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#gamingappoftheday In late 2010, developer Kairosoft released one of its older mobile management games, long out in Japan on standard phones, in the West. That game was Game Dev Story. And it was brilliant. More »

Alec’s gone to a quiet place, to wash away the emotional stress of trying to keep up with bundled up charitable independent games. He’s using the sound of the seagulls to drown out the buzzwords of “pay what you want”, and “donation”, while I man up in RPSes montage gym. I just did seven squats and fought a bear to a double-knockout, all cut to Total Eclipse of The Heart. Now I’m ready for you, Indie Gala 2. (more…)

It’s not too often you see a game from Square Enix employ the use of death metal guitar, screamo vocals, and copious amounts of blood.

Army Corps of Hell brings a new level of action to PS Vita. After being defeated in battle, the King of Hell is burned down to a meager corpse, stripped of his powers, and banished from his throne. He uses the last of his strength to take command of a legion of weak-minded yet bloodthirsty goblins to reclaim his throne.

To annihilate the demons of Hell, you’ll control an army of up to 100 goblin soldiers with unique classes and abilities. In true Square Enix fashion, a new synthesis system lets you combine materials dropped by fallen foes to create new equipment for your troops. Customized equipment can change your goblin soldiers’ looks and upgrade the abilities. We’re making use of the various features of the PlayStation Vita and we’ve implemented ad-hoc multiplayer.

Check out the latest trailer above, which shows brutal ad-hoc (local multiplayer action with up to four players.)

The rear touchpad can be used to command your Goblins to play instruments—activating special properties. You can use this to revive your hero, rejuvenate your soldiers, and inspire your army to increase their strength! Skillful play is rewarded with substantial benefits and a greater edge against the demon horde.

Using these strategies and some help from friends, you can tackle even greater challenges and pillage the rarest loot in the game.

I’ve really enjoyed the theme of the game, and I’m really getting into the soundtrack. Watching the trailer has me aching for some Refused or Woundeep! I love that Square Enix is expanding our pool of titles with games like Army Corps of Hell. For more information and imagery for Army Corps of Hell, ‘Like’ us on Facebook.

Surprise hit Dungeon Defenders has sold a million units across Xbox Live, PSN and Steam, the game's publisher told us in a recent interview. The well-received co-op tower defense action game launched on October 19, 2011, and has kept a steady sales beat going on Steam with deep discounts and consistent support.

"It is tremendously successful franchise," Reverb Publishing CEO Doug Kennedy said. "We have lots of plans to support it both with DLC and additional add-ons for the franchise."

There are still three more packs planned across all platforms in addition to "The Lost Eternia Shards: Mistymire Forest" DLC. On Steam, there is also the current and future Holiday DLC, the New Heroes Pack, the Barbarian character, Assault Mission Pack, Nightmare Mode and more, which will not make its way to consoles. due to "technical and business" concerns.

Before deciding on the post-apocalyptic survival adventure The Last of Us, Naughty Dog considered putting its team to work on a game starring a more familiar duo: Jak & Daxter. According to a Game Informer interview (quoted by VG247), Naughty Dog looked into a new Jak & Daxter game on PS3. "I don't know if this is going to make [fans] happy or sad," but we did explore the idea fairly extensively," company co-president Evan Wells said. "Something that we talked about early on was, 'Lets go back and apply what we've learned with the Uncharted games to Jak & Daxter.'"

Wells and the team realized, however, that an experimental Jak game wouldn't satisfy the fans, and working on a game like its predecessors wouldn't satisfy Naughty Dog. "We would end up limiting the direction that the company had this passion for while simultaneously not creating the game that fans wanted," he said. "We just realised we were going to just do everybody a disservice. So at that point, the conversations started to move in a new direction."

Wells suggested the possibility that the Uncharted team could work on the series. "I guess there's a possibility the Uncharted team could move on to Jak & Daxter. "It's still up in the air, but I wouldn't think that's going to happen because I think we'd run into all of the same problems with that team that we did with this team."Naughty Dog considered new Jak & Daxter game, but decided on The Last of Us

As the internet (and our comments) stirs with news about the upcoming Guild Wars 2 press beta weekend, rest assured that Kotaku will be there, doing Guild Wars-y things. You'll read all about it Monday, February 20. More »

As I sat in 2K’s lobby waiting to play Spec Ops: The Line, a man played The Darkness II on a nearby consolebox. If I were to estimate, I’d say 84% of his time was spent eviscerating people, tearing them limb from limb, punching gaping holes through their most precious parts and lopping off their screaming faces with a twitch of his tentacles. It truly was one of the most gruesome displays I’ve ever been witness to. That man was Shawn Frison, senior designer at Yager Games. In Spec Ops, he has helped create something far more brutal than the comic book killfest of The Darkness.

