The Fox Engine. You've heard about it. You've seen the PR. We know it's going to be the game engine for the next Metal GearThe Phantom Pain. So what's it all about? Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, in a recent tweet, revealed the concept of the Fox Engine, his thoughts on games, and reminded people that he is a conceptual visionary.
"The concept of the ‘Fox Engine' is photo-realism." Kojima tweeted. "The age of fixating on pictures and sound in games is over. Now the questions are: How free is it? Does it connect to the internet and is the gameplay smooth? Even so, a certain level of realistic atmosphere is required. "
"At Kojima Productions we're aiming for a line where even simple CG models look photo-realistic when you zoom out of the game screen."
Kojima followed up with a recounting of the past.
"When Metal Gear Solid 1 was released in 1998, it was said that it was 'the day that [pre-rendered] movies would disappear.' We looked to the future and chose to have video sequences in the game that used polygon models instead of pre-rendered graphics. Now they make VFX movies with game engines."
"With Peace Walker, we tried a hand-held system with the age of cloud technology in mind. People laughed at us then, too."
He then concluded with a brief point on looking to the future.
"Businessmen in the field always think ‘What platform or career is going to succeed? With whom/where should I strengthen my ties?' and look to the future and choose their path from there. But technology is always evolving, and it always leaves the laboratory and becomes a part of everyday life. Creators must look to that future when they create."
Kojima can be quirky and eccentric at times, but he never fails to remind us that at his heart, he's a visionary game creator. Now if he'd clear the air on those conspiracy theories...
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.
In video games, whether they're shooting games or role-playing games, there's always a last boss. And according to convention, the last boss is typically large. Make that, enormous.
However, this isn't a video game character. It's Japanese singer Sachiko Kobayashi. Online in Japan, though, she's dubbed "the last boss". And for good reason.
Kobayashi is an enka singer. While it sounds very different, enka is often compared to American country music or the blues due to the similar sentiments the music evokes. Here, you can listen to Kobayashi sing "Omoide Zake" (おもいで酒) or "Sake Memories". Or, perhaps more relevant, hear her lend her voice to "Pokémon Ondo" (ポケモン音頭), which was used as an ending song for the Pokémon anime. She's truly a great singer—and entertainer.
For over three decades, Kobayashi has appeared on the Kouhaku Uta Gassen (紅白歌合戦), which is an annual New Year's Eve music show in Japan. It was first broadcast on the radio in 1951, and the TV broadcast started in 1953. These days, Kouhaku broadcasts now last over four hours. The show is a very big deal.
Each year, Kobayashi's costumes have gotten bigger and more extravagant. Online in Japan, her Kouhaku getups lend comparisons to video game enemies. Have a look at some of the highlights, and how gamers in Japan reacted to her stage performances.
Due to a business scandal, Kobayashi wasn't invited to this year's Kouhaku. It was the first time in 33 consecutive years that she didn't perform. Hopefully, she'll be back next year and bigger than ever.
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.
You might recall that Volition was acquired by Deep Silver after the bankruptcy of THQ. You might also recall that Deep Silver are the people responsible for the highly unpalatable severed torso that came packaged with some of the collector's editions of Dead Island: Riptide.
Hence, they will also be responsible for the collector's edition of the upcoming Saints Row IV, which can be voted on by players. Judging from the survey they've posted, the possible collector's edition items for the new Saints Row are more tasteful—which is not to say they don't sometimes err on the ridiculous side. This is the franchise that is known for its giant purple dildo, after all.
So it might not surprise you that some of the options are things like dubstep doomsday buttons, auto tune devices, and presidential briefcases with kinky handcuffs and keys. Less interesting, but still novel options are things like RC helicopters, wood cigar boxes, and a "ridiculously amazing glass display case with lights." Naturally you also have your boring options, like cloth maps—but why would you opt for those sorts of things, really?
Earlier this week, I was messing around with video game bows and arrows for an article I was writing on the subject. Shooting arrows, lighting stuff on fire, blowing up aliens... you know, research.
One of the games I was writing about was Skyrim, and while playing, I captured the video above. Actually, I accidentally shot that video—I was testing out how the bow worked, loosed an arrow, and was amazed to see the bird fall from the sky. I looked around my apartment, as you do when you pull something like that off, you know, "God, I wish someone'd seen that!" Then, I saw that the counter in the corner of my screen was red, since I'd accidentally hit the record button for my video-capture software. YES.
