kotaku

When A Game Journo Becomes A Game Designer…

2:00PM Logan Booker | A year can go by crazy quick. Imagine a rocket strapped to a second, bigger rocket. Now, stick that in an Acme-brand slingshot. That’s how fast years go, if giant cartoon slingshots existed and enormous liquid oxygen-propelled apparati were easy to come by. Anyway, the point is that come September, I’ll have been at Kotaku AU about a year. The month will also, sadly, mark my departure. From October onwards, I’ll be employed as a game designer at Tantalus. It’s full-time, which leaves no-time for Kotaku. It’s also based in Melbourne, which means bye-bye Sydney. Cue sad face. Before I start crying – I’m not going anywhere just yet! I still have a few weeks at the helm of Kotaku AU. After that, well… if the idea of writing for the largest gaming blog in Australia tickles your fancy (or other places), just send a brief note, resume and sample post to jobs@alluremedia.com.au, and the higher-ups will take a look. Game design won’t stop me from blogging however. If for some reason you like what I write, I’ll be scribing at my shiny new site, Playwrite. A massive, enduring thanks to every reader, tipster and fanboy that helped make Kotaku AU a force to be reckoned with. You’ve made my stay both pleasant and exciting. These are good, tasty things. Now, back to your regular viewing… More »

Do You Think Gaming Should Be In The Olympics?

3:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Here we go! Talk time. That’s right, it’s Friday. Time for another round of Tell Us Dammit. No, make that TELL US DAMMIT. And here’s 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 interested 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. We think. The Olympics have started! And we all oh so very excited!! So much so that Gawker Media is aggregating all the network’s Olympic coverage in one place on sister sports blog Deadspin. That place is right here. ANWYAY, here’s my question: Do you think gaming should be an Olympic sport? And why? More »

Kotaku’s New Tool: The Straight Razor of Disemvoweling

2:00AM Brian Crecente | I think it’s fair to assume that everyone on Kotaku is very familiar with the Banhammer, wielded now with force by Shiraz. But I’ve never been totally happy that our only options for comment management is to either do nothing or ban someone. In fact for months, maybe years, I’ve been asking tech to whip something up that would allow us to warn users that they are tip-toeing into banhammer country, traipsing into the cave of the angry comment moderator. My suggestion was that we create an opposite to that fancy star you get for being an exceptionally insightful commenter. Maybe a grey dunce hat or an exclamation point. Well, neither have come to fruition (yet). But I still have hopes. Yesterday afternoon there was a knock at the front gate of Kotaku Tower. When I opened the doors I discovered a small box sitting on the splintering doorstep. Inside, a straight razor. And not just any straight razor, but a straight razor of disemvoweling. With a flick of the wrist troublesome commenters have all of the vowels of a post sliced free. Consider it a warning, because there aren’t too many people who can survive more than one dance with the razor. More »

Kotaku Originals: I’d Like to Buy a Disemvowel

12:00AM Owen Good | The big news this week: Rock Band 2’s dates slipped out, Rockstar finally goes ahead and tells us GTA IV is coming to the PC, and Crecente is gonna blast his genetic material into space. But wait, there’s less: The Tower formally unveiled the penalty of “disemvoweling“, which means miscreants who don’t necessarily commit banhammerable offences will have a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y removed from their comments. Jst dn’t mk mstrbtn jks t Crcnt’s xpns nd vrthng wll b lrght. Hr’s th wk n rgnl rprtng, wth mr ftr th jmp:

Watch Pokemon Movie, Get Free Stuff, Japanese Kiddos!

11:40PM Brian Ashcraft | To: Crecente From: Ashcraft RE: Eye of the Storm Mrs. Bashcraft took the kid to see this summer’s Pokémon movie, Giratina to Sora no Hanataba: Sheimi. Every summer, a new one is churned out like clockwork. Last year, we all went to go see Dialga VS Palkia VS Darkrai, which actually made Mini-Bash cry. While watching a particularly moving scene in Sheimi, my wife said she started to hand Mini-Bash a tissue. To which he replied: “This is really sad, but I’m not crying”. Check out the loot he got for going to the movie: Stickers, a card and a puck for the Pokémon kiddy arcade game. What you missed last night You Will Never, Ever Game On A Rig This Expensive Soulcalibur IV, Over 2 Million Copies Sold Worldwide Loads Of New Square Enix Screens (FFXIII, Kingdom Hearts, etc) Microsoft Clarifies Final Fantasy XIII Asia Version “Announcement” Braid Priced High To Prevent “The Space Giraffe Problem” Konami Pulls In $US 655 Million In Q1 With A Little Help From Snake Kratos, Nariko Come To LittleBigPlanet Pre-orderers

Kotaku Originals: Early Builds R Us

12:00AM Owen Good | So we had a little drama regarding the fate of Ghostbusters and other titles at Activision, and lo and behold an early build landed in his mail to prove that all things Gozer and Zuul are still going forward. They didn’t even mind if Brian wrote about the preview code, and he did in a spoiler-filled post. We also had a big bodyimage discussion week, as Tuesday saw Soulcalibur IV’s boobalicious release, and Fat Princess continues to stir shit, with its title alone. In all, pretty newsy week around these here parts. Some highlights below, with the full list of original reporting on the jump.