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What Game Genre Leaves You Cold, Oh So Very Cold?
Posted by Brian Ashcraft at 3:45 PM on June 7, 2008
Time to run at the mouth! It's Friday. So prop up your feet and open your mouth as we close this week with another round of TELL US DAMMIT. How it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn't some marketing survey or whatever. It's an emotional investment in you. Yes, we're interesting in knowing you, Kotaku reader person. You probably know fucktons about us -- more than you even want to, we're sure. But, hey, we'd like to know about you. That way you won't be some faceless blob -- and we might feel a tinge of guilt when we ban your arse. Or not, because really we're incapable of human emotion. Whatever!
Earlier we did a post on why first person and third person shooters are not popular in Japan. Many folks don't seem to get the appeal! Fair enough. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.
Question: What game genre leaves you cold?
Your first thoughts may be that the Metal Gear Solid 4 marketing juggernaut maaaay have gone a step too far this time. The offer? Buy a gunmetal or regular MGS4 bundle in Japan and (while stocks last!) you get this...bag. It's one of those cotton, canvas-y type bags that you all should be using to throw your groceries in instead of plastic bags. Which may sound boring, but seeing as it's big enough to hold a PS3 box in, it's also mighty practical! After all, most gaming trinkets are just junk to clutter your shelves with. It's nice seeing one you can not only use on a day-to-day basis, but is environmentally conscious to boot!
And no, not because it raises the prospect of a Wii port of Mark Ecko's Getting up. It's because, when I look at this excellent, home-made modification - crafted by German uni student Martin Lihs - that sees a can of spray paint turned into a fully-functioning Wii Remote, I think of a Wii version of Jet Set Radio (with 1:1 tagging), then I get a little giddy, then I get a little dizzy, then I need to go sit down for a bit.
And the Snake 'Stache entries are rolling in! Here's an Old Snake tissue lip from reader Cheese — complete with salute! Now, we didn't say you needed a Kotaku sign for this contest, but if you add one, we'll be happy. (However, you do need one for the Dragon Ball Z contest.) Contestants must create and wear moustaches made out of anything BUT hair. Got that? Entries must be of a non-hair moustache, and it must be on the contestant's face. Finalists will be announced on June 12th. That's soon! The winner with get an exclusive limited edition Metal Gear Solid 2 Raiden figure. More details 
Courtesy of this month's GamePro, which is as you read this working its way to subscriber's mailboxes. While the cover feature promises news on all future Halo titles, it only dishes out hard information (and gorgeous new screens) on Halo Wars. But that's OK. We'll take it. Because a console RTS is a new experience for Ensemble, they've stripped back their traditional playstyle in favour of something a little more Halo-esque. Which means only one economic unit - "supplies" - and fast, fast, fast battles, with the team promising you can be fighting "within ten seconds" of hitting the battlefield. Also revealed is at least a partial list of the units that'll be available.
Team Fortress 2 classes decked out with doe eyes and D-cups? Inevitable. We're surprised it took this long to come to our attention, but artist "ghostfire" has launched a thousand shameful clean up sessions with her—not a typo!—rendition of the Red Team in cute outfits that are wildly inappropriate for battle. Yes, prints are available!
In another case of EA, Harmonix and/or MTV Games looking for consumer opinion on the next Rock Band, Joystiq has posted a pair of box art concepts for Rock Band 2 that are being focus tested via an online survey. As it did last month, when it polled potential Rock Band buyers about new pricing schemes, survey experts are asking web surfers to pick one of two styles. We happen to prefer the one above, but our arch-nemeses prefer the other.
Earlier this year, Hudson Square Research analyst Daniel Ernst issued estimates for Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV, 
Yesterday I visited THQ here in New York City, to check out their upcoming lineup of games for this year's Fall and holiday seasons. Given how heavily the publisher weighs its kid-friendly, casual and Nickelodeon-licence titles, I set my expectations low, but after getting a chance to check out a few items of interest, I feel a bit more optimistic.