Anyway, it's not the most amazing trick-shot ever or anything—I'm not even entirely convinced that the game didn't help me a little—but I'm pretty proud of it. And I know there are some much more amazing videos out there, so I thought it be fun to do a "show us" post where you guys share you favorite insane video game longshots.
So, let us have 'em. Show us your favorite video game trick-shots, hopefully with video, in the comments below.
Hi, Moneysaver readers. Welcome to the slightly-different but still wallet-friendly version of the Moneysaver. Going forward, this feature will be brought to you by a member of our company's new Commerce Team. Fancy! What this means is that you'll no longer see Moneysavers penned by those of us in editorial but by the good Shane Roberts here who works on the biz side. The main difference is that—full disclosure—our company will now make a cut of purchases you make through links that are featured in the Moneysaver. The Commerce folks want you to get the best deals. If they don't, what's the point, right? So you can expect a regular offering of great shopping options for games and who knows what else. We all still want to save you money. Take it away, Shane! - Totilo
Bioshock: Infinite will be available in six days, so we're here to help you make sense of its myriad and divisive pre-order options. For our money and yours, we think Green Man Gaming is the retailer to beat, with the best combination of free games, flexible credit, and Steam DRM. Here's why:
Most retailers are including the first Bioshock and XCOM: Enemy Unknown for free, and Green Man Gaming, Gamer's Gate, and Get Games are throwing in a choice of several others including Civilization 5 and Spec Ops: The Line. Buying from Steam presents the exclusive option of Team Fortress 2, but we prefer another free game to new attire for our Heavy. If you already own the free games on offer, Amazon offers the most store credit, $30, but it should be noted that the credit is only good for other 2K games. Green Man Gaming, Gamefly, and Gamer's Gate are offering between $15-$18 credit, with Green Man Gaming being the only one to let you take the credit as cash instead.
If you're on the consoles, Sony is taking $10 off pre-orders via their March promotion, and including the first Bioshock, while Microsoft is including $20 in Microsoft Points. We can only hope this creates a new trend in pre-order bonuses.
• SimCity + Free Game ($40)
Target via FatWallet | Normally $60 SimCity has been fixed, and EA is offering up a free game as mea culpa. Starting on 3/24, Target will sell SimCity for $40, and if you activate your copy by 3/25, you get a free game from a choice of eight. We'd recommend Dead Space 3 (best value), Battlefield 3, or Mass Effect 3.
• Bastion ($1) | Humble Weekly Sale | DRM-Free + Steam Key
Humble has launched a weekly deal and Bastion is the first game on offer. No excuses not to own it now.
• Target Buy 2, Get 1 Free | Target via DealNews
God of War: Ascension
Gears of War: Judgement
MLB: The Show 13
Crysis 3
Dead Space 3
Far Cry 3
Many More
• Bioshock: Infinite Pre-order | Green Man Gaming
Includes $14 credit or cash, XCOM, Bioshock, choice of 5 others including Spec Ops: TheLine and Civ 5.
Windows/Mac
• Name Your Own Price Bundle ($3.97) | Normally $62 | Includes: Blades of Time, SpaceChem, Cubemen, iBomber Defense, Aztaka, The Journey Down: Chapter 1
• Get 10$ back for every $50 spent in March on all digital purchases; no cap. This promotion can and should be applied to re-upping your Playstation Plus Membership and/or pre-ordering Bioshock: Infinite.
• Wii U Deluxe + $50 Target Gift Card ($350) | Target via Dealzmodo | Target is basically creating an artificial price cut here.
Playstation Vita
• Get 10$ back for every $50 spent in March on all digital purchases; no cap. This promotion can and should be applied to re-upping your Playstation Plus Membership.
• Persona 4 Golden ($30) | Amazon via Reddit | Normally $40
If you prefer digital Persona 4 is on sale for the same price on Playstation Network.
That does it for the first edition of the new Moneysaver, which is now brought to you by the Commerce Team. Our aim is to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available. And to be very clear, we also make money if you buy.
If you've been a Moneysaver reader for awhile, you'll see we're making other changes like organizing by platform and including discounts on the consoles and services.
