Retro

Gears, Gods And Giant Robots: A Look Back At One Of The Best RPGs Ever

The other day on Twitter, fellow Kotaku writer Kate Cox mentioned she had just finished Xenogears, Square’s classic PlayStation role-playing game. Since Xenogears is one of my favourite games, a classic up there with the best RPGs ever, I bugged her roughly 19,283,493,849,284,924 times to come chat about her experiences for Random Encounters. Eventually she said yes.


May 26, 2012
Retro

Get Out Of Our Real World, Video Game Characters, You Look Too Good

Artist Jamie Sneddon’s 8-bit scapes is a collection of prints showing video game characters let loose in the real world, taking over locations like Cologne, Hong Kong and Manhattan.


May 19, 2012
Retro

It Takes A Lot Of Focus To Play Pong… WITH YOUR MIND

Psychic/possessed children are creepy. They do creeeepy things, like stare blankly at you and speak in a monotone and maybe set your hair on fire with their minds.


Retro

This Is How You Make Retro Video Game Characters Even More Retro

Kotaku AU

Time for your yearly dose of video game art from feudal Japan. What, you’ve never seen Megaman, Link and Samus drawn as woodblock prints? Well, let’s do something about that.


Retro

It’s True, Japanese First-Person Shooters Exist

After finding out about The Legend of Alfur, a Japanese indy-made FPS for the PC, it struck me how weird it was to hear the words “Japanese-made” and “FPS” in the same sentence. While typically thought of as “overly violent games from the West” in Japan, they have recently grown in popularity here in Japan. Call of Duty: Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 and 3 each sold a quite respectable 400k copies in Japan.


May 13, 2012
PC

Tired Of Waiting For Black Mesa? Play This Insane HD Half-Life Mod Right Now

Mark wrote earlier this week about the sorry state of Black Mesa, the ambitious Half-Life remake mod for Half-Life 2. If you simply cannot wait, there’s another way to get a fresh lick of paint on everyone’s favourite particle science facility. And by “lick of paint” I mean “high-resolution texture pack”.


Retro

Watch Shigeru Miyamoto’s Game Design Keynote From GDC 1999

Kotaku AU

1999. That’s 13 years ago. While I was in year 10, struggling to keep my days absent below 20 (yes, I was crazy truant), Shigeru Miyamoto already had the legacies of Mario, Zelda and Star Fox on his mantle. He also delivered the keynote for that year’s Game Developers Conference, which you can now watch online and freely absorb the legendary designer’s wisdom.


May 12, 2012
Retro

Because Nothing Says ‘Exciting WWII Aeroplane Action’ Like A Flying Baby

Most everyone has some memory or another of 1943, the top-down aeroplane bullet-hell shooter to which we all lost a good deal of quarters.


Retro

A Moment To Re-Experience The Amazing Intro To Full Throttle

Has it been a while since you last played Full Throttle? I’m guessing it has. Sit back, relax and watch the intro movie from the game.


May 5, 2012
PC

The Moment When Max Payne Realised He Was In A Video Game

It’s not that common that a video game character realises that he’s actually in a video game. And like any fourth-wall breaking shenanigans, it can be a tricky manoeuvre to pull off.