The game, releasing in Japan on March 25, is based on post-apocalyptic manga Hokuto no Ken, or Fist of the North Star.

If you've been wondering what the heck is with the "already dead" nonsense appearing on some Kotaku posts, "You're already dead" is a catch phrase of sorts for character Kenshiro — see it in action in this clip from the anime.

The worst jokes are the ones you have to explain — but amazingly enough, it seems there are people who walk the face of the Earth who have not seen Fist of the North Star, nor know this catch phrase.

Hokuto Musou is clearly the game's Japanese title. While Koei's Shin-Sangoku Musou is localized as Dynasty Warriors and Gundam Musou is called Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, we'd like to recommend this English language title for the game: BADASS.

This is hardly the first wooden Gundam, and a wooden statue was released back in 2007.

Priced at ¥99,750 (US$1069), the statue is over a foot tall and is being sold by legendary robot company Bullmark. The figure is designed by Plex, an arm of Bandai that designs robot toys.

If you think a thousand bucks is expensive for a Zaku II, check out the prices for a wooden Godzilla or King Giddra.

Thanks Matt Alt and his robot friend for the tip!

【楽天市場】シャア専用のザクが仏師によって見事に彫刻されました！一刀彫り、無塗装でザクが表現されています！【木彫りザク】木製ザク　MS-06S ZAKU-II【送料無料】【エンタメ1228】：たまふり屋　楽天市場店 [Rakuten]

In a blog post from early January, Sakaguchi wrote this message: "I still have unsettled adjustment on the last dungeon dialogue and the directions of the ending scene. I didn't think I had that much adjustments, however this being the last dungeon, my requests has become slightly excessive. I will email you guys by tomorrow. I'm sorry guys, I may have many requests."

Silly photos forgive all.

Sakaguchi and his company are also working on a "long-awaited new blockbuster project" and an iPhone game.

[mistwalker]

The website looks like its about finished with its uploads, a subtle hint to us to get our hat and leave. But before we do, here is a look at the some more Comiket cosplayers you might have missed. Can you name all the characters they are cosplaying as? Can you? Sure there are duplicates, but who knows, they might be able to name all of you.

総勢200人！元ネタ全部言えるかな？コミケコスプレレポ総集編 上着を脱がすのは 強風じゃない！となコスの室温だ！！ まっしろな谷間に･･･真っ青谷間！？ コスプレレポその8 【コミケ77レポ】 [moeyo.com]

It consists of Mario, Zelda, Mega Man, Kirby, Square Enix, Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. There's a chair, too.

Video Game Memorabilia Museum [Figure.fm via DannyChoo]

Here are some of my favorites. What's on your phone?

This is the time of the year where most sites are doing their top ten lists about different subjects. Personally, I hate top ten lists. If I'm going to do one, then it's going to be about something I'm passionate about. Therefore, we have two top ten list articles on GamingAngels.com. Here we are looking at the ten women that influenced the gaming industry in a big way over the last ten years. This isn't an all-inclusive list and I'd love for you to join in the conversation by including your nominees in the comments. The game industry is starting to see change and some of it is due to the women on this list paving the path. Here in random order, are ten women that really changed the game industry over the last ten years.

Lucy Bradshaw has to start the list with her work on the Sims beginning in the year 2000. Lucy and the Maxis team created a game that would be named the best selling PC game to date. The Sims is also credited for bringing more women into playing games. Lucy Bradshaw now leads the efforts of the Maxis team on the various Spore titles. She is an amazing speaker and is always pushing the industry forward.

Kim Swift took the game industry by storm with the much praised hit, Portal. Swift was hired by Valve after graduation and won many awards with a title that appealed to casual and the hardcore. Swift has now joined Airtight Games to assist with games aimed at a more diverse audience.
Jade Raymond was the producer on Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed. While she had been a producer on previous titles including The Sims Online, Jade definitely had to put up with controversy from men that couldn't get over her looks. Yes guys, it is possible to be gorgeous and talented.
Corrinne Yu is an amazing woman. She's the principal programmer at Microsoft's Halo team. I met her at a GDC Women in Games luncheon where she was rewarded for her work on the Halo series. She dresses like a rock star and talks about programming theory unlike anyone I know. Corrinne is an inspiration as we look at the problem of not enough women going into programming as a discipline.
Megan Gaiser is the President and CEO of Her Interactive. Through her work at Her Interactive, she has helped make intelligent games for the younger female audience. Her Interactive games create the Nancy Drew series of games that are very popular. Megan works hard in both talks and through her work at Her Interactive to get more girls interested in gaming both as a hobby and as a career.
Kellee Santiago is an amazing young woman from the Interactive Media program at USC. She is the president and co-founder of ThatGameCompany, a company that strives to create games that create an emotion in the player. Their first two games, flOw and Flower on the Playstation 3 are not only beautiful but also appeal to a more diverse audience. During our interview with her at the Spike VGAs, it was great to see her passionate and excited about the future of ThatGameCompany. We look forward to Kellee pushing the boundaries of what we think about games.
Amy Hennig works as Naughty Dog as the Creative Director on Uncharted and Uncharted 2. Uncharted 2 is second in the top 20 ranked Playstation 3 games on Metacritic. Amy concentrates on story and actors and it shows. Uncharted 2 has some of the best voice acting of any game out there. It will be interesting to see how close to films that Amy and the Naughty Dog team can take video games.
Deborah Mars is the Managing Producer at SCEA Santa Monica Studio who worked on PSN title, Fat Princess. The title had early uproar from various websites because the game was built around the mechanic of feeding your princess cake so she would weigh more and be harder to kidnap. In the end, Deborah and her team proved that Fat Princess is an incredibly fun title.
Cammie Dunaway is the executive vice president of sales & marketing at Nintendo. As one of the most powerful people at Nintendo, she led the way to reach out to women gamers with the Nintendo DS and Wii. She has had a rough road being criticized for being too nice or even fake. I interviewed Cammie at the 2007 Women's Conference and she was sweet but also very knowledgeable about the products available. She genuinely wants to see a more diverse audience enjoy gaming.
We end our list with a female that has taken community on the Xbox 360 to another level. Christa Phillips Charter, better known as Trixie360, was responsible for many community initiatives for the 360 that is what makes us feel at home on the 360. She organized Game with Fame nights, Community Spotlights, Gamer Spotlights, and created/founded GamerChix a place where female Xbox gamers can gather to talk about gaming. Christa has always made herself available to gamers. Her new title is Social Media Lead of Xbox LIVE and we can't see where she takes Community and Games next!