We're here to give you the best experience possible, so we definitely want your feedback. Love the new coverage, hate the layout, got a great deal we missed? Let us know in the comments. We know you will.
Battlefield players have found all sorts of awe-inspiring ways to do stunts with dirt bikes. But this one takes the cake when it comes to how much air the player grabs, not to mention the rather dramatic ending.
Good teamwork, t4ct1x1. After all—this wasn't errant luck. The YouTube description says that the player had his friend direct the enemy jet toward him for the chance of taking the shot. It worked out into a beautiful Battlefield moment.
Like all Blizzard games, the recently-released StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is swarming with easter aggs and pop culture references. Here are some of the best ones we've found so far.
While doing the first misson on planet Kaldir (Harvest of Screams), you can see the Lich King's armor frozen on the side of a cliff. This is probably the closest you can get to Warcraft IV right now. [found by Redditor Aunvilgod]
In the first roach evolution mission, there's a hidden locked room where you can see a captured miniature Murlock Marine and a Mini Diablo in stasis cells. Unfortunately, you can't interact with them.
In the second roach evolution mission, if you move a bit to the left, you can find a hidden area—as this YouTube video shows—filled with colored crystals and a girl named Maye with two dogs: Onyx and Diamond. We're not sure what this is referring to. A future Blizzard project? Pokémon? Rebecca Mayes' video about StarCraft addiction?
During the mission Enemy Within on the Protoss ship, you can access the Protoss Kitchen (not designed for Stalkers and Sentries) after blowing up the warp drive. There you can find two easter eggs: some funny references to the Wings of Liberty arcade game Aiur Chef and an item named Pylon Poweraid with the following text: "eSports is what you make of it."
Tasteless and Artosis, the English casters of GSL, the Korean StarCraft II tournament series, get a tribute in the form of two critters—Artosilope and Tastelope, roaming around on several maps. [found by Redditor Dauneth]
Making their return from Wings of Liberty, the five Voltron-like cats make an appearance in the mission Infested. They're on one of the northern platforms.
The HotS intro has been out for a while now, but in case you missed it, you can get a quick glimpse of some Blizzard developers if you look closely.
This isn't technically an easter egg, but the satellite from the title screen of Brood War makes a return here. [found by Redditor Battlecop]
On the second Char mission there is a hidden outhouse that you can reach if you equip Kerrigan's jumping skill. It's called Terran Biomass, and the description says "Something stinks."
Found any other easter eggs? Show them to us below.
The wonderful zombie film Shaun of the Dead starts out with a running gag where it's clear that a zombie apocalypse is going on, but the heroes don't notice. As they walk down the street, we can see obscured scenes of undead carnage in the background, but Shaun is too wrapped up in his girlfriend-troubles to see.
Sometimes, a bad video game can feel a bit like that. You're playing, preoccupied with tutorials and introductory cinematic sequences, not yet fully aware of the jankiness that lurks in the shadows. Eventually, the game hits its stride and its crappiness gets right up to your face, groaning and snapping its teeth.
Terminal Reality's new game The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct does not indulge in such ambiguity. Both the zombie apocalypse and the game's utter badness are readily apparent within the first five minutes.
I spent last night playing through the first couple of hours of the first-person survival horror game, which came out yesterday for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Survival Instinct begins with a weird, cordoned-in tutorial that first sends you in pursuit of a false objective, then puts you into an unwinnable fight against a bunch of zombies, or "walkers" in The Walking Dead parlance. You die. Then comes the big reveal—spoiler alert?—that you were in control of the father of well-known characters Daryl and Merle Dixon, and your terrible shooting and running skills got him killed. It's a crap tutorial even among other crap tutorials, and a precursor to all the crap to come.
But first! Comes the credits sequence. Which, if you're a fan of the popular AMC Walking Dead TV show, will feel mighty familiar. Bear McCreary's six-note violin motif and string-section dive-bombs push through an evocative collection of rural imagery accompanied by the names of the actors who appear in the game. It's almost like you're watching a TV show!
And then, back to the game, which is very clearly not a TV show. You take control of Daryl Dixon, the man you'll command for the rest of the game. Side-note on Daryl—it's interesting that the most popular character on the TV show is this guy who has no counterpart in the comics. I like Daryl on the show, too. His low-drama badassery stands in welcome contrast to the whining and carrying on of the majority of the cast, and Norman Reedus manages to inhabit the role with a sharp, morally ambiguous intelligence. And he does seem like the most obvious character on the show to base a video game around, what with his signature crossbow and mysterious backstory.
