All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#finalfantasyxi At Vanafest 2010 in Tokyo, Hiromichi Tanaka, the lead developer of Final Fantasy XI, announced that game will get three new high level battle area additions this year: Vision of Abyssea, Scars of Abyssea, and Heroes of Abyssea. More »

#kmagazine Welcome to the February 2010 edition of K Monthly, a look back at some of the best original coverage, including reviews, features, weekly columns and more, from Kotaku. More »

There’s no denying that the Call of Duty franchise is a strong one, even on the Wii. It might not pack as much punch as it does on the 360/PS3, but it’s definitely a long-tail seller. Makes you wonder just how long it can hold onto the chart.

See, this is why we need to have Game Boy games on the Virtual Console. I haven’t played this game in so long. It would be like a brand-new game to me! I know I’m not the only one that feels this way.

Combat first popped up on the Atari 2600, and developers are still paying homage to it to this very day. We wouldn’t have Tanks on Wii Play without Combat, and I’m quite thankful that we do! That game single-handedly saved Wii Play from being a complete waste!

#movies Disney held a special screening in Los Angeles today, giving us a sneak peek at the brand new Tron Legacy theatrical trailer, a brief return to the video game world of 1982 computer graphics landmark Tron. Then we saw it again. More »

A portion of a Game Informer interview with composer Aquma GI: Tell us about your work. What’s the inspiration behind it? A: I got into music production back in college. Video game music and hip-hop are my primary influences, but I tend to draw inspiration from good music in general. When Team Teamwork’s Ocarina of Rhyme came [...]

Do you not have a GameStop location nearby in order to grab your free Monster Hunter 3 demo? Don’t worry about it, there’s actually another way to handle the situation! You can grab the demo from the Monster Hunter 3 website, and have it sent out right to your house! Certainly sounds [...]

#photoshop This past week saw, by far, the most entries we've had in the young history of the Kotaku 'Shop Contest. The gallery of 20 just doesn't do it justice. I had three times as many worthy candidates, forcing hard choices. More »

#expensiveassgamer There is a Holy Grail of Rare Video Games, and it is Stadium Events. The auction on a factory-sealed NTSC version closed just minutes ago, and it was sold for $41,300, almost double the old record. More »

#screengrab Tattoo spied at the Brighton Tattoo Convention in London last month. It references the lyrics of "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start" by the Ataris. Picture by Iris James, seen via Hawty McBloggy. More »

We're not sure which element of this story is the most newsworthy, so we'll lead with this: Some person, somewhere in the world, recently spent $41,300 on an extremely rare NES game. Someone was perusing the eBay auction block, saw Stadium Events (which Nintendo bought the rights to and retitled World Class Track Meet), and said, "you know what? That looks like the kind of thing I'd like to spend an American's median annual income on."

According to Video Game Price Charts, that auction has turned Stadium Events into the most expensive NES game ever sold. There are around 200 copies of the game still floating around out there -- which should be enough to send most of you rushing to your local pawn shop in a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-esque tizzy.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

#hackers In late 2008, a Pennsylvania teenager playing SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals got kicked out of a tournament for using a cheat mod. So he took revenge by crashing the PlayStation web site for 11 days. More »

The fruits of a deviantART "art jam" concept pitched by user lerms in late 2009 has finally been revealed, rekindling our love for classic NES promotional design (and how awesomely bad it was). The art jam's rules were simple: Select a classic title and reimagine its box art, while also keeping the spirit of the original in mind. Suffice it to say, the results were superb and only make us want to print each of the designs for use in our own classic gaming collection. (Or at least purchase poster sized prints of them all.)

In all, ten classic designs were re imagined, including covers for Contra, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, and (finally!) an Iron Sword: Wizards & Warriors II cover sans Fabio.

[Via Tiny Cartridge]

#mmmhm Even though Tecmo Koei America seems happy to market the fact that Dead or Alive: Paradise is called "cheesy" and "creepy," the game's director says it isn't softcore porn, but a game trying to show that women are "beautiful characters." More »

What if Heavy Rain, which is so often heralded by creator David Cage as "interactive fiction," was just a bit less interactive? Is the game's story and cast of vaguely-French-sounding characters strong enough to carry a feature-length film? We might just find out, some day -- internet super-sleuth superannuation recently uncovered copyright documents which reveal that New Line Productions optioned the rights to turn Heavy Rain into a movie on May 15, 2006 -- just a few days after "The Casting" trailer (NSFW) was revealed at E3.

This doesn't ensure the development of a Heavy Rain movie, of course; it only means if any film studio makes the film, it's going to be New Line Cinema. We think the rights are in good hands -- New Line did some great work on the film adaptations of those Lord of the Rings games.

#dated A sweepstakes promotion by GameStop and Bethesda Softworks says the upcoming FPS Brink will be available Sept. 7. The promo also shows some box art for the game but it's unlikely that's the final version. More »