All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Further enhancements to new colonist experience.

Because dreams do sometimes come true.

#preview John Marston has a zombie problem. But zombies have a John Marston problem: John Marston's got a blunderbuss. More »

Bon Jovi's new "Greatest Hits" album will be released November 9. If you'd rather play along with your own feather-haired avatar than merely listen to "It's My Life" on repeat, you'll be able to do so through Rock Band, as the album will be released as DLC soon after the Rock Band 3 launch.

"Bon Jovi for us is one of our most requested artists," MTV's Paul DeGooyer told MCV. "We've had a couple of songs on disc" -- as we can attest, with "Livin' On a Prayer" an unusually frequent song in our random selections -- "but we've never done a vertical campaign like this with them."

Harmonix confirmed the Bon Jovi DLC in a forum post, with one caveat: "Don't expect a huge multi disc album release though, as the Surgeon General has determined that anything more than 12 tracks of Bon Jovi in a single pack could contain potentially dangerous levels of swoon when downloaded by women, and result in deadly amounts of 'good hair envy' in men." So it won't be the full two-disc "Ultimate Collection" version of the album.

[Thanks, MarkHawk]

Aksys's BlazBlue: Continuum Shift to be featured on the only videogame focused reality TV series from World Cyber Games.

Rock Band catalog reaches more than 2,000 songs.

The one that got away....

The one that got away....

The one that got away....

The one that got away....

#launchday The building blocks of the LEGO Universe community fall into place as NetDevil's toy-based MMO opens two weeks early for its Founders. More »

Getting zapped into Flynn's server can be a pretty fun experience.

You can dance if you want to.

#announcement Did you know that Kotaku has its own Twitter account? More »

#interview What will your Guild Wars 2 persona inherit from your original Guild Wars characters? Kotaku talks to ArenaNet designer John Hargrove and lead designer Eric Flannum about the newly-launched Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator. More »

Jimi Hendrix's exclusive Rock Band tour continues next week with the addition of the "Are You Experienced: Rock Band Edition" album. (For more Jimi, see the "Axis: Bold as Love" album that was released earlier this year.)

Also, with over 2,000 songs in the Rock Band DLC catalog, we thought it would be helpful to share these links, which can be used for searching the regular database or the Rock Band Network for a particular artist or song:

• Rock Band Music Store Database
• Rock Band Network Music Store Database

Are you experienced enough to check out next week's DLC details after the break?

#preview You may expect men of great brawn and muscle-thickness to instigate the massive spectacles in modern, action-packed video games. Infamous' Cole, is a slender PlayStation 3 hero, but Infamous 2 already shows he could wreck Marcus Fenix, ruin the Hulk. More »

Before Blizzard revealed that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm would go on sale in December, retailer Amazon was informing customers that they would get the game in January. Have no fear. The retail giant tells Kotaku "we will be releasing World of Warcraft: Cataclysm on the official release date of December 7, 2010." More »

What's your relax fluid level? You don't know -- you would if you were playing the hypothetical example game used in this Nintendo patent application for the Wii Vitality Sensor accessory (dug up by Siliconera). By playing minigames including one in which you tilt the Wiimote and breathe to navigate a winding path, players are supposed to increase the "relax fluid" in their virtual avatars. That "fluid" represents your cardiac cycle, presumably with more fluid indicating a slower heart rate.

In addition to this Innergy-like game, the Vitality Sensor patent also offers details of how the device works -- perhaps more details than we needed. Essentially, it sends an infrared light through your finger, measuring the amount of light-absorbing hemoglobin that passes through the beam. Hmm, does that hurt?

#feedback Danger Close's reboot of the Medal of Honor series stirred up quite a bit of controversy because of its momentary inclusion of playable Taliban in the game's multiplayer. But that has nothing to do with the game's quality. More »

At journalism camp, we all learned to ask "the hard questions." For your pals at Joystiq, given the opportunity to chat with Peter Moore following EA Sports' last-minute delay of NBA Elite 11 and the subsequent rush to make NBA Jam on Xbox 360 and PS3 a fully featured product in and of itself - we'd have had no shortage of questions. "How are you going to bring the HD versions of the game up to feature parity with the Wii this year?" "With NBA 2K 11 gathering accolades, are you concerned that changing the NBA Live formula and then delaying it is ceding ground to the competition?" And the list goes on.

