#kotakutalkradio
Kotaku Talk Radio, our weekly audio call-in show, begins now. Listen live or call in. Either way, it'll be me and Fahey this time, confessing our gaming blindspots. One of us has never played Doom or StarCraft. The horror! More »
Look, we really wanted to write a harsh diatribe about the University of Central Florida's federally-funded game development project: An Avatar-esque edu-game that teaches young girls to ignore the sexual advances of their contemporaries. We wanted to talk about all the things that $434,000 of taxpayer's money could have been spent on, or how silly of a concept a motion-controlled abstinence game really is. Unfortunately, our spite turned to pure, unbridled glee after watching this Fox News Report on the project.
Between the news-friendly gaming lingo ("digital puppetry," "jumping into the skin," "interactors," etc.) and the contorted, soulless husks that comprise the game's cast of sexually aware characters, the video -- posted just after the jump -- is a comedy goldmine. Dig in, gang.
Here’s a bad sign for Wii localization of Tales of Graces. The title is making the jump over to the PS3. If you were hoping that somehow the Wii version would see a release in the states, this port pretty much kills that chance. Thanks to ShadowsSaver for the heads up!
In a small hotel room in midtown Manhattan this month, I spent just over an hour with Activision's noticeably slimmed down holiday rhythm/music game line-up. Though we'll have to hold our impressions of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock until later this month, I can tell you all about my time spent with DJ Hero 2.
First and foremost -- and this might sound nuts to open with -- the design and layout of the user interface is beautifully vacant. The DJ selection screen isn't much more than a bright white background with selectable characters. That same design aesthetic carries over into the gameplay interface -- unlike the muddied rock and roll world of Guitar Hero, everything in DJ Hero 2 is sharp, crisp, and clean. The lighting may be low, but blues and reds and yellows can be seen popping all over the place.
#nintendo
Starting July 31, North America players of Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver have 28 days to download the Enigma Stone, the key to unlocking Legendary Pokemon Latias and Latios. More »
#art
Chinese artist Liu Bolin took to the streets after literally being made homeless by the Chinese government. Suojiacun, an artists village in northeastern Beijing was torn down during the Olympic redevelopment. More »
Tales of Graces and a new, currently unnamed Tales of title are on the way to PlayStation 3, according to info leaked from Japanese mag Jump (translated by Andriasang). Tales of Graces F will be the second entry in Namco Bandai's popular RPG series to ditch platform exclusivity before undergoing enhancement for PS3. The formerly Wii-exclusive title will get a facelift and some added features before it debuts in Japan this winter (possibly to the sound of snapping game discs).
Namco has also revealed plans to release Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 3 on PSP sometime in 2011. We'll let you know as soon as the publisher shares its plans for North America and Europe.
#preview
Could Nintendo make a bad Metroid game? Would they? What if they worked with a team that never made a Metroid game before? What if my first minute of playing Metroid Other M sprouted the thought: This is not good? More »
#clips
Sega has released the first teaser trailer for Thor: The Video Game, giving us a tantalizingly brief look at the son of Asgard's in-game model, standing atop the ruins of Pride Rock. More »
Perhaps the most glaring thing about the new Dungeon Siege 3 teaser, apart from its complete lack of gameplay footage, is its complete lack of dungeons. It's a nice CG introduction to the backstory and all, but ... what are we supposed to besiege? The branching narrative?
We've seen reports from a number of day-one strategists who've already sunk a few hours into the single-player campaign of StarCraft 2, all hinting at the existence of an in-game homage to one of Blizzard's earlier franchises: The Lost Vikings. Said cameo comes in the form of a Lost Viking arcade machine located on protagonist Jim Raynor's ship, the Hyperion -- though the puzzle-platforming of the original title has been swapped out for a much more thematically appropriate top-down shoot-em-up.
Check out some footage of the shooter just past the jump -- or, if you'd like to try your hand at guiding your poor, misplaced Viking-ship home, just pop down to the Hyperion Cantina with a pocket full of future-quarters.
#collectiblecardgames
Collectible bricks become collectible cards next year, when NetDevil's LEGO Universe expands with a virtual and physical trading card game, courtesy of the experts at Dire Wolf Digital. Who is Dire Wolf Digital? More »
Call it the new Xenosaga. Just as the Xenogears team left Square to create games in a suspiciously similar world for Namco, some of the tri-Ace staffers who made Radiata Stories are working on ... Radiant Historia for DS, over at Atlus. Along with original staff like artist Hiroshi Konishi, Atlus's own developers are also involved, including director Mitsuru Hirata, a veteran of the Shin Megami Tensei series.
With only a Famitsu leak to go on, all we know about the game itself is that it involves time travel in some manner. If you want to find out more by playing the game, you'll have to time travel to November 4. And learn Japanese, we guess.
#excerpt
In the new book Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential, our very own Kotaku Senior Contributing Editor Brian Ashcraft and co-author Shoko Ueda explore how Japanese schoolgirls have changed Japanese society. More »