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Sanctum 2, the sequel to Coffee Stain Studios' hybrid tower defense and first-person co-op shooter, is expected to launch sometime this year Joystiq can exclusively reveal. The first Sanctum, which has sold over 300,000 units on Steam, was a PC-exclusive title. The sequel is planned for PC and "digital console platforms," with Xbox Live and PSN specifically mentioned.

"Sanctum has been a huge success on Steam for Coffee Stain Studios, and bringing the next version to console players as well as the PC market is a great next step to share this unique experience," said Ted Lange, executive producer for Reverb Publishing. "We all have logged quite a few hours with Sanctum and can definitively say that what Coffee Stain has in store for Sanctum 2 will blow the minds of Sanctum fans and new gamers alike."

Beyond revealing the title to us, along with a release year, details are still tight on Sanctum 2. Doug Kennedy, CEO of Reverb Publishing, told us, "The team is diligently working to get the title ready."

Fact: every single important thing in history happened on a Monday, and that trend continues today.

#psvita What the latest Inside PS Vita is trying to say is that by purchasing a Vita you're becoming a member of a global gaming community connected by glowing threads of gaming-infused light, wrapping about you like a brilliant cocoon in which you'll never feel lonely ever again. I might be reading a bit much into it. More »

When a developer is bought out by a publisher, it’s usually the case that they then don’t see any ongoing royalties from the games they make for them, or indeed for any existing intellectual property that was swallowed up as part of the studio acquisition. It’s standard practice, part of the dark deal some studios made to ensure immediate financial viability and larger project budgets. But what it does mean is that a great many of the PC games we regularly celebrate around these parts are no longer bringing in any money for their creators, despite still being on sale. Whenever we excitedly see an old classic appear on Steam or GoG (such as Thief last week), chances are very high that whatever we pay for it goes purely to the publisher and the download service. The men and women who toiled over that game’s creation won’t see another penny from it.

Veteran developer Simon Roth – now working with Frozen Synapse creators Mode 7 – has compiled a partial list of some of the games for which this is true. I have selected just a few of the most renowned, including Deus Ex, System Shock, Vampire Bloodlines, Dungeon Keeper et al, but there are many more listed on his site, and many, many more yet to be compiled.(more…)

Three new titles entered Chart-Track's UK sales top ten last week, led by Final Fantasy XIII-2. Sneaking the silver was the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which includes MGS2: Sons of Liberty (2002), MGS3: Snake Eater (2005) and MGS: Peacewalker (2012). Rounding out the top three is Battlefield 3, up two spots, as FIFA 12 slides from first to fourth.

Another new addition to the top ten, SoulCalibur 5, premieres in fifth. Chart-Track notes that the prior SoulCalibur debuted in the top spot back in August of 2008.

The solid debut last week of 3DS action horror title Resident Evil: Revelations finds the game retreating from sixth to 19 on the latest chart. Wander past the break for the UK top ten.

#taipeigameshow Now in its tenth year, the Taipei Game Show was expected to draw over 300,000 visitors. As previously reported, this year's show also packed in overseas game companies to show new hardware, like the PS Vita, as well as new games. More »

If I were to tally up all the people I've shot throughout the host of single player first-person shooter campaigns I've played I'd be shocked. Outside of the games where the antagonists are super natural or not of this world, most of the humans were foreigners, people who already feel alien to me an...