Fox News' Jenna Lee, given the same opportunity, asked the hard hitting question that we - perhaps because of our single-minded focus on video games or perhaps because of our shortage of political acumen - never thought to ask: "Is this a bipartisan game though, Peter?" You see, President Obama, in addition to actually playing basketball, not being ancient, and being president of the country, has some special moves in the game, clearly illustrating political bias on the part of the liberal fatcats at EA. In the interest of defusing this tense political standoff, we'd like to point out that Ms. Palin appears to have her own special move: playing men's basketball.

Watch the full clip after the break.

In case you missed it, last week we released Patch 2.0 featuring Playstation Move compatibility for MAG. So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive from our community. We worked hard to implement PlayStation Move with MAG and are stoked to see it taking off. To get in on massive 256-player battles and learn more about dominating the battlefield with Playstation Move, check out the new Developer Diary below.

“The Move is not only precise but it also takes you in different direction, it feels like a natural extension of your hand and wrist. It just flows with your body and you stop thinking about having a controller. Those are the experiences that really pull you in as a player.” -Ben Jones, MAG level designer

With MAG available for only $29.99 as part of the PS3′s Greatest Hits line, now is the perfect time to jump!

When someone says "Atari classics," what games do you think of? Stuff like Master of Orion, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare and One Unit Whole Blood, right? Of course. Well, even if that isn't the case, let that be your working definition for now.

GOG is offering a promotion for a selection of Atari PC games, including those mentioned above and more (the full list is after the break). Each game has been marked down to four bucks and change, or you can grab the whole set of ten for $31.90. The deal is active through October 11.

#review This ain't Mario Party, it's Wii Party. Nintendo's latest effort at a party game once again features mini-games. Did someone say "mini-games"? More »

#screengrab Going to have to break this one up over two pages in the interests of Not Suitable For Work Safety. More »

Star Wars: The Old Republic systems director Damion Schubert hosted a panel at GDC Online 2010 today about that excruciating aspect of gameplay known as "The Grind," which he defined as any time developers ask players to do something they don't enjoy in order to open up something that they will enjoy.

Most developers use the grind to fill out gameplay content -- handcrafted, "gold standard" content is much tougher to make, whereas grindy content is cheap to put together. But sometimes it comes in handy, said Schubert. While making SWTOR, BioWare actually found that it was putting "too much gold-quality content into the game." Players would be confronted with a Star Destroyer to fight through, a lost Wookiee to save, and a Sith quest to complete; and Schubert said that "we had, by jamming all of this good stuff together, actually made it grindy."

So to fix the issue, BioWare first cut some of the least powerful stories (the lost Wookiee didn't make the cut, Schubert confirmed), and then spaced the rest of them out. Additionally, a feature called "bonus quests" will create optional tiny grinds -- players will be offered extra grind-style goals ("Kill 10 Stormtroopers") while running other quests. That "keeps the activity level up, but lets the gold-standard content breathe," according to Schubert.

He admitted that the grind isn't always a bad thing -- developers sometimes have great reasons to add grinding, and there's a perception factor to consider, as well (one player's maximum effort is another's boring grind). But developers should be able to balance the grind with content and activities that players do care about, Schubert urged, creating a full experience that requires different kinds of efforts for equally different kinds of rewards.

Hi everyone, get pumped for this week’s video store update!

You can now find all the latest and greatest primetime shows in Fall TV Premieres on PlayStation Store. Check out returning hit comedies and dramas like 30 Rock, Glee, and Smallville! Fans of Family Guy, The Simpsons, and American Dad can get their fix too. Looking for something new? Whet your TV appetite with newcomers The Event and Outsourced! Visit Featured Collections > Fall TV Premieres to start watching your favorites today!

Many of your favorite films and TV shows arrive in store this week. First, enjoy new releases of The Karate Kid, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), and Splice. Next, Iron Man 2 returns this week to give US and Canada users more purchase options. Rent and own Iron Man 2 now and don’t forget to visit Spotlight on Iron Man 2 for other comic-book related films like the original Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Hulk, The Dark Knight, and more! Want more of Family Guy? Check out Family Guy: Partial Terms of Endearment —Family Guy’s notorious abortion episode so hilariously offensive, it never aired on television! Last but not least, check out hilarious films from National Lampoon! Visit Movies > Studios > National Lampoon on the video store to find them all!

Get excited for incredible discounts available this week! Celebrate the release of Karate Kid on the video store with discounts on the original Karate Kid series of films and other great martial arts movies. All week long, enjoy movies like House of the Flying Daggers, The Karate Kid II, Beverly Hills Ninja, Kung Fu Hustle and more in Deal of the Week ‘The Karate Kid Sale’!

