Kotaku

Heavy Rain Is About Normal People, Real Life

Don't expect to see the heroine of Heavy Rain leaping through the air in some abominable mash-up of Cirque du Soleil and The Matrix. The game's director tells 1UP it's simply about "normal people."

David Cage, who is also president of Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream says that we won't see the French equivalent of a Dragon Ball-esque karate hover battle, a la Indigo Prophecy.

"I believe it'll be much more emotionally involving, as gamers will easily relate to the situations and characters," Cage said. "In Heavy Rain, you won't be a superhero or a gangster. You'll just be someone real." Given how good the game looked at Games Convention (and continues to look) we might be able to settle for normal, even if that sequence we saw won't be more than a potential bonus feature in the final game.

Heavy Rain (PS3) [1UP]

Scenes From A Nintendo DS Massage Spa

Nintendo has been putting the "touch" back in Touch Generations over the past week at a handful of North American malls. It's been gently caressing weary shoppers and wooing them with Nintendo DS games.

We hadn't actually seen any of these rubdown dens in person, currently erected at malls in California, Texas, New Jersey, Georgia and Massachusetts. But readers Jared and Chris saw these orgies of relaxation at the Natick Collection in Natick and Lenox Square in Atlanta and thought "Well, that's weird. I should tip Kotaku."

If you'd like to find a totally non-sensual release, courtesy of Nintendo, you still have a week to partake. Locations are right here. We suggest bringing an import copy of Duel Love or Doki Doki Majo Shinpan to creep out your masseuse.

New Tekken 6 Screens Are Rippling, Ruffly

Namco Bandai dropped eight new screens of the multi-platform Tekken 6 today. And if each shot isn't packed with rippling dude meat and screen-warping effects, it's packed with short shorts. Yes, they're that good.

For an octet of screens loaded with washboard abs, bedazzling "you just got punched in the face" explosions and the occasional milky thigh, cruise through our gallery of new Tekken 6 screen shots.

New 360 Arcades Get 256MB Internal Storage

As hinted at in our ennui-bustin' Thanksgiving Rumor Roundup Microsoft have confirmed that the new batch of 'Jasper' Xbox 360 Arcade boxes will come with internal flash storage.

Speaking to Xbox 360 Fanboy, a Microsoft spokeschap said, "We can confirm that we are moving to internal memory for the Xbox 360 Arcade. The physical internal memory is the same size as the previous external memory units - 256MB"

Arcade users can now look forward to saving games right out of the box - and maybe even a few Avatar costumes if they are lucky - before having to cough up for some external storage.

Microsoft confirms 256MB internal storage in Xbox 360 Arcade units [X3F]

SingStar Getting Heavy Dose Of Christmas Cheer, Also... Starship

The dearth of Christmas-themed downloadable content available is the shame of the industry. At least Sony is doing something about it, announcing a batch of Christmas carols-cum-pop songs for the PlayStation 3 version of SingStar.

One could easily argue that the choices aren't ideal — no "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)?"; almost any version would do — but we'll take what we can get. Yes, we'll even take a little Celine Dion, just for the rum and eggnog coated cacophony of it all. Serious SingStar fans can download the following Xmas extravaganza "mid-December." More »

Call of Duty: World At War DLC Said To Buck Tradition

Considering that the downloadable content offered for previous Call of Dutys consisted of run-of-the-mill map packs, deviating from that path shouldn't prove difficult. But World at War executive producer Daniel Suarez is still being mysterious.

He tells MTV Multiplayer that the team has "potentially two, maybe three packs" planned for the fifth core Call of Duty title. If they were as simple as Modern Warfare's "Variety" map pack or Call of Duty 3's duo of similar content, he probably wouldn't be so cagey about dishing details.

Hmmm... would Nazi werewolves fall under "what we’ve done traditionally"?

Activision: ‘Call of Duty: World At War’ DLC Will Be Unusual, Announced In 2009 [MTV Multiplayer]

BlitzTech Unveils Stereoscopic 3D Engine

As anyone who tried to play Magic Carpet in its ludicrous/innovative Magic Eye mode will tell you, niche 3D display technology can be more trouble than its worth.

BlitzTech, however, are pretty confident that their new 3D Engine - unveiled today at the 3D Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles - will definitely be a winner, despite requiring displays that follow the 3DTV standard. BlitzTech claim the engine will allow current-gen consoles to display IMAX-quality 3D imagery.

"Our BlitzTech technology will prove beyond all doubt that we are already doing what some industry experts have said is impossible on today's game consoles," said Blitz CEO Andrew Oliver, in a manner not unlike a soliloquising supervillain, "Our highly tuned engine is capable of producing real-time interactive graphics that are close to offline rendered CG movie quality."

Also, his army of robot water voles is invincible and cannot be stopped.

The Undergrads Are Our Future

To: Ash
From: Crecente
Re: Neat or Not?

I drove up to Boulder today to speak to a journalism class about new media and old media and media in general. Mostly it was a walkthrough of how I got from point A to point B. Point A being a career in dead tree publications and point B being Kotaku. Lots of questions about what a person should do to get a job in journalism, to which all I replied: Write!

Write, write, write. Oh, and write. You can be a master at HTML, amazing at Flash, spectacular at navigating websites or conducting interviews, but unless you can write don't expect to get a job. Well, I don't count. But in general, you need to practice writing.

Man, I don't envy those J-School students, graduating in a month to six, in the center of a swirling recession. No... Thanks.

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Atari Reviving Baldur's Gate, D&D, Test Drive Unlimited

Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeons & Dragons and Test Drive Unlimited haven't been forgotten by Atari. The publisher plans to bring each of those series back to its line-up — but not until after 2009.

Atari revealed its intentions to revisit and resuscitate some of its better known properties at a press conference in the UK today, pointing to some of its most beloved hits as a focus for 2010 and beyond. The rebounding publisher diverted focus to its next-year line-up, according to Eurogamer, which includes Ghostbusters, The Witcher for consoles and the recently announced Ready 2 Rumble Revolution. More »