s About in One Sentence: Based on the 1970s anime Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets), this anime follows a group of people with special powers who must protect earth from alien threats. Rozen Maiden Zurückspulen Genre: Fantasy, Action Premier Date: July 4, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: The third season in the Rozen Maiden series continues to follow a traumatized middle school boy and the mysterious living doll he one day receives. Highschool DxD New Genre: Fantasy, Action Premier Date: July 7, 2013 Where to Watch: Funimation (Page Not Yet Updated) What It’s About in One Sentence: The second season of an anime about a perverted boy who is killed, resurrected as a demon, and tasked with defeating fallen angels. Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Animation Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 12, 2013 Where to Watch: Funimation (Page Not Yet Updated) What It’s About in One Sentence: Based on the game series of the same name, this series sets up a comedic, magical girl-style adventure where the characters and locations all have proxies in the real world video game industry. Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist Genre: Comedy, Fantasy Premier Date: July 8, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: A young noble discovers that he must choose the demon to lead hell while Lucifer rests. Blood Lad Genre: Fantasy, Comedy Premier Date: July 7. 2013 Where to Watch: Hulu What It’s About in One Sentence: A vampire obsessed with the human world vows to find a way to bring a human girl, who is now a ghost, back to life. Senyu 2 Genre: Fantasy, Comedy Premier Date: July 3, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: The second season of an anime about a bumbling, incompetent hero traveling the land while trying to take down the recently resurrected demon king. Dog & Scissors Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 1, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: After dying while protecting a girl during a robbery, a boy finds himself reincarnated in the body of her dachshund. The Eccentric Family Genre: Japanese Fantasy, Comedy Premier Date: July 7, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: From the creator of Tatami Galaxy comes the tale of a young Tanooki living in modern day Kyoto who spends his time taking care of an old Tengu, fighting other Tanooki, and playing with a psychic human girl—and uncovering the mystery behind his father's untimely death. Silver Spoon Genre: Comedy, Fish Out of Water Premier Date: July 11, 2013 Where to Watch: Cruchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: A city boy moves to the Japanese countryside and enrolls in an agricultural school. Servant x Service Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 4, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: A comedic look at the staff of a government health and welfare office. Love Lab Genre: Comedy, Romance Premier Date: July 4, 2013 Where to Watch: No Western Simulcast Announced What It’s About in One Sentence: After one girl catches a fellow female student practicing kissing with a pillow, the two girls begin practicing the aspects of romance together. The World God Only Knows: Goddesses Genre: Comedy, Fantasy Premier Date: July 9, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: This is the third season of an anime about a boy who has no interest in real girls and is tasked by a demon to help her collect run away souls hiding within the hearts of normal people. Genshiken Second Season Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 6, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: The second season of an anime about the various students in a college Otaku club. WATAMOTE ~No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!~ Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 8, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: A girl who is amazing at dating sim games discovers she's not as popular with the guys as she expected. Kiniro Mosaic Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 6, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: The adventures of a Japanese school girl and her friend from Great Britain. Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS Genre: Comedy, Sports Premier Date: July 5, 2013 Where to Watch: No Western Simulcast Announced What It’s About in One Sentence: This is the second season of an anime about a high school freshman who manages an elementary school girls’ basketball team. Tamayura: More Aggressive Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 3, 2013 Where to Watch: No Western Simulcast Announced What It’s About in One Sentence: This is the second season of an anime about a young high school girl who moves to a scenic small town and likes to take pictures. Chronicles of the Going Home Club Genre: School life, Comedy Premier Date: July 5, 2013 Where to Watch: Cruchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: After making a joke that she plans to join the “go home club,” a young schoolgirl finds that such a club actually exists. Recorder and Randsell Mi Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 1, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: This is the third season of a three-minute-long micro-anime about the daily lives of an elementary school boy who looks like an adult and his high school age sister who looks like a child. Teekyu 2 Genre: Comedy Premier Date: July 7, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: This is the second season of micro-anime (each episode is about 2 minutes long) about the crazy lives of a highschool girls tennis club. Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C3 Genre: Gainax Premier Date: July 4, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: This is Gainax's newest anime about a high schooler at an all girls’ school who joins the C3 club—a club that focuses on military war games. Kimi no Iru Machi Genre: Romance, Drama Premier Date: July 13, 2013 Where to Watch: No Western Simulcast Announced What It’s About in One Sentence: A Japanese girl moves to the countryside for high school, living with a friend of her father's and his son—who's less than happy to have her there. Brothers Conflict Genre: Romance Premier Date: July 2, 2013 Where to Watch: Funimation (Page Not Yet Updated) What It’s About in One Sentence: After her father re-marries, a young girl finds herself living in a mansion with her thirteen attractive step-brothers. Free! Genre: Sports Premier Date: July 3, 2013 Where to Watch: Crunchyroll What It’s About in One Sentence: Based on a popular Japanese commercial, this anime is the story of often shirtless pretty boys on a high school swim team. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. To contact the author of this post, write to BiggestinJapan@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @BiggestinJapan.

Legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto sat down with Game Informer to talk about all things Nintendo—his own role at the company, Zelda, Pikmin, Mario, even sharing his thoughts on the creation of new franchises.

Japanese television commercials can get rather creative. Some of them (like this) are moving. Others are downright odd. But often in the West, you get a look at the interesting, cool, or peculiar Japanese commercials. What about the annoying ones? According to 2ch, Japan's largest web forum, here are some of more irritating Japanese commercials from the last year or so. Keep in mind that just because someone else finds these ads annoying, that doesn't mean you cannot enjoy them! One person's pain is another's pleasure. "Opa" is the name of a shopping center in Osaka. Maruhan is a pachinko chain. This ad is unforgettable. This is for the Ameba social gaming platform. This ad is pretty freakin' irritating! The ad features the child actors of Kodomo Keisatsu (or "Kiddy Cops"), which starred children in a 1970s style police drama. This commercial is Hikkoshi Zamurai, an online search engine for movers. The text tells you to pick the right mover. Lots of people online, however, were amused by this commercial. I thought it was funny! The commercial is titled "Globalization", and the group of Japanese businessmen are supposed to use English when they go into battle—which ends up being very basic expressions. People seem to find the song and the kid's movements a bit much. This series of ads are based around a pun with the word "yoyuu" (余裕) and the model who stars in the spot, Yu Yamada. The other ads, however, don't have this channel-changing-inducing singing. This is for chewing gum. The vast majority of people online in Japan seem to think it's pretty damn creepy! And while this spot is a little older, no round-up of annoying Japanese ads is complete without it. 今年の不快CM [2ch] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

We knew that the enhanced console version of side-scrolling roguelike Spelunky would make its way to PC this summer, but not exactly when. Now we know. On August 8, Spelunky will return to its home platform via Steam and GOG, finishing an almost four-year journey. To get a taste of what it'll be like, you can always try the original 2009 version—it can be grabbed for free here. Expect some frustration. Spelunky is returning to PC on August 8th, 2013! [Official Spelunky Tumblr] Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

Martial arts superstar Bruce Lee is the latest deceased celebrity to re-appear in CG form to sell you things. Joseph Kahn, who directed the video, explains: We shot it in Hong Kong, and then we worked with vfx company The Mill in London to create a completely CGI Bruce Lee over nine months. EVERY shot of his head and every detail in there is completely cgi. We got Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, to come aboard and we really picked her brain to make sure that everything was accurate from look to soul. We wanted to be as respectful to the man and legend as we could. By putting him in an alcohol ad when the man apparently didn't drink? Nothing says respectful like putting dead teetotaler in a booze commercial and reappropriating his "Walk On" creedo for commercial gain! I'd hate to see what they thought disrespectful was. Johnnie Walker "Game Changer" [Vimeo via Beijing Cream] Johnnier Walker Brings Back Bruce Lee [Campaign] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