But even if Daryl deserves to star in his own video game, it shouldn't be this one. I've spent two hours playing Survival Instinct, and those two hours were filled with frustration, boredom, and that peculiar form of bleak hopelessness that accompanies the worst games.
Of course, it's not a huge surprise that Survival Instinct is bad. Its promotional campaign has been festooned with warning signs—in particular the fact that they've been cagey about actually showing the game. The introductory trailers made a far bigger deal about the fact that the game stars Reedus as Daryl and Michael Rooker as his brother, Merle (Wow! Real actors from a TV show! In a video game!) than anything related to the game itself. We were unable to secure an early copy of the game for review, which is never a good sign. And early footage that hit the web was… well, it wasn't promising.
So, yes, the game is a steaming pile and an utter waste of time and money. On the off-chance that this is all new to you, allow me to demonstrate a few of the ways it comes up short.
It's very ugly.
Survival Instinct looks and moves like an Xbox 360 launch title, with inconsistent performance and flat colors and textures. On PC, it offers the following advanced graphical options:
Here's what the game looks like without light shafts:
And here's what it looks like with them:
Okay then!
Combat is a drag.
Combat in the game is a disaster, plain and simple. In the early stages, you'll have a couple of guns and a knife. One of the guns uses a scope and is essentially useless, as the zombies are never far away enough to require you to use it. The shotgun is more useful, but is so loud that it attracts far more zombies than you could ever kill with your limited ammunition. That leaves you with the knife, which lets you get into a kind of hilarious slap-fight with a zombie until you kill it. As seen here:
Or, you could sneak up behind the biter and stab it in the brain. You will do this a lot. In fact, the ol' "Punch the zombie in the face to stun it, then run around it and stab it in the brain" trick was just about the only trick I used. Well, unless I got caught in...
The endless zombie group-hug.
One of the weirdest elements of Survival Instinct is the "grapple" move, which happens when a zombie gets too close to you. Daryl starts to wrestle with the zombie, and you jam the right trigger and, if you can get the cursor over the zombie's head, Daryl will stab it in the brain. It's kind of a neat idea? Except it fails in execution. The levels I've played usually end with me making a run through a pack of walkers. And if I get even remotely close to one of them, I get sucked into an unending zombie scrum, stabbing zombie after zombie after zombie, almost always until I die.
Here's a video:
Sweat. Everywhere.
Survival Instinct also features a lot of sweat. Sweat? Yes, sweat. Normally in games like this, when you "sprint" for a while, you'll run out of breath. Maybe, if you're playing Far Cry 2, your vision will swim a bit. In Survival Instinct, you'll start to see a weird water effect run down the side of the screen. That is, I have to assume, supposed to be Daryl's sweat, pouring down the camera lens. Weird! And kinda gross!
(It's a little hard to see in this video, but it's at the corners. Anyway, it's strange.)
Video Game B.S.
Survival Instinct is loaded with all kinds of shoddy video-game bullshit. The levels are very hemmed in and the world never feels reactive or real, and as a result the whole thing feels cheap and unfair. You'll carry around sports drinks that replenish your health, but equipping and using them is a nuisance. Checkpointing is a bummer and there's no quicksave option, and at least once the game crashed to desktop and forced me to restart an entire level. The heads-up display is laughably fug, a giant oblong compass in the corner of the screen that points, surprisingly unhelpfully, to your next objective.
Level design is awful—I'd run into a room and more often than not would get cornered and die. Doors are inconsistent—some will open, but most are glued shut. And there are invisible walls everywhere.
Check out this doozy from the end of another early mission:
I'm standing on the car, the dude I'm supposed to get to is right there, and yet I have to run into the glowing green area to end the mission. Man.
Slightly interesting ideas, poorly implemented.
When you travel from level to level in the game, you'll have to make some decisions about which route you take. You can take backroads, regular streets, or the highway. Each one uses a certain amount of gas, and each one brings with it a chance of a breakdown. If you run out of gas or break down, you'll have to explore a small side-mission area to find more gas or locate whatever part from your car needs to be replaced.