I hope you enjoyed our list and I'd love to hear who you think should be on the list. We didn't include the wonderful women that run amazing communities or clans, but they definitely could be here as well. I'd like to thank Robin Yang for working with me on ideas for this list. Here's to another 10 years of greatness from women in games!

Reprinted with permission from GamingAngels.com.

If you ask Trina, she was born a geek girl at heart. Starting with the Atari 2600, Trina was quickly hooked. By eight she was programming games in Basic and starting her collection of comic books. Trina created a female-based guild for Phantasy Star Online. This started the idea of what a place on the web for women gamers would look like. GamingAngels.com was born in 2003 as a video game cosplay site and transformed in 2006 to an online gaming community. Today GamingAngels.com is more than just gaming. With the help of her team, Trina has created a community where women that love all things geek can speak freely about their hobby.

Trina has appeared on panels and been interviewed about her strong opinions about women in gaming and technology fields. If she's not working on GamingAngels.com, she might be cheering on the Vikings, playing videogames or reading Twitter.

Find her on Xbox Live with Gamertag, GamingAngel or on Twitter as GamingAngel.

The stand holds your DSi horizontally or vertically and can be adjusted to whatever viewing angle best suits you, but besides using it with maybe the Nintendo Cooking Guide, I don't see getting a lot of use out of it.

It is a nice way to display the DSi when you're not using it, I suppose, and for $15 it's not too pricey. Am I missing something?

Sony Hong Kong held the FFXIII launch event in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay, next to the Sogo department store. There were playable FFXIII demos and folks dressed as characters from the game — including HK popstar Adason Lo, who hosted the event and dressed as Snow. He sang a song, too!

PS3 FINAL FANTASY XIII 幻想の壘 [fotop via Siliconera]

It may be a little Nintendo-centric, but you have to admire the guy's passion. Just about every major and many minor consoles are represented, presented much as one would imagine a really nice retro gaming museum would look if one existed outside of donkey*kong's house. This is a room I would enter and my eyes would try to move in 200 directions at once, possibly exploding in the process. I could spend hours poring over these pictures. Hell, maybe I will.

See anything or everything you like?

My Otacool Room [Figure.FM via Dannychoo.com - thanks togovero!]

Here you go. The fully poseable figurine, along with character Jeanne, has not yet been dated. One day, it just might be!

Compare with the custom Bayonetta figure.

JUMP FESTA [棺桶にはプレイアーツを入れてくれ via FF Merchandise via Tomopop]

Voice actresses have dedicated fan bases in Japan — and some are so well known among players that their voice acting is used to promote and sell the game, much like name scenario writers or illustrators are used to sell titles in Japan.

Some of the actress appeared in the previous collection Kotaku featured. Many did not!

2ch

The game has been titled Hokuto Musou, and is part of Koei's popular "Musou" series of games.

Besides new screens, there is new art of characters like hero Kenshiro, tough guy Rei and village leader Mamiya — she's in a thong, something the Japanese internet has been quick to point out. Thank you, Japanese internet!

The manga Fist of the North Star debuted in 1983 and went on to spin off two animated series and motion pictures.

Click thumbnails to enlarge. These are the fronts of the cards, most of which were physically mailed to me.

This one was from Activision and included a note that said that a donation to the USO, a charity for the U.S. armed forces, had been made in my honor.

These types of photos are very much a Japanese internet meme — people showing their Christmas meal and female characters with whom they are eating. They're more a gag than anything else with each photo trying to outdo the others. Not entirely serious! Though, still, slightly bitter sweet.

One of the pictures might be NSFW. Guess which one.

ゲーマー達のクリスマスお祝い画像集 [オレ的ゲーム速報＠刃]

Final Fantasy XIV [Official Site Thanks, Black-Dog-Howls!]

The focus here is largely pigtailed character Oerba Dia Vanille and her underoos. This close-ups have reveal more than in-game character panty preferences — check out those textures and polygons.

FF13にはちゃんとパンチラあります 安心してご購入ください [はちま起稿]

FINAL FANTASY XIII 本日発売、どんな感じなのか早速買ってきて開封してみた [GIGAZINE]