Pacific Rim is Guillermo del Toro's big love letter to Japanese monster movies like Godzilla and anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion. Too bad Japan isn't exactly in love with Kikuchi. Actress Rinko Kikuchi is Mako Mori, one of the film's lead pilots to battle the dreaded kaiju in one of this summer's biggest Hollywood flicks. Pacific Rim is already getting good notices—Hideo Kojima and Kanye dig the GlaDOS infused flick. Now if only Kikuchi could turn that into popularity in her home country. The actor made a big splash internationally with her role in Babel as Chieko, a deaf high school girl. This role put her on the map. Prior to Babel, nobody really knew who the heck she was. Kikuchi didn't make a name for herself like many Japanese celebrities and actors typically do, which is either by appearing in numerous TV dramas, variety shows, or in a string of commercials. The Japanese film industry is a shell of its former self. TV is king. Even though she did appear in a few dramas, such as Liar Game, prior to Babel, and she did some car ads, Kikuchi never was really able to parlay that into becoming a huge star in Japan. Even after Kikuchi was nominated for an Academy Award, the first Japanese female to get an Oscar nod in 57 years, and became the face of Chanel, Japanese success remained elusive. She did top an opinion poll about who Japan was most proud of internationally, but that seemed to flitter away. A Livedoor News article from 2007 talked how in the wake of her international success, Kikuchi wasn't exactly in demand back at home and wasn't popular with Japanese housewives. When you don't have a fan base, being a talented actor isn't enough in Japan. On 2ch, Japan's largest bulletin board, a thread talked about why Kikuchi hadn't become popular in her home country. The thread is fairly brutal (actually, it's really brutal), and some say her looks aren't appealing to Japanese, while others commented about the graphic nudity in Babel—something that seemed unbecoming. Then, some didn't even know who she was. In 2010, Kikuchi appeared on afternoon variety show Waratte Iitomo!, which is an iconic Japanese program. It's an institution, like The Tonight Show. Her appearance went so poorly that people on Yahoo! Japan (here and here, for example) began saying she should never appear on variety or talk shows again. While she seemed stylish, Kikuchi didn't make a very good impression and came off as awkward. Perhaps she was nervous? Whatever the case was, she seemed to lose even more fans. One of the main issues seemed to be how in Japan the mass media and the country's entertainment complex work in tandem. Her success was achieved outside of that realm. And then when she actually did appear on Japanese TV, she seemed somewhat awkward and not exactly quick with quips—a necessity to survive in mainstream Japanese show business. For many Japanese it's perhaps baffling why she, out of all the Japanese actors, has been successful abroad. For Americans, it's probably akin to when particular entertainers become far more popular in foreign countries than in Hollywood. That year, however, she appeared in two TV dramas in Japan. Since the country's television industry overshadows its film business. The following year, she appeared in a Japanese period drama. But since Babel, Kikuchi has done mostly foreign film work (though, she did do voice acting on two Mamoru Oshii anime). Then, she appeared in major Hollywood films 47 Ronin with Keanu Reeves and the previously mentioned Pacific Rim. So far, her popularity hasn't really taken off at home. With the good buzz around Pacific Rim, perhaps Japanese fans can focus on her acting, instead of how good she can work the Japanese entertainment machine. 菊地凛子はなぜ人気が出ないのか [2ch] The End of Gyaku-Yu'nyū [Neomarxisme] An earlier version of this story was posted in December 2012. To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

On July 30, D-Pad Studios - they of "please hurry up and finish Owlboy" fame - will be releasing Savant for the PC, iOS and Android. They're calling it a "Little summer game of yore". It looks rad. I'm guessing the genre is "Rustic Elevator Death Ride"?

Based in London, Daniel Hoang is a freelance artist working in the games business, most recently on racing game GRID 2. Formerly on staff at Codemasters, he's also worked on Operation Flashpoint: Red River and Bodycount. To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the bottom-right corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment, promotional or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!

Over the last few years, animator Mike McCraw has been doing these short Power Rangers clips. Which are basically the sketchbook of a 90's kid come to life. He's done four of the five, with only Red Ranger missing. A warning: you might end up watching these all day. Mike McCraw [Site, via Super Punch]

GameStop has been taking PS4 preorders for a while now, with nary a mention of "limited stocks" or word on first-day guarantees. Seems the time has come to bring that little deal to an end, because you can't preorder the system from the retailer any more. A notice on GameStop's site says they're "sold out", and is pointing interested customers towards a mailing list. A statement issued to Game Informer - which GameStop owns - reads "Due to high demand for the system, GameStop is not currently taking additional store reservations for the PlayStation 4". Sucks if you were holding out, but then...it's a launch-day deal. If you were still holding out in July, you can't have been that serious. GameStop Cuts Off PlayStation 4 Preorders [Game Informer]

You're about to see a working NERF sentry gun. A proper sentry gun, like one you'd see in a video game or movie, which can automatically track you then start shooting until you die (of amazement). It was built by Instructables user BrittLiv, and comprises a NERF Vulcan gun, a stand, a motor and a laptop. Using recognition software, the laptop's camera can track someone walking in front of it, the gun moving to follow the person's movements. While it can be fired manually, as you'll see in the video below, it can also be programmed to shoot automatically at targets (and even programmed to not fire at certain people). In summary, this is an autonomous motion-detecting, belt-fed NERF machine gun. Nerf Vulcan Sentry Gun [Instructables, via technabob]

