OK, maybe that's not fair, since we don't necessarily know it will triumph when, according to Game Informer, Portal 2 arrives on February 11 next year. But let's say we think there's a strong possibility ... let's say very, very strong. Oh, who are we kidding? We're certain it's wonderful and if you say otherwise, we'll fight you like we're a lonely kid on a Sonic forum defending Amy Rose's honor.
We also learned from GI that Stephen Merchant will play kindly British robot Wheatley, so we're going to have to start viciously defending him as well. Of course, with credits like co-creating The Office and Extras, it shouldn't be that hard.
#oddities
Japanese website Dengeki Online seems fun. Once a slave girl dropped by to answer the phone. Another day, there were spankings! Then there was a game of loitering in the hall. A classic, classic game. This time? More »
#diablo
Pardon us as we go a little Diablo III mad here this morning at GamesCom, with these screenshots rounding out Blizzard's contribution to today's events. More »
#crime
Marcus Donté Reed believed that three brothers had stolen his Xbox 360. So he's accused of going to their house with an "assault weapon" and shooting them all dead. More »
Alan Wake was one of the victims of Red Dead Redemption's retail shootout earlier this year, but Remedy's Managing Director Matias Myllyrinne isn't bitter about it. Speaking to Joystiq at GDC Europe, the studio head expressed, "RDR is a fantastic game, due credit to Rockstar, they deserve it. For us, Wake clicked with gamers and a lot of the reviewers out there. I think it will continue to sell as folks learn about it."
Myllyrinne expressed hope that the world of Wake would be something that Remedy could continue building on in the future. He couldn't make any announcements on future plans for Mr. Wake, but after seeing the strong reaction from the audience to the game, he feels Remedy established the key things it wanted to do with Wake -- "as a form of entertainment and art." Speaking directly to the numbers and the cost of Wake's five-year production, he said, "Commercially, the numbers will make sense in the end."
The internally episodic narrative of Alan Wake would lend itself well to online distribution (perhaps following in Fable 2's footsteps), and Myllyrinne told us, "I don't think there's anything technically stopping us from doing that. I think those will be business decisiions we'll make together with Microsoft. I think it would be an interesting experiment."
He also told us the next piece of DLC, dubbed "The Writer," is "not too far away" and that, in terms of gameplay, will feel more "surreal," like "Salvadore Dali does Alan Wake." When pushed on whether Remedy would take a break from Wake after the second DLC episode launches, he couldn't get into specifics. Myllyrinne said he had promised some folks that he wouldn't talk, but that Remedy would announce its next project "in a few months."
#diablo
So, Diablo III has a new crafting feature, the Artisan. This video shows how he works, brining some much-needed apron to the Monk's sandy robes. More »
#gamescom2010
The course count for Polyphony Digital's real driving simulator Gran Turismo 5 is now approaching infinity, thanks to the game's just revealed Course Maker, shown off today at Gamescom in Germany. More »
#diablo
Right now, there's a PC version of Diablo III planned. A Mac version, too. But consoles? According to Blizzard, as of August 2010, there are no plans for a console version of the game. More »
In developing Red Steel 2, Ubisoft Creative Director Jason VanderBerge learned quite a bit about Nintendo's optional Wii MotionPlus accessory (and how people use it). So he seemed like a good person to ask about the potential of Sony and Microsoft's impending motion control accessories, the Move and Kinect. When we did just that, catching up with VanderBerge after his talk at GDC Europe this week, he was a bit ambivalent about the subject.
#screengrab
Kotaku readers Francis and Nerissa recently tied the knot, and this sombre diorama topped their cake. I'd laugh, but as a recently-married man myself, I feel his pain. More »
#southkorea
Gate Online, a South Korean online game Kotaku previously introduced, appears to take its cues from two Valve titles: Portal and Team Fortress 2. More »
Crap of Defense developer iFun4all is working on yet another iPhone to Minis port. Fish Tank is a PSP port of the iPhone app Match Fish. Combining traditional match-three gameplay with reflex-based mechanics, this is a rather straightforward addition to the (surprisingly large) Minis library.
#gamescom
Day two of Germany's GamesCom show is about to begin, so could there be a better time to recap what happened on day one? Nope. Don't think there could be. More »
#ffxiii
A commercial for Final Fantasy XIII has been reprimanded by Britain's Advertising Standards Authority for using PlayStation 3 footage in an advertisement for the Xbox 360 version of the game. More »
#gamescom2010
Konami is kicking off its Gamescom 2010 press conference with a greeting from the affable host Thomas Sauermann, who warns us that we'll be hearing more about Pro Evolution Soccer, Def Jam Rapstar and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow today. And? More »
Relic and THQ have announced the second standalone expansion to the Warhammer 40k-themed RTS Dawn of War 2. The expansion will be called Retribution, and will introduce the series' first multi-race single-player campaign. The first race announced is the Orks, but players will be able to choose other races to play through the campaign as well, meaning you can finally play as something other than Space Marines in the single-player game.
Multiplayer also gets extras in the form of new units, some new maps and a whole new playable race to fight with. There's no word out of Gamescom yet as to exactly which race that is, but given that we've played as Orks, Space Marines and Eldar in the series before, playing as the Tyranids is a pretty good guess (edited) already in the game. Commenters are guessing Dark Eldar. We'll find out for sure when the expansion is released -- it's scheduled for Q1 2011.
#persona
The Persona role-playing-game franchise is getting a hi-def entry called "Catherine". It's an action-adventure type game that is aimed at adults. More »
Did you ever stop to think that red was an odd choice for the guiding Runner's Vision color in Mirror's Edge? Well, the first-person parkour game's level designer, Elisabetta Silli, used to think so. At the "The Tao of Level Design" panel this morning, she said, "Red is an odd choice because it means danger or stop." She mentioned that when she first played the game she got to a red door and stopped. Of course, now she can't imagine it being any other way: "Red is perfect for Faith, I wouldn't change it."
Silli is currently working on the Battlefield franchise, but she couldn't get into specifics when asked about which title (hmmm). When asked about a potential sequel to Mirror's Edge, she said she "can't talk about it, sorry." Asked how she would change the design for a sequel, she opened up to say that she'd focus on navigation and letting the player get a better idea of what's coming next, instead of relying on the red flashes to point the way. She would like the path of the player to be clear from the beginning. On whether she'd like to work on a sequel, "Yeah, I would love to work on a sequel." You want it, we want it - let's just do this thing, EA.
