Godzilla and his atomic breath are one of the most recognizable metaphors for the atomic bombings of WWII—and they're also icons of Japanese pop culture. With a steady supply of Kaiju movies, giant monsters nestled themselves comfortably in video games, creating a huge library of monster mayhem-based titles. We have selected some of them, both niche and well-known, featuring battles with these towering beasts.

Daikaijuu Deburas (NES - 1990)

Shadow Of The Colossus (PS2 - 2005)

Super Godzilla (SNES - 1993)

Cho Aniki (PC Engine - 1992)

Godzilla Generations (Sega Dreamcast - 1998)

Dark Souls (PS3/360/PC - 2011/2012)

Lost Planet 1-2 (PS3/360/PC - 2006/2010)

Ultraman: Towards The Future (SNES/Sega Genesis - 1991/1993)

King Of The Monsters 1-2 (SNES/Sega Genesis/NeoGeo - 1991/1992)

Do you know any other huge monsters from Japanese video games? Show us with visuals in the comments below.

sources: ObscureVideoGames, SaikyoMog's LP, HardcoreGaming101, dloredo01's LP, ClassicGameRoom, Fang Wolfox's LP, PrepareToDie

We've got another Massive Black artist for you today, which is always a treat. Coro Kaufman is one of the studio's co-founders, and also serves as its art director. Needless to say, his stuff is great.

In this gallery you'll see examples from many of the games he's worked on over the past few years, including Red Faction, Army of Two, Lost Planet 2, Silent Hill and even Golden Axe.

In addition to his video game work, Kaufman has also whipped up concepts for commercials, toys, TV, movies, clothes and even album covers. He's also putting the finishing touches on a graphic novel called Transient Man, which is about a hobo who may or may not be "an inter-dimensional savior of humanity, on a mission to save the universe".

You can check out the comic here, and if you like what you see, hit up the Kickstarter page and help get it printed!

I was only mildly impressed with this pair of cosplayers' efforts to recreate a scene from Capcom's Lost Planet 2, at least until the mini-gun started spinning.

I knew there was a good reason for the crazy female outfits in Lost Planet 2. Capcom's Shawn "Snow" Baxter yanked this costumed couple out of a link in the Capcom Unity forums, posting their performance at the 2011 Expomanga Madrid as "The Best Lost Planet Cosplay You'll Ever See." Considering I can't recall ever seeing anyone else cosplaying as Lost Planet characters, he is most likely correct.

At least these two went the extra mile, not satisfied with just looking vaguely misplaced on a astronomical scale. There is no way anyone is ever finding that planet this time.

The Best Lost Planet Cosplay You'll Ever See [Capcom Unity]

Think you are excited about Sony's upcoming portable, the NGP? You're not alone. Game developers are apparently totally jazzed about it, too. And the NGP might not only change the way you play games, but the way video games are made.

"NGP is a developer's dream," a developer speaking under anonymity told website Eurogamer. "Sony is finally doing the things developers have been crying out for for years." Sony, it seems, recently held a meeting for game developers in London, outlining that the NGP's first year would be directed at core games, while its second year would be focused on "hardcore and teens". Sony will apparently expand to a wider audience after that.

What developers have been crying out for is the ability to take games they'd made for the PS3 and quickly (and easily) put them on Sony's portable platform. And with the NGP, it sounds like they can do just that.

During the NGP press event last week in Tokyo, game developers like Konami, Sega and Capcom showed that they could quickly churn out NGP-ready footage and praised just how straight forward that was. While some of the footage looked great (Metal Gear Solid IV), some did not (Lost Planet 2). That, of course, could be due to how much time was spent preparing the footage and is no way a fair assessment of what the machine can do.

Everything, it sounds, has been streamlined with the NGP. Supposedly a PS3 development kit takes 3 hours to get up and running, while the NGP's apparently only takes 20 minutes.

While the NGP development kits have been in select game studios for over a year, Sony is now sending out the units which will have "the final" graphics processing unit in it. During our hands-on with the NGP, Kotaku was able to check out the machine's touch pad, and Eurogamer's developer source says that it is possible to program up to six points of multi-touch.

"Sony has made it completely developer-centric this time," the source added. "[The development kit] is really simple to plug in and use. It opens direct in Windows Explorer and you can see all systems on a network — so you could, for example, update the firmware of multiple NGPs at once."

"They want us to do cross-platform," said the source, adding that game developers have a much easier time submitting their games for the PlayStation Network and NGP. The developers at the meeting were also apparently told, "All games at launch available on flash [the physical storage medium] would also be on PSN."

However, the developer source tells Eurogamer that Sony does not want the exact same game on the PS3 and the NGP, that there "has to be a reason for the NGP title". So, ideally, the source says that there will be "interactivity" between the PS3 and the NGP versions, with NGP-only features.

When developers at the meeting apparently raised the issue of the rumored "cloud" saving, which would help gamers switch easily between the PS3 and NGP, the company apparently would not confirm it. Sony also supposedly touched on the social networking promise of the NGP, that could use cameras and augmented reality.

From what the insider tells Eurogamer, it sounds as though there will be a gap between the launch of the NGP and its 3G version. At yesterday's developer presentation, the Wi-Fi version was listed as "2011", while the 3G version was "Holiday 2011".

If the game developers are on board (and it sounds like they are), then gamers can hopefully look forward to a steady stream of video games.

Kotaku is reaching out to Sony for confirmation and will update should the company comment.

New NGP details emerge at private event PSP2 News [Eurogamer.net]