Other hot deals on PSN this week include a free episode of Inuyasha airing in HOME from 10/7 -10/14. And through 10/13, enjoy a special ‘Last Chance’ sale on the gruesome horror flick The Crazies—available for rent at just $1.99 before it leaves the store!

Before you head to the video store, check out the trailer for The Karate Kid starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, now available on the US and Canada store!

New TV shows and movies arrive every week! Here’s a taste of what’s in store…

Just in TV
US Store: Sons of Anarchy: Season 3, The Event: Season 1, South Park: Season 14, The Office: Season 7, The Ultimate Fighter: Season Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck, Naruto Shippuden Uncut: Season 1 Vol. 4, Terriers: Season 1, No Ordinary Family: Season 1, The Vampire Diaries: Season 2, Raising Hope: Season 1, Glee, Season 2, High School of the Dead: Season 1, Mantracker: Season 3, Caprica: The Series: Season 1, The Biggest Loser: Season 10, Weird, True & Freaky: Season 3, Detroit 1-8-7: Season 1, Cougar Town: Season 2, Modern Family, Season 2, Bones: Season 6, Nikita Season 1, The League: Season 2, and more!

Canada Store: High School of the Dead: Season 1, Big Love: Season 1, In
Treatment: Season 1, InuYasha: Season 1 Vol.1, Drinking Made Easy With Zane Lamprey: Season 1, Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 3, Oz: Season 4, Six Feet under: Season 3, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn: Season 1, Comedy Central Presents: Stand-Up: Season 1, and more!

New Release Movies
US Store: The Karate Kid, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Trick ‘r Treat, Addicted to Her Love, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, Shaquille O’Neal Presents: All Star Comedy Jam (Live From Dallas), Splice, Tormented, Fred: The Movie, Raging Phoenix, Hot Summer Days, Don’t Look Up, and more!

Canada Store: The Karate Kid, Iron Man 2, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, S Darko: Donnie Darko 2, Ray Bradbury’s Chrysalis, The Greatest, The Rig, Tell Tale, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Open Road, Blood on the Highway, Parasomnia, Boogie Woogie, and more!

Top TV Downloads

US:

Family Guy | Season 9 – And Then There Were Fewer Sons of Anarchy | Season 3 – Turning and Turning It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia | Season 6 – The Gang Buys a Boat Sons of Anarchy | Season 3 – Home Supernatural | Season 6 – Two and a Half Men Family Guy | Season 9 – Excellence in Broadcasting Smallville | Season 10 – Shield Family Guy: Partial Terms of Endearment The Office | Season 7 – Counseling Jersey Shore | Season Miami – Gone, Baby, Gone

Canada:

Spartacus: Blood and Sand | Season 1 – The Red Serpent High School of the Dead | Season 1 – The Sword and DEAD High School of the Dead | Season 1 – DEAD Storm Rising Family Guy | Season 8 – Road to Multi-verse Spartacus: Blood and Sand | Season 1 – Kill Them All Ancient Aliens | Season 1 – Closer Encounters Ancient Aliens | Season 1 – The Evidence Ancient Aliens | Season 1 – The Return Breaking Bad | Season 3 – Fly Spartacus: Blood and Sand | Season 1 – Party Favors

Top Movie Downloads

US:

Get Him to the Greek (Unrated) Iron Man 2 Robin Hood (2010) (Unrated) Superman/Batman: Apocalypse A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Splice The Karate Kid Frozen Killers Legendary

Canada:

The Karate Kid Iron Man 2 (VOD) Get Him to the Greek (Unrated) Robin Hood (2010) (Unrated) Iron Man 2 (EST) Frozen Prince Of Persia – The Sands Of Time The Rig Ray Bradbury’s Chrysalis Super High Me

#peripherals And you thought because it doesn't use peripherals Kinect would be spared a bunch of ridiculous third-party add-ons. Well, you were wrong. More »

It's hard to neatly sum up this latest Vanquish trailer. A lot of things happen, and very quickly. There's a transforming gun, lots of robot homicide (robocide?) and a ton of slow-motion explosions. Do you really need any more information than that?

#pc I once had a Thrustmaster "Top Gun" joystick. Best one I ever had. Got me through 2.5 X-Wing games after I'd broken four on the first one. This new one, though, is a lot nicer. More »