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  Yoshi’s New Island Is Like the Old Yoshi’s Island. That’s a Good Thing.

  The new game for Nintendo’s most nurturing dinosaur was available to play this week at E3 and Kotaku‘s Jason Schreier did exactly that. In the video above, you’ll see Jason try to talk and play at the same time—harder than it looks, especially in a crowded E3 Nintendo booth—while he gives you a quick glimpse…

  By Evan Narcisse Published June 14, 2013
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  Kotaku East

  Watch the First 8 Minutes of the new Ghost in the Shell Right Here

  Back in February, we showed you the first trailer of the newest installment of the Ghost in the Shell franchise, Ghost in the Shell: Arise. With the Japanese theater release of the first chapter, border: 1 Ghost Pain, a week away, fans are getting a special gift: The first eight minutes of the film are…

  By Richard Eisenbeis Published June 14, 2013
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  Kotaku East

  The Japanese Games Kicking Ass At E3

  Back in 2009 at the Tokyo Game show, Keiji Inafune, creator of Mega Man, Onimusha, and Dead Rising said the following: “Man, Japan is over. We’re done. Our game industry is finished.” But as this E3 is quick to show, this is hardly the case. Perhaps Inafune’s comment ended up being a wake-up call—a game…

  By Richard Eisenbeis Published June 14, 2013
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  Compare the Look of the Newest Smash Bros. Game to the Old One

  Lots of attention—some of it creepy—has been paid to all the new characters coming to the fourth installment of Nintendo’s all-star beat-em-up. It’s great that the Animal Crossing villager, Wii Fit trainer and Mega Man are getting people excited. But there’s another reason to get hyped: this Smash will be in hi-def. That means a…

  By Evan Narcisse Published June 14, 2013
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  There’s A $90 Steam Game, And People Are Freaking Out

  Strategy game Planetary Annihilation, which looks awesome, went live on Steam this week. Sort of. The game isn’t finished, but anyone wanting to play it now, ahead of schedule, can do so. For $90. That’s a lot of money, sure, for what’s essentially an alpha of the game, but in addition to access now it…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 14, 2013
• Kotaku East

  Bakemonogatari is an Amazingly Well-Directed Anime

  As we’re coming up on the summer anime season, I’ve been purusing the upcoming shows looking for what I should keep an eye on. One anime, in particular, has stood out to me as a must watch: Monogatari Series Second Season There’s just one problem, I haven’t seen either of the preceding two series, Bakemonogatari…

  By Richard Eisenbeis Published June 14, 2013
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  Kotaku East

  I Never Knew I Needed a Sailor Moon Brawler in My Life

  As I’ve mentioned before, when I was a kid, there wasn’t much in the way of anime readily available. On TV there were only two anime programs: Sci-Fi channel’s Saturday anime, and Sailor Moon. So needless to say, I watched me a lot of Sailor Moon Yet even at that time, I didn’t pick up…

  By Richard Eisenbeis Published June 14, 2013
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  The Poster for the First GTA Doesn’t Look Like Grand Theft Auto

  Nowadays, we’re all used to the house style of the marketing art for Rockstar Games’ blockbuster open-world games: paneled mosaics with character likenesses and heavy black orders, with the game series’ name spelled out in the Price Is Right font. But GTA promo images didn’t always look like that. They used to be a lot…

  By Evan Narcisse Published June 14, 2013
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  Because E3 Needed Giant Bugs To Blow To Hell

  As sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, there will always be a new Earth Defense Force game to look forward to. Blowing up everything on the screen, from giant ants to giant robots, never gets old. This is the E3 trailer for the latest game in the series, Earth Defense Force 2025. If…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 14, 2013
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  Battlefield 4 Won’t Support Mods. Sorry.

  Developers DICE never officially sanctioned the use of mods in Battlefield 3, fearing it could lead to stuff like exploits in multiplayer matches (which, you know, happened anyway). So has the studio reversed that decision for the upcoming Battlefield 4? Of course not. Speaking with PC Gamer at E3, DICE general manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson broke…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 14, 2013
• Culture

  Sure, A Giant Floating Whale, Why Not

  A skywhale flew near my house once. True story Xavier Etchepare is a senior concept artist at Ubisoft Montréal, where he’s done stuff like character art and storyboards. He’s worked on games like the Just Dance series, but most of the stuff you’ll see today is either personal or from old/abandoned projects. You can see…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 14, 2013
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  The Oculus Rift Now Does 1080p

  If there was one complaint about the early development kits for virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, it’s that the low-res display gave everything a kind of “screen door” effect. Fixed. Newer units of the headset now feature full 1080p support, doubling the number of pixels available, which is quite the feat considering how close these…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 14, 2013
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  Boy Thinks He’s Meeting Iron Man, Meets Actor Instead, Gets Very Sad

  Jaxson Denno, who is 18 months old, is a huge Iron Man fan. So when his parents found out Iron Man himself Robert Downey Jr. was nearby shooting a movie, they arranged the meeting of a lifetime. Like only an 18 month year-old could, though, Denno burst into tears when introduced to Tony Stark, because…he…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 13, 2013
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  The Present Day Part of Assassin’s Creed IV Is a First-Person Adventure

  Ubisoft likes to keep the modern parts of its Assassin’s Creed games as secret as possible. But at E3, they revealed a few details for the present day part of ACIV: Black Flag. For starters, you’re the main character. You’ll be playing in the present as an employee of Abstergo Entertainment, the fictional video game…

  By Stephen Totilo Published June 13, 2013
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  Goodbye, E3 2013. It’s Been Fun.

  That’s a wrap, folks. The doors are closed and E3 2013 is done for. At least for the people actually there. For you, reading at home, good news! It’ll continue for a few more days. We’ve still got plenty of impressions and interviews to come from the show, which we’ll be posting tonight, over the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 13, 2013
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  A Slightly More Convincing Reason For The Xbox One’s Forced Online

  There’s a very good argument that Microsoft’s biggest failure this week was not its Xbox One policies, but its messaging. The way gamers were lumped with obligation, instead of opportunity Take the console’s mandatory online check-in. For nearly every single one of you, that will never be a problem, at least on your end (should…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 13, 2013
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  We’re Slightly Less Than a Year Away From the Next E3

  As is tradition, show organizers wished E3 attendees farewell on this final day of E3 with a banner to tell them when to come back. Mark your calendars. Please note: the excitement always begins the day before E3, on the day of the big Microsoft, Sony, EA and Ubisoft press conferences . That’ll be June…

  By Stephen Totilo Published June 13, 2013
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  The Witcher‘s Anti-DRM Studio Finds Itself in a Bind with Xbox One

  Few major developers could be as publicly anti-DRM as CD Projekt Red, makers of the Witcher series. Yet there they were with The Witcher 3, getting a good five minutes of stage time with the Xbox One, the face of console DRM going forward. The studio is committed to releasing on Xbox One but none…

  By Owen Good Published June 13, 2013
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  This Is The Most Confusing Game I Saw At E3

  It’s called Hohokum and it’ll be out on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and Vita (though what you see here is on the PS4). You control a snake-like character while you explore worlds and discover new ones. You help in-game characters and creatures locate items and other characters and creatures. Sometimes, you turn lights on…

  By Tina Amini Published June 13, 2013
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  Here Are A Couple of Cool Uses For The Wii U Controller

  It might lack the charm of Mario Party, but Wii Party U manages to make good use of the Wii U game pad judging by what I saw on the E3 showfloor today. The mini game above, for instance, asks players to guess why the person holding the game pad made a certain facial expression…

  By Patricia Hernandez Published June 13, 2013