It's an interesting risk/reward idea that falls flat because no matter what happens, you're going to have to do the same thing: Enter an area, dodge some zombies, grab a thing, and run back to the glowing green square. Basically, these side missions give you more game to play. Because the game is terrible, they feel more like a punishment than a bonus.
You can also manage the survivors in your crew, which is another odd idea that doesn't work but could've maybe been interesting in another game. You can give your companions weapons and even send them out on errands to get gas or food. You can also just tell them to "stay at the car," which, if you follow the TV show, is kind of funny, albeit unintentionally so.
But really, this whole aspect of the game is a mess, and just adds some unclear, unfun micromanaging to deal with in between unfun action missions. I'd love to play a post-apocalyptic resource management/travel game like Oregon Trail, but this ain't it.
There's certainly no opportunity to get attached to your friends, and their deaths are treated about as ignobly as could be. Check out the end of this mission (more spoilers, if you care):
So not only does the cutscene trigger before I touch the green box, it ends with a hilariously anticlimactic death scene. Bang! End-of-mission screen! Ha.
Basically, everything else.
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a slipshod, uninspired mess. I have to feel for the developers at Terminal Reality—whatever rushed production schedule or other behind-the-scenes shenanigans must have gone down, no professional game-maker could be happy with this final product.
There are so many superior alternatives: If you've got a hankering to kill some zombies in a southern setting, play Left 4 Dead 2. If you love The Walking Dead and want to spend more time in that world, play Telltale's wonderful adventure game from last year. And if you want to play a tense, terrifying first-person zombie game that relies on smarts and sneaking as much as on firepower (and you own a Wii U), play ZombiU.
I can think of no compelling reason why anyone should play this game. Ugly, flat, boring, aggravating and often broken, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is the purest form of video game garbage. It's utterly unworthy of your time and money.
Everyone likes to talk about Game of Thrones. And everyone likes to talk about SimCity. So combining the two seems only logical, right?
Check out this sweet video. And remember, in the Game of SimCity, you win or you [Alert: Unable to create your city at this time. Please claim a city again.]
(Thanks, Schiller!)
UPDATE: As some commenters have pointed out, the above video was ripped from the German show Game One, which may explain why it was pulled. Head over to Game One to see it for yourself. (It's the intro to the second video.)
Valve has just launched Steam Early Access, a new program designed to let Steam users play games while they're still in development.
Here's the full press release:
Steam Early Access titles allow the community to get involved early and play select titles during their development. The goal of Early Access is to provide gamers with the chance to "go behind the scenes" and experience the development cycle firsthand and, more importantly, have a chance to interact with the developers by providing them feedback while the title is still being created.
To support the interaction between Early Access players and developers, Steam offers easy and automatic updating of games, letting developers iterate quickly to respond directly to bug reports and feedback from customers. And, like all Steam games, Early Access players will be able to interact with other players, making it easy to create and share screenshots, tips, and in-depth guides.
"A lot of games are already operating as ongoing services that grow and evolve with the involvement of customers and the community," said Sean Pollman of Badland Studio. "Greenlight helped us raise awareness for Kinetic Void, and now Steam Early Access will let us continue the development of our game while gathering crucial feedback, input and support from the steam Community."
The first titles coming to Steam Early Access are:
1... 2... 3... KICK IT! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby)
The Fox Engine. You've heard about it. You've seen the PR. We know it's going to be the game engine for 
Hi, Moneysaver readers. Welcome to the slightly-different but still wallet-friendly version of the Moneysaver. Going forward, this feature will be brought to you by a member of our company's new Commerce Team. Fancy! What this means is that you'll no longer see Moneysavers penned by those of us in editorial but by the good Shane Roberts here who works on the biz side. The main difference is that—full disclosure—our company will now make a cut of purchases you make through links that are featured in the Moneysaver. The Commerce folks want you to get the best deals. If they don't, what's the point, right? So you can expect a regular offering of great shopping options for games and who knows what else. We all still want to save you money. Take it away, Shane! - Totilo
• 
• 
• 
The wonderful zombie film Shaun of the Dead starts out with a running gag where it's clear that a zombie apocalypse is going on, but the heroes don't notice. As they walk down the street, we can see obscured scenes of undead carnage in the background, but Shaun is too wrapped up in his girlfriend-troubles to see.
Valve has just launched Steam Early Access, a new program designed to let Steam users play games while they're still in development.