Finally, fans have begun recording live versions of the Kapp'n's songs from Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Here's one instant-classic, sweetly performed by YouTuber Misterandell. I like the Kapp'n, though most of the girls I know who play this game say he's always hitting on them. (This post at Electropolis seems to back that up.) All I know is one time he sang me and my friend a song about doing ab-workouts to avoid seasickness, so he's still okay in my book. (Via Polygon)

Sixty-six years ago today the Roswell, New Mexico Daily Record stunned the country with one of the finest examples of a sensationalist headline this side of... well, nevermind that. "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch In Roswell Region," was a joke, a sham, a goof, and certainly not proof of aliens landing on U.S. soil at all, because that would be silly. Here, play this Google Doodle game instead. What is the game? Why, it's the cutest little mini adventure game you've ever seen, with what I'm gonna say is a tiny homage to the Atari 2600 classic E.T. tossed in for good measure. You play as a completely fictional and certainly not classified alien that must assemble the pieces of its downed U.F.O. before the government comes and <s>disappears you</s> gives you warm, fresh-baked cookies. As a current resident of Roswell, Georgia, I wish our namesake over in New Mexico a happy alien anniversary, and thank them for ruining our stupid city forever you bastards.

We speak Bungie Co-Founder Alex Seropian, Old Man’s War writer John Scalzi and X-Force artist Michael Choi about Morning Star Alpha.

If you could travel through time and undo a botched first date, would you? That's the question at the heart of Back to the First Date, one of many goofy games to come out of last weekend's Molyjam game-jam. The game is based on the Peter Molyneux quote, "I wish I had some time machine and could go back two weeks. You live by your mistakes, for sure." It was made by Colin Bayer, Tiff Chow, Jolie Menzel, K Gadd, Clifford Warren, Jenn Sandercock and Jung-Ha Kim at the San Francisco Molyjam location. You can play the game for free online, and find more info here. I sure had a good time playing it, though I don't know if disagreements over Hot Tub Time Machine lore could really ruin a date for me. You can find a full list of Molyjam games here; I'm going to be going through these for more or less ever.

I had missed that Eurogamer ran a bunch of footage from the demo of Hotline Miami 2 that I played back at E3. Here's the game in action, with some useful information delivered by a man wearing a chicken mask 1/20th as creepy as the one in the game. I've been replaying the first game on Vita, and it really does work well with two thumbsticks.

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Josiah Renaudin writes poignantly for GameRanx about how gamers mourn the passing of people they care about. An unintentionally apt piece for today.

During my first ten minutes playing MarvelousAQL's Cross Horizon I was asked if I wanted to purchase a key to open a chest I'd found on the battlefield. Were I not playing it for review, I would have stopped right there. Despite my knowing full-well that there's no such thing as a truly free-to-play action role-playing game on either iOS or Android, I felt a little betrayed by the sudden request. Here I had spent several minutes tooling around in the game's character creator, crafting the perfect pink-haired avatar. My amnesiac character was fed a little story — something about the return of an evil bandit king — given a quest to kill a goblin to prove herself, and sent on her way. I was in a good mood as I transitioned from 2D menus to 3D adventure map, despite the muddy environment textures. I didn't mind when the third-person hack-and-slash I was hoping for wound up being a faster-paced Infinity Blade first-person affair. The enemies were distinctive, the action frantic, if a little silly — I was having a good time. Then the chest dropped, and I knew that every time a chest dropped in this game, I'd kick myself for not having the key to unlock whatever riches waited within. Was it armor I could don, changing the look and stats of my character? A powerful new weapon? I'll never know, because I don't want to spend a dollar on the mana (in-game currency) to find out. There's a lot to love about Cross Horizon. The quest system is simple, the combat fast and easy — it's a great little action role-playing game for folks without a lot of time to invest in one sitting. There are some really nifty ideas, like recruiting your friends to run alongside you as you explore the world, lending a hand in battle from time-to-time, or an upgrade-able item system that functions like a collectible card game. But there's just as much I don't like. The rarest items, as in a collectible card game, are only available through special summons that require at least a small chunk of in-game currency to perform. Completing your quest on one of the game's expansive playfields? Either backtrack to home base on foot, or purchase a special return item. It's as if Cross Horizon is purposefully trying to stifle my enjoyment at every turn. That's probably not how a video game should make me feel. Cross Horizon Genre: Action RPG Developer: MarvelousAQL Platforms: Android, iOS Price: Free Get Cross Horizon on iTunes — Get Cross Horizon on Google Play

