Screw Racing, This Driving Game Is About Getting Stuck In The Mud

One of the best things about driving games on the PC is that they're not all about racing sports cars. There's stuff like Euro Truck Simulator. And now this, Spintires, which is basically a game about trying to keep trucks on the road on some of the world's worst roads.

It's a hardcore all-terrain simulation, tasking the player with performing seemingly mundane tasks like navigation and...driving on a road, but which become tough thanks to things like weather, lighting and, most important of all, a ridiculously realistic driving model.

The developers are currently looking to fund completion of the game on Kickstarter, but you can try it out now with a downloadable demo.

Spintires — The ultimate off-road challenge! [Kickstarter]

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Trivialize an Anti-Gay Riot With This Bizarre Facebook Game

Two weeks ago, priests in Georgia (the former Russian state independent republic, not the US state) led a mob that attacked about 50 gay rights demonstrators, hurling rocks and, if this YouTube video is an indication, swinging furniture. Someone's cooked up a nearly unplayable side-scroller lampooning the chaos.

This is Call of Taburetka, the latter word meaning 'stool,' which is what a black-robed priest from the Georgian Orthodox church was swinging as the mob descended on the marchers, ending the rally before it could begin. The game's creator, on its Facebook page, insist that the game is not homophobic. "Dear friends, this game it not anti-gay. it just describes what happened on May 17," he says in one post. "i wanna say that this game isn't anti-gay this is for funny," he says in another.

I suppose I could believe that if the satire involved is how idiotically uncontrollable the priest is, and how he always fails his mission within about 10 seconds of beginning a game, exploding into what looks like a fart cloud. People are lobbying Facebook to take down the page as a violation of its anti-hate speech policies. Assuming it's not taken offline altogether, the game's creators are considering "disabl[ing] this game for foreigners because they can't understand meaning of this game."

Fend Off LGBT Activists in ‘Call of Taburetka’ [Gay Gamer]

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

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This Portal-Themed Bedroom Is Outrageous And I Want To Live In It

Have you ever wanted to live like an Aperture Labs test subject? You have? Well then, you might want to consider living in a ridiculously cool custom-made bedroom like this one.

The room, designed by a gamer/interior-decorator/accountant/wizard named Lauren, has been a labor of love, and man, does it show. She details her work at her website, The Portal Bedroom, saying that the project was inspired by an infinity mirror, which creates a similar effect to looking through a cascade of portals in the game.

Around the same time I found this, I’d finally gotten around to playing Portal 2, so I already had Portal on the brain, so I put two and two together and thought “A PORTAL ROOM!”

I looked all over the internet to see if anybody else had designed a Portal-themed bedroom yet that I could get some inspiration from. I found a few rooms, and some of them were pretty cool, but I just couldn’t find one that I absolutely loved. So I issued myself a challenge: To design from scratch a Portal-themed bedroom that while obviously Portal, would also be aesthetically-pleasing enough that any non-gamer could still look at it and go “Hey, that’s a really neat looking room!” rather than “what’s up with all the weird stuff on the walls?”

The results are nothing short of astonishing. Check this shit out:

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There's much more over at The Portal Room's website. We salute you, Lauren.

(Via Christina Norman)

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I Wish America Had Local Game Coverage Like This

I end up watching a lot of news in my line of work, and one thing that is frequently hammered home is this: mainstream American media doesn't know what they're doing with games.

Across the board what you see on television (with the exception of business reporting) is at best marginally competent and at worst ignorant and hyperbolic. Which is why I find the BBC report above about the Game Republic showcase, as well as this story yesterday, so refreshing.

The clip above, taken from BBC Look North in Yorkshire, is an example of how local news should be approaching games coverage. It's positive, upbeat, approachable and sees the game industry for what it really is: a cultural asset and a viable career path.

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If This Spring Breakers Parody Is Half As Good As The Film, I'm In

It's Spring Gamers, starring Games Franco! This is a thing I want that I never knew I wanted.

iam8bit is doing a parody film of the surprisingly amazing—aka not just stupidly amazing—Spring Breakers. The teaser scene you see above is a gamer's recreation of the real scene where James Franco's thugged-out character brags to his newfound groupies about all the gun-swag he's got. Except in this edition, it's all games and gamer swag. He even has that awesome Triforce lamp!

I have no idea if this parody will be any good. I just know I loved Spring Breakers like I haven't loved a movie in some time. And the simple memory of it makes this teaser a beautiful thing.

To contact the author of this post, write to tina@kotaku.com or find her on Twitter at @tinaamini.

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Assassins' Creed IV Cosplay Begins With This McFarlane Toys Creation

Okay, any Assassins' Creed cosplay is going to start with a white hood, but soon after that you're going to need a weapon. Comic book legend Todd McFarlane provides, with a replica of Edward Kenway's Hidden Blade Gauntlet so pretty you can barely tell it's plastic.

McFarlane Toys is doing lovely things with the Assassin's Creed license, using up all the white paint to create some really sexy assassin figures, as seen at Toy Fair earlier this year. McFarlane has been a champion of franchises traditional toy companies wouldn't touch, catering to the adult collector with stunning original and licensed works. His company's work is so distinctive that I knew where this replica Hidden Blade Guantlet came from the moment I saw it.

"You think it's leather until you actually touch it," McFarlane told me during an interview earlier this week, obviously proud of what his company has created. "We're simulating the look of leather on it, down to where it tightens around your wrist... there are wrinkles. We were looking at real leather when we sculpted it.

Looking at these images I curse my giant size and massive forearms — one size fits most does not apply to me. Then again, were I to dress all in white I'd look less like an assassin, more like a slow-moving cloud bank. At least I would be a well-armed cloud bank. This thing look downright dangerous.

"It does," agrees McFarlane. "I think from a distance people will go 'Whoa, what is that?' When you press the spring it actually shoots out, like a blade should. There's a snap to it. Then you get to the end and realize you can curl the tip on it, so it's not going to do any real damage." Awww.

McFarlane Toys' Hidden Wrist Blade is an incredibly detailed piece of role-play gear that's sure to have countless Edward Kenway cosplayers checking weaponry off of their list and moving on to making vests and hoods. A GameStop exclusive shipping in the fall, it'll be available for preorder soon at the retailer's website for $ 39.99.

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One Does Not Simply Screw Up A LEGO Set This Badly

One of the newest playsets in LEGO's Lord of the Rings line is the Council of Elrond. A key moment in the events of the trilogy, it's notable not just because it brings the Fellowship of the Ring together, but because the internet has transformed one line into perhaps the series' most memorable.

It's crazy, then, that LEGO's set immortalising the Council doesn't include a Boromir figure. I mean, on the bright side, it does include a mechanism where Gimli can be thrown backwards after trying to whack the Ring with his axe, but that's small consolation for the lack of a contemplative Boromir.

Those happy to have Arwen and Elrond in his stead, the set is going for $ 30.

The Lord of the Rings 79006: The Council of Elrond [Review] [Brothers Brick]

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