#screengrab
What would be bigger news, a GTA-Spider Man crossover, or an E-rated GTA? Knockoff spied by a friend of Kotaku reader Sid T. in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, on the Singapore border. More »
If, at any point in the last week, you forgot about the existing DS platform due to all the news about the 3DS, you've made a serious error, and you owe the Nintendo DS an apology. Nintendo brought a diverse selection of first-party (and sorta-first-party, in the case of Dragon Quest IX) DS games to E3, and we've collected trailers and artwork for the whole set.
Included after the break is Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. It might be a little ... puzzling, but Nintendo brought two Professor Layton games to E3 (which means, by the way, that this was the best E3 of all time) -- this one, number 3 in the series, for the original DS, and Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle, which is number 5, for 3DS.
It’s now time to shear your sheep. But George the Wolf is prowling around your farm…and he’s hungry. Hurry up then and put the wool in the barns for safekeeping.
Use the stylus to round up identical sheep to shear them and collect the balls of wool. Then catapult them into the barns. If [...]
Nintendo brought most of its franchises back into active duty this year (sorry, Clu Clu Land!), flooding its upcoming Wii lineup with new games starring familiar characters. We've collected all the screenshots and trailers we had yet to post from Nintendo's crowded slate of Wii releases, along with ones you may have missed during our E3 coverage earlier this week. Clear your cache in anticipation of some serious video streaming, and join us after the break to see footage and screens of Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kirby's Epic Yarn, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and more.
#microsoft
Ask the right questions, get the right answers. An internal marketing Q&A for Microsoft about confirm that Kinect will be bundled with consoles, and a $199 configuration of its new Xbox 360 will be available this fall. More »
I was incredibly skeptical of Lost in Shadow when I first picked up the controller. Sure, it may look like Ico, but it definitely doesn't play like it. While there's a lot to like about the Wii game -- especially its shadow manipulation gimmick, unique premise, and gorgeous art -- I walked away with some concern that the full experience may become stale.
The story of Lost in Shadow is rather grim: a boy finds himself severed from his body, relegated to explore the realm of shadows. As he traverses a massive trap-filled tower, he earns more memories, becoming more whole. It takes 21 grams to make a spirit whole -- and that's your goal in this inventive platformer. To reclaim your soul, you'll have to collect its pieces. Of course, this is easier said than done. You'll find these scattered throughout the world, oftentimes in seemingly impossible places to reach. Being trapped in shadow form means you can only interact with shadows, projected by objects in the foreground.
Thankfully you have a few tricks up your sleeve. You have the ability to move light, altering the shadows. By manipulating an on-screen slider vertically (or horizontally), you'll be able to change the shadows, and open new paths. The solutions appear a bit too obvious: simply demanding experimentation with the sliders. According to a Hudson rep, these sliders only appear when shadow manipulation is necessary, making it very clear when you must use your powers.
#stickjockey
Looking back, I can't shake the feeling that it's what I didn't see at E3 that will provide, again, the juiciest story for the year in sports gaming: The showdown between NBA 2K11 and NBA Elite 11. More »
#contest
Who says you can't get your hands on the best goodies given out during E3? Klei Entertainment, makers of the heavily anticipated Shank, gave us this badass maquette based on the game, and we both want you to have it. More »
With a new development team at the helm and an emphasis on fluid action, Metal Gear Solid: Rising is being positioned as a new standard in the long-running franchise. Mineshi Kimura, the game's director for Kojima Productions, told journalists at a Rising roundtable discussion during E3 that the game would be a counterpart to Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid legacy, with possible future installments going "back and forth" between Rising and more traditional Metal Gear games.
"But for Rising, we're gonna position it where people might know Metal Gear Solid, but they were reluctant to buy it," Kimura said. "[They might say],'Stealth is not my style,' or they didn't have the hardware because they only had a 360. We would like to target this audience where it's kind of potential Metal Gear Solid users and again, as I said earlier, the story will be based between MGS2 and MGS4." He added that players who were not familiar with the franchise's Byzantine plot would still be able to become involved and have fun with the game's "Zan-Datsu" cutting concept.
"'Zan' means to cut, and 'Datsu' means to take," explained creative producer Shigenobu Matsuyama. "We probably would offer a more wide range of play style so that you can aim where you want to cut and how deep you want to cut in order to achieve what you want to take. So, the play style will be quite in more depth than just cutting and killing."
I admit to being a bit let down not to have the opportunity to play Child of Eden, Tetsuya Mizuguchi's spiritual successor to Rez, at Ubisoft's E3 booth. However, watching Tetsuya Mizuguchi play the game for a small group was still a rare and wonderful experience. And for a Kinect game, it doesn't seem that I missed out on as much for having a "hands-off" demo, because even the person playing it was hands-off.
Mizuguchi walked us through two of the rail shooter's levels, called "Archives." The concept for the game (which it doesn't need at all -- "you shoot pretty stuff" is more than enough) is that you're eliminating viruses from visual representations of emotional memories within the AI "Project Lumi" -- Lumi just happens to be the same name of the virtual idol at the front of Mizuguchi's Genki Rockets band. Your shots "purify" everything they hit, while also, of course, emitting drumbeat noises and other musical sounds, provided, of course, by Genki Rockets.
#e32010
Last year, Madden introduced cooperative two-man multiplayer. This year, the gang at EA Sports Tiburon beefed that up to a three-on-three and blended in some features to draw out teamwork and communication among teammates. More »
Coming from the official site for GoldenEye…
I really hope this project turns out well. The GoldenEye name has already been tarnished a bit, thanks to Rogue Agent. I don’t want to see that sort of thing happen again.
The Dragon Ball license is an extremely popular one in the video game world, and you can bet that the series is going to live on for many, many years this way. One of the more recent games to be made available is Dragon Ball: Origins 2, but our friends in Europe are still [...]
MLB.TV typically requires a subscription plan to get access to live and pre-recorded games throughout the entire league; however, the service will be available for free this weekend, according to an e-mail sent to PSN members. To take advantage of the trial, you'll have to download the free app from the PlayStation Store.
#boxscores
We were either short on games or short on a week, or both, so in the aftermath of E3 we'll dispense with the usual highlights and get straight to Kotaku's sports gaming open thread. More »
Man, I always wanted to play this game, but never had the money to buy it. I don’t think I missed out on all that much, but seeing this blast from the past really brings back those sad memories! Any of you own this game? Was it worth the money?!
There are some people that are having a hard time finding the visuals in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword pleasing. To tell you the truth, I think it might have something to do with the way the visual presentation comes across through video. Seeing the game through video and then actually playing [...]
#e3
One of the more intriguing reveals of Microsoft's E3 press conference was a brief glimpse of a spacefighter combat level in the upcoming Halo: Reach. The Bungie team gave a longer look at it during a closed-doors demonstration later. More »
Fire Hose Games' Slam Bolt Scrappers may not have the easiest to remember name, but its gameplay is something you won't soon forget. The PSN-exclusive action-puzzler drops in "early 2011" and is already looking like an incredibly polished experience.
Combining several genres into something fresh, SBS tasks up to four players with beating up flying goblin-esque things that turn into Tetris blocks when defeated and then using their jetpack-wearing construction worker avatar to create a tower. Making squares of 4 (2x2), 9 (3x3), 16 (4x4), etc. will turn that section of the tower into a weapon, blasting the other team's tower, or creating a shield. Building the tower is incredibly intuitive to anyone that's played Tetris or Rampart.
#dealtaku
This is The Moneysaver, not a knitting class. You don't come into my dojo, drop a challenge and leave, old man. Now you get your coupons on the mat, or you and I will have a major problem. More »