There were some close calls in this weekend's latest round of matches during the 2012-2013 StarCraft II Proleague. We hand-picked five of these games to recap for you, focusing on those that really show the current state of the competitive StarCraft II scene, highlighting incredible unit control and decision making Let's start off with one of the most exciting matches between legendary terran player Fantasy and protoss player Hero. After losing units and missing critical chances early in the game, Fantasy made an impressive comeback in the above video. A Close Match Between Two Top Protoss Players The outcome of short, back and forth mirror matchups between two protoss players—just like the one you see here between Brood War legend Bisu and EG-TL's Oz—depends on perfect scouting and micro managing your units. It's always nerve-wracking to watch how quickly a player can get bumped from the lead just from losing one unit or making the tiniest errors. Terran Is Not Invincible We can catch some impressive Ghost control, EMPs and snipes from Taeja—one of the top terran players in the world—as he tries to keep Rain, the protoss guy in bay, but overall the mistakes he makes gives Rain a free win, and shows that terrans are far from invincible. The World's Best, Still In His Best Form With multiple drops and perfect snipes at the protoss player's Colossus units, the match between the current World Champion Innovation—beyond a doubt the best StarCraft II progamer in the world right now—and Terminator is rousingly intense. The Legend Himself And His Aggressive Play It's always fun to watch the legendary Flash (I mean, seriously, he even has an action figure displayed) playing SCII. It's just stunning how he crushes the zerg player, CJ's effOrt in a few minutes with Hellbat and Marauders, which is currently the most popular terran build. To contact the author of this post, write to gergovas@kotaku.com

Crime is a constant feature of video games writing. Somewhere, someone is doing something illicit with them—sometimes comically stupid, sometimes tragic. Games and consoles are currency, objects of dispute, sometimes even weapons themselves. Kotaku's Police Blotter is here to round up the latest in games crime. The Bicycle Thief VENICE, Fla.—For a month cops pursued a brazen console shoplifter known by his trademark yellow beach bicycle. Tuesday, cops arrested Jerry Arthur Crates, of Nokomis, Fla., and charged him with several thefts. On June 9 they say he put "an Xbox Halo edition gaming device" into a cart at a local shopping center, exited the store without paying and was seen riding away on a yellow bicycle while carrying the system "valued at $400." On June 16, they say he struck again, attempting to shoplift a PlayStation 3, but he was thwarted when a store employee confronted him. Finally, on July 2, cops say Crates made off with an HP Pavilion laptop. A patrol passing by his home saw the yellow beach bicycle in front of his apartment door, and arrested him. He faces three counts of larceny. [Englewood (Fla.) Sun] The Great Xbox 360 Controller Robbery SANTA FE, N.M.—Police here are searching for two men who stole 10 Xbox 360 controllers from a Target on Sunday. Cops say the suspects cut open the packaging for each controller and pocketed all 10, somehow, before escaping the store. Store security saw the theft but elected not to confront the men because they were armed with a knife. The getaway vehicle is believed to be a silver-colored Honda Civic with turquoise New Mexico plates. [The New Mexican, Santa Fe, N.M.] Reeking of Pot is the Least of Its Problems Quoted in its entirety: "A woman purchased an Xbox from a man off of Facebook. The Xbox was missing the power cord and controllers and smelled of marijuana. Police spoke with the woman about safety precautions of purchasing items off of Facebook and other similar means." [Terrace (B.C.) Standard] If You're Gonna Invite the Cops Over, Clean Up First NEWNAN, Ga.—Police here arrested a man who reported the burglary of his home and the theft of his Xbox 360. That's because Christopher James Umbach, according to cops, failed to clear his home of pot and paraphernalia after calling police to the scene. After noticing the evidence of doobage in plain sight, cops got a warrant to search the home, and, reports The Newnan Times-Herald, "discovered a variety of not very well-hidden items," including bongs, pot brownies, humidifiers, fertilizers and growing equipment and "half a wheel of marijuana 'butter.'" [The Newnan (Ga.) Times-Herald] GameStop Robbery Ends in Shootout XENIA, Ohio—Police say a man armed with a .45 took a GameStop employee hostage and an unidentified video game console and drove off with both here on Tuesday. A patrol then intercepted the suspect vehicle, and the suspect fled on foot before being cornered later. He fired several rounds into the cruiser, shooting out both windshields and another window before being shot himself. Police said the GameStop employee was not harmed in the incident. [WHIO-TV] Lots of strange things happen in the pages of your local newspaper or on the 6 o'clock news. If you see something, say something. To me, that is. I'd like to write it up. Remember: You need not reveal your identity. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.