Kotaku Flowers and Burned Bones
To: Crecente
From: Bashcraft
RE: Crap
Wanted to thank you and the other Kotaku staffers for sending a bouquet* all the way to Japan. Working in virtual Kotaku Tower means that our daily environment is probably different from most people's office experience. I was touched that things like tangible sentiment transcend an invisible work place. Thank you and the other writers for reaching out. We really appreciate it. (And of course! This being Japan, the flower company screwed up the spelling. Doh!)
read more »11:40 PM on Mon Oct 15 2007
by Brian Ashcraft
Hrm. Sure, that kinda looks like Yuna from Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2. But that costume is "Fantasy Heroine" from costume site 3wishes, which also liberally borrows from Capcom's Chun-Li for its "Kung Fu Cutie" outfit. Isn't this kinda stuff copyrighted? Not surprising as this is the same retailer responsible for the naughty Princess Peach outfit as well as the Pac-Man bra. There was a Pac-Man bra? Geez, nobody tells me anything! All that after the jump. 
Don't get too excited. It's just the 
Folklore (AKA FolksSoul) is a PS3 game. But let's imagine, for a second, just a second, that it wasn't. Hypothetically, could the game work on the Nintendo Wii? Folklore director Takashi Shono says:
More Halo figures are on their way. And already, it's time for lazy repaints! While McFarlane are sending five "new" figures our way early next year, three are just Master Chief repaints. Boring. The other two, though, are custom Spartans, one in CQB armour (a Wal-Mart exclusive), one in EVA armour. And are much more interesting. Least, they are if you find 6-inch Halo figures interesting.
Jack into the matrix! Professor Junichi Ushiba of the Keio University Biomedical Engineering Laboratory has created a brain-computer interface (BCI) for Second Life that lets players stroll their avatars through the SL world just by thinking about walking. How does it work? 
If you went to a maid internet cafe, you know, to talk to maids, drink fizzy soda and play freeware PC games, you'd probably want the cafe's computer to be housed in something suitable. Something like a maid skirt with stockings — as not to be out of place. Hey, if you can play the PS3 with maids, then why not maid PC cases. Or something. Starting October 7th, maid cafe 
Three UC Irvine students have won IBM's Cell Broadband Engine Professor University Challenge. Their project? Oh, hooking three PS3s together to reproduce human brain functions: 
With Wii, PSP and PS2 titles slated, hit anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is getting its fair share of game adaptations. That's not it! It's also getting a tonne of dirty movie adaptations — a true metric of just how popular it is! While previous questionable movies we've covered include Haruhi 
Last Christmas, Microsoft published two very important titles. One was Gears of War. You may have heard of it. But what was the other? Oh, go on. Guess. That's right. It was Viva Pinata! The game everybody loved and nobody bought. Speaking with Gamasutra, Rare's James Thomas ponders just why MS spent a bucketload of cash on Gears but left Viva Pinata hanging in the wind: 
We post enough game shirts to last an eternity. But skirts? No, we are short on skirts and even shorter on the short skirts. This made-from-scratch mini sports two front pockets and is really, really cute. I sure hope this gaming skirt trend catches on!
That's a lot of yen. Even when you turn them into dollars! Because it translates to $95 billion. Which is a lot of market value for a wee little company like Nintendo, seeing as that kind of worth puts the Kyoto company in the same league as, oh, Toyota. Nintendo hit the milestone earlier today, when their shares rose 4.6%. 
Maybe Microsoft are just going to let the 360 Arcade pack slip quietly out into the retail channel and, once there, let it fend for itself. Seems to be what they're doing! Because the packs have been turning up on retail shelves across the US all weekend. Shelves like that one pictured above. Thanks, MS, but with the things already at retailers we probably don't even need that announcement anymore. We got it from here.
Nothing quite says Halloween like game related pumpkin carvings! Kotakuite thecrapple sent this along, writing:
Last Friday, the Xbox 360 Elite went on sale in Japan. By the end of the day, the black HDMI console with a 120GB HD sold out at several major Akihabara retailers. 
Funtastic just sent through its release schedule for the rest of the year. 
Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars is at it again, this time with "exclusive" info on the sequel to Insomniac's FPS for the PlayStation 3.
My game purchases this week will be woefully small as not only am I staying with a friend in NYC who is a non-gamer and therefore has no consoles, but I am leaving on Wed. for LA to go to E for All. But one thing I will definitely be picking up is Beautiful Katamari just so I can hold it in my hand and wish I could play it. What's on your must have purchase list this week?
If you liked Phoenix Wright, you'll love Harvey Birdman. Or maybe you won't, I don't know your life. Regardless, Capcom has graced us with a bunch of new screens for the upcoming game featuring Harvey and the game up to their courtroom antics. I always love the inclusion of the various Hanna-Barbera characters and if you look close, you can even see Peanut holding a PSP. Ah, self-referentiality, you never grow old.
If you haven't been following Offset Software's "Project Offset", now is a good time to start. The developer has released some new screenshots for its team-based fantasy FPS/RPG, and the game is looking as stunning as ever. Hit the jump for the rest of the shots
Maybe you haven't finished BioShock yet and you need to install it on another machine. Or invasive online DRM systems give you the creeps. Whatever the reason, PC owners of 2K Australia/2K Boston's FPS can now "deactivate" their installed copies and move them to another box, without having to worry about getting a nasty message telling them they've used up all their activations.
Ever wondered what it's like to be a librarian at an institution where your patrons are incapable of finding the most basic of materials on their own? No? Me neither. But just in case you're dying to find out, the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries have put together the 
Remember those MECA made Castlevania action figures we've been drooling over for months? Well, now they are available for pre-order at PlayAsia.com. The seven inch figures are going for $US15 plus shipping and include Simon Belmont, Dracula and a Succubus. There is also an Alucard figure that is currently listed as "Announced - Preorders opening soon." So many cool toys, so little money, so sad.