Freeverse dropped us a note to let us know that they've released a "preview" of one their iPhone game Wingnuts Moto Racer, a heavily redacted preview.
Chris "Topher" Allen, who had been a multiplayer designer on Saints Row 2 at Volition, passed away on Sunday, May 11th of natural causes. He was 35.
Alarmingly, American teenagers are far more educated about entertainment media and pop culture than they are about their own government. For example, 59 percent of teens can name the Three Stooges, but only 41 percent can name the three branches of the U.S. government. 94 percent of teens know that Will Smith is the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - but only 2.2 percent can name the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The only gaming I'll be doing this weekend will be in the form of low stakes blackjack and pulling some one-armed bandits, as this weekend is a Vegas weekend for yours truly. Having just visited Las Vegas for Capcom's Captivate 08 media event last week, you might wonder why I'd be so quick to return. Well, when you don't leave step out of the confines of the hotel for 48 hours, you don't really see much of Vegas.
LucasArts may be saying publicly that its recent mass layoffs were 
Sony is always on the prowl for engineers and programmers with a familiarity with their hardware, but they haven't exactly made it easy to get your hands on a development kit in the past. That all changes now as SCEA introduces the PlayStation-edu program, which focuses on familiarising you engineers and programmers with the PlayStation hardware. 
The original Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, first held around 786 B.C., were created as a celebration of human physical achievement, which apparently consisted of watching naked, well-muscled men running foot races.
The game that launched a thousand role-playing games toady celebrates its latest incarnation as Wizards of the Coast announces the release of the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Rulebooks. The new set of rules not only herald a more streamlined D&D experience, but also the first true joining of pen & paper D&D to the online world with the introduction of the 
Yesterday it was revealed that Darth Vader's secret apprentice from the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed would be appearing as a character in Namco Bandai's Soul Calibur IV, and now we've got pictures of the Mr. Secret himself in action, taking on the Soul Calibur regulars as well as the lean, green lightsabre machine Yoda himself. If this were a Star Wars game the screenshot up top would be immediately followed by a rolling Sith apprentice head, but who knows how things will go in the Soul Calibverse?
With Space Siege deep in development, many fans of Gas Powered Games' previous efforts have grumbled at the change in venue from the fantasy world of Dungeon Siege to the depths of space. Worry not, yon fantasy fans, as GPG founder Chris Taylor reveals to Eurogamer.de that Dungeon Siege 3 is indeed in the works...though some major changes might be separating it from the first two entries in the series.
UK developer Codemasters have set their sights on Japan, announcing a fully localised version of the recently released Race Driver: GRID heading to to Japanese shores this winter. While the game in it's current form already boasts a series of Japanese events complete with a Japanese speaking announcer, Codemasters will be adding more country-specific content and translating all of the text for the release. On top of the localisation, copies of the Japanese version of the game will also ship with a full version of Colin McRae: DIRT. The release marks Codemasters debut as a publisher in the country.
iPhone games will be getting some face time at Apple's WWDC show next week, according to the CEO of LemonQuest, who believes games for the device will likely cost 17 to 18 Euros a pop (about $AU 29.08).
Not only is 
A federal jury has thrown out the third of five lawsuits brought against Microsoft by Alcatel-Lucent SA which alleged that the Xbox 360 violated the company's video coding patent.
Funcom proudly announces that Age of Conan is now passing the one million copies shipped milestone, and with the game still selling out across the western world the number of subscribers should continue to grow at a steady pace. They're calling it the biggest simultaneous Europe/US game launch in history. Of course all of this success leads directly to the inevitable WoW-based marketing blurb.
GameStop and friends are about to get a whole slew of canceled preorders. Bethesda has just announced the Fallout 3 Survival Edition, which takes the regular Collector's Edition and dials things up to eleven. Really there is only one difference, but it's a pretty big one - a life-size replica of the Pip-Boy 3000, the wrist computer worn by players in the game. While not actually wearable (until modders get their hands on it), the Pip-Boy is painstakingly replicated in every detail and retrofitted with a digital clock so as to be useful as well as ornamental.