All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#clips Team Kotaku is taking part in the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta as of today, so we thought we'd capture a little footage to show you how we're doing and just how much Crecente loves to use that jet pack. More »

#toys We've been complaining about the lack of Team Fortress 2 collectibles for months now. We even did it yesterday. That complaining stops today, however, with the reveal of a gorgeous statue based on the game's "Heavy". More »

#tf2 Flush with pride over the game's 119th update, Valve today released another update for online shooter Team Fortress 2, designed to honour those that have been with the game since its launch all the way back in 2007. More »

#gallery This summer, like every summer in Japan, will see a new Pokémon movie. So let's snuggle. More »

#3ds When Nintendo first revealed the 3DS handheld, many people pointed out it wasn't the company's first foray into 3D. But while the Virtual Boy did indeed precede the 3DS, it wasn't Nintendo's first piece of 3D technology either. More »

#tellusdammit It's Friday. Did you know that? I knew that. Go me. More »

#activision So, Halo creators Bungie are working with Activision on a new piece of IP. For the next ten years. I hope for everyone's sake it's not a first-person shooter! More »

#nsfw The objective in Super Strip Fighter IV isn't necessarily simply to beat your enemy. Sometimes, it's something else entirely. More »

#3d Film critic Roger Ebert sometimes uses his powers for evil. But this time he is not. More »

#clips I really liked the first Skate, but haven't been keeping up with the series since because, well, it all looks the same. You skate, you fall off, you try again. I do love it when a series jumps the shark, however. More »

#ipad Finally, a reason to buy an iPad: there's a version of classic (and highly addictive) board game Carcassonne on the way. More »

#deadspace EA today released some new pieces of art for upcoming space thriller Dead Space 2. They're not screens, I know, but I love Dead Space's art style, so these are pretty to look at regardless. More »

#toys It never rains Valve merchandise, it pours. Hot on the heels of the news the company will be releasing statues and props based on its favourite franchises comes word a line of Left 4 Dead plushies are also on sale. More »

#forthewin Yes, of course, there are gold farmers in China. But why? More »

#clips Just Cause 2 has an amazing grappling hook technique, but it's got limits: you can only attach it to one thing (either two objects to each other or one to yourself). Lucky for us PC mods know no limits! More »

#callofduty Looks like that earlier report wasn't quite on the mark, as the next Call of Duty game from developers Treyarch now has a name, and it's not Vietnam. It's Call of Duty: Black Ops. More »

#callofdutyblackops Early this morning a site for Call of Duty: Black Ops went live, now Activision has officially confirmed the game, saying it hits stores on Nov. 9, 2010 and will be developed by Treyarch. More »

#haloreach I spent a bit of time playing around on Halo Reach last night. I love the jetpack, though cloaking, running and invulnerability are pretty cool too. More »

#xbox360 Players will be able to climb high and dive deep in this summer's open-world big-city Xbox 360 exclusive Crackdown 2. The tallest building? Over 500 meters. But that's barely the half of it. [UPDATE: The developers shared a little more.] More »

#realtimeworlds Realtime Worlds' massively-multiplayer sandbox game APB finally has an official release date: June 29 in North America and July 1 in Europe. How much will players have to pay to play? More »

#screengrab Agent Midnight over at DeviantArt thinks Scout Man has what it takes to be a real video game, though he might need a little help. Check out the rest of his Team Fortress 2 sprite work here. More »

#callofduty The product listing for the newly-announced Call of Duty Black Ops appears to spill major details about the November first-person shooter: More »

#iphone Developer Matthew Smyth is upset that Apple rejected his seal clubbing game for the iPhone. PETA, on the other hand, is so overjoyed they sent Steve Jobs chocolates. More »

#bioware Remember the amazingly cool trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, where the Sith crashed a transport into a Jedi temple? Now you can meet the man in charge, Darth Malgus, an anti-hero so interesting he scores his own novel. More »

#newtechnology Online gaming innovator InstantAction may have just changed the way games are distributed on the internet, with the introduction of a service that lets publishers embed games like The Secret of Monkey Island as easily as a YouTube video. More »

#art Halo Reach, like Halo 3 before it, has an in-game screenshot tool. Play the game. Watch an interactive playback of what you did. Move the cameras. Snap your shots. In just one day, gamers have taken some amazing pictures. More »

#activision Activision continues to relentlessly tease Transformers fans with new character reveals for June's War for Cybertron, with fan-favorite Warpath and obscure Decepticon race track patrol team member Barricade join the fight. More »

#xboxlivearcade Scrolling shooter fans have every reason to get fired up over Xbox Live Arcade next week, when Square Enix releases the remake of Taito classic shmup, RayStorm HD. More »

InstantAction's new streaming service has debuted, allowing select games to be played not only in a browser window, but in an embeddable applet if desired (for those of you running Windows, anyway). The selection of games is currently limited to just one, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. The service allows the game to be played for 20 minutes for free, with the option to buy it for $9.99.

Does it work? See above. You know. The Monkey Island game running directly above this text. Did you realize when you opened Joystiq this evening that you'd be clicking your way into the future?

[Update: We mistakenly called the service "Gaikai-powered," which is inaccurate. Gaikai will provide some limited functionality in certain use cases; however, the embedded game above uses InstantAction's "chunking" technology to feed the actual executable to your computer. How and when will Gaikai be used? Look for our interview with InstantAction CEO Louis Castle later today.]

[Thanks, Matthew!]

Dave Perry is dreaming big with his Gaikai streaming service. He went into a little more detail on just how it will at work at today's LA Games Conference. The company is still planning to kick off its service with 300 data centers, and while he admits it will have "much more traffic than the servers can handle," Gaikai will limit early users to those closest to the centers. If you're close enough to the server to have only about 5-10 milliseconds of lag, you'll get in. If not, Perry told Joystiq, then you won't even see the embedded window -- but your request will be logged anyway. That way, he said, Gaikai will be able to track not just where people are using the service, but where they want to use it. If a bunch of users in Alaska try to play, but can't connect because they're too far away, then "we know we're losing money in Alaska," he says, and Gaikai will set up more datacenters there.

Perry says Gaikai will help with security as well -- he suggested that companies might even be able to release their E3 demos to the world just during the week of the event, allowing press or the public to play them online for a limited time, with the code securely held on Gaikai's servers. It's all speculation at this point, though -- a service like that won't be ready to go by this year's E3 in June. But stay tuned anyway: Perry also promised us an announcement about Gaikai at E3. "We got some cool stuff to show off," he confirmed with a knowing nod.