#kof Oh my! The King of Fighters XIII is getting a new version, The King of Fighters XIII: Climax. It apparently brings characters from KOFXIII's home console versions, such as Nests Style Kyo, to arcades. More »

#dodonpachi Cave's newest shooter DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou recently got its first arcade location at Japanese game center Taito Hey! in Tokyo's Akihabara. More »

Atari have affixed a serious face to announce the next Test Drive game. I tried to make them smile as they did it by capering about, but the news was so grave and grim that not even a glimpse of a smile appeared. No Hawaii, no holidays, no career mode where you take a busboy all the way to luxury car owner, no balloons and bouncy castles. Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends has 50 determined classic Ferrari cars and 36 no-nonsense tracks. If it could be represented as a smiley, it would be :-|(more…)

10,000 fans of the Half-Life series logged on to play Half-Life 2 over the weekend in an attempt to force Valve into revealing more information on the Half-Life series, whether that be Episode 3 or Half-Life 3...

#tragedy As Kotaku previously reported, a 23-year-old man recently died at a Taiwanese internet cafe. Nine hours later, someone noticed. More »

Perhaps you’ve already discovered the 20 years of playable history that congeal together to form the Crusader Kings II demo? It appears to have marched onto the internet during the weekend, a time when I am traditionally to be found scrutinising medieval maps of Europe. This weekend I decided to be trapped in a cabin in the middle of the woods during a night of heavy snow instead, so I hadn’t spotted the demo until now. Download it here.

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#china Back in November 2011, Air China (China's national airline) launched its in-flight wifi service. Unfortunately it wasn't a real wifi network, users only connected to the in-flight intranet instead of the real internet. More »

Instead, as the company explained at the Taipei Game Show, Final Fantasy X is getting a HD remastering—like Metal Gear or Shadow of the Colossus—and not a full-on HD remake. [Gematsu via FF-Reunion] More »

File under ‘extremely vague online reports that we’re honestly not going to take entirely seriously until there’s more proof’ and ‘oh, that would be lovely, and just the idea of it happening is enough to move me to post wanton rumour-mongering’ and ‘how to immediately upset a load of modders who’ve spent months diligently Photoshopping new high-res textures in pursuit of prettiness and online fame’.

Some news we managed to not report: the Skyrim Creation Kit, i.e. the official omni-mod tool, is ‘on track’ to land on Steam tomorrow. That’s according to Bethesda’s lead person-spoker Pete Hines, who teasingly added that “we also have a special surprise with it. What could it be?” Well, a few folk have dug up partial, alleged evidence to suggest that it’ll be high-res textures for the PC version of the game. Probably not accurate: but, oh, oh! Imagine if it was…

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#psvita On Feb. 8th, Sony is launching the System Firmware Ver. 1.60 for the Vita. Here is some of what this update contains: a new Map application, video recording, and Mac OS support. More »

#ushijimaiiniku Won't somebody think of the children? You think of the children; Ushijima Ii Niku ("Good Meat") is going to push every envelope she can with her daring cosplay. More »

Ultra-realistic military sim to contain fictional near-future vehicles and weaponry. Upon hearing the news, four retired colonels smash crystal brandy decanters while blustering angrily through their majestic militarised moustaches. If you think you can stay resolute while squinting at intensely detailed visual representations of things that do not exist, Arma III may be the game for you. Put the brandy to one side and focus your monocle below.

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#fistofthenorthstar Fist of the North Star's Kenshiro got a life-sized statue last fall. It was covered in 500,000 Swarovski crystals, apparently worth ¥10,000,000 or $130,000. More »

The battle of Uncanny Valley is where CGI finally triumphed over reality: pixels stood proudly over humans showing off their parametrization maps and tone mapping that accurately depicted the imperfection of human skin and declared victory over reality. The first shot in the war fired when researcher Jorge Jimenez released this work on real-time realistic skin rendering, showing off the difference SSSS (Sexy Separable Subsurface Scattering – okay, I added that first ‘S’) makes.(more…)

#taipeigameshow TGS, no not the Tokyo Game Show, but instead the Taipei Game Show is closing today in Taipei, Taiwan. More »

Hauntingly beautiful, exploration-based first-person ghost story Dear Esther (a lavish remake of the mod of the same name) is up for the Excellence In Visual Art, Excellence In Audio, Nuovo Award and Seamus McNally Grand Prize at this year’s Independent Games Festival. As part of our series chatting to the creators of (almost) all the PC and Mac-based finalists, today we talk to Robert Briscoe, lead artist on Dear Esther, about Stalker, Mirror’s Edge, making in-game exploration satisfying, why indie development should be taught in universities and his answer to the most important question of all.(more…)