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  This Week’s iPad Charts: Do the Banana Kong

  As Temple Run 2 continues to tear up the free iPad charts, a different sort of endless running game makes its paid chart debut. Video game fans love their giant monkeys. Looks like channeling Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Country is doing the trick for Banana Kong. I did not expect to see the game hit the…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 25, 2013
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  My Day With The New SimCity

  Last week, I headed over to Maxis headquarters in Emeryville to spend a big chunk of time playing SimCity. I decided that rather than attempt to list all of the features of a game this dense, I’d just keep a journal of my day. So that’s what I did. Who’s ready for some hot city-planning…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 25, 2013
• Kotaku East

  Why I Always Keep Coming Back to Chrono Trigger

  Over the course of my 28 years of life, I’ve beaten more video games than I can count. I’ve never been the type of gamer who finds one game and sticks with it for months or years. Rather, from childhood on, I was the kid who would rent a different game from the local Blockbuster…

  By Richard Eisenbeis Published January 25, 2013
• Kotaku East

  Run for Money Evokes Memories of Pac-Man and Mario Kart

  Run for Money Toshochu: Escape the Greatest Hunters in History is one of the most popular 3DS games released in Japan in 2012. Just like the popular Japanese game show it’s based on, Run for Money pits players against Matrix-like agents (called “hunters”) in an over-the-top game of tag. What results is a game that…

  By Richard Eisenbeis Published January 25, 2013
• Kotaku East

  Magi is Like Being Showered in Pure Imagination (And it’s Only Half Done)

  From Lodoss War to Slayers, Claymore to Berserk, there are a lot of fantasy anime out there. But for better or worse, a large chunk of fantasy anime are built around the Western-based fantasy framework—with knights, dragons, wizards, castles, and princesses populating these tales. But this year, one of the most popular anime currently airing…

  By Richard Eisenbeis Published January 25, 2013
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  Forget The Numbers, This D&D Game Looks Great

  Part of the appeal of playing a game like Dungeons & Dragons is that you’ve got to use your imagination. If there’s a representation of your character at all, chances are it’s pretty basic. These illustrations by artist M S Corley, though, are fantastic. If they’re not exactly what you’d imagine a character to look…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 25, 2013
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  See The Stuff Terraria Gets On Console That It’s (Probably) Not Getting On PC

  It was, quietly, one of the biggest PC games of 2011 (and 2012), so it’s little surprise that Terraria is heading to consoles This clip shows some of the new features coming to the console. Features that, incidentally, weren’t originally planned to be coming to the PC version, which has been “finished” for some time…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 25, 2013
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  Downton Abbey, Ported To The Super Nintendo

  Let’s imagine, for a moment, that Downton Abbey—a show set in the past—also had a game that’s from… the past. Only not so far back. OK, scrap that, and just watch this sweet video by Bill Kiley, where the manor house comes alive to the sound of midi music. Downton Abbey for the SNES [Bill…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 25, 2013
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  Don’t Worry, The Giant Purple Dildo From Saints Row Is Safe

  If there’s one defining feature of the Saints Row series, it’s the fact you can use an enormous dildo as a weapon. THQ has had a replica prop made up for a while now, but with the publisher closing down, there was a very real risk that it would end up in a bin or,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 25, 2013
• Culture

  Play The Cave. You’ll See Awesome Art Like This.

  If you’ve been playing Double Fine’s The Cave—and Tina says you probably should be—you’ll have noticed the lush cave paintings you come across depicting the game’s seven characters. They’re the work of Daniel Krall, and there’s so much colour you could drown in it. You can see more of Daniel’s art on his personal blog…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 25, 2013
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  Commander Shepard, Reporting For Duty In The Real World

  There’s no shortage of quality Commander Shepard cosplay in the world, but this outfit by MissCordie has instantly become one of the best we’ve seen. Why? It’s the extra mile. A lot of Shepard cosplayers replicate the design of the uniform and leave it at that. MissCordie’s here is beat up. It’s missing paint in…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 25, 2013
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  Watch The Glee Cast Perform The Arrangement They Ripped Off From Jonathan Coulton

  Last week, a recording surfaced of the cast of Glee performing a slowed-down arrangement of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 90s classic “Baby Got Back.” As it turned out, their arrangement of the tune had more than a liiiittle bit in common with an earlier arrangement by well-known geeky songwriter Jonathan Coulton. In fact, the Glee arrangement was…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 25, 2013
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  Capcom’s Sad Excuse For Not Releasing Resident Evil: Revelations On The Vita

  3DS game Resident Evil: Revelations is being remade in HD, and will be coming to just about every platform under the sun in May. That means the PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. Curiously, the Vita is absent from the list, even though it could easily handle it. So, uh, why? Replying to user…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 25, 2013
• Esports

  Entire League Of Legends Team Disqualified For, Yes, “Toxic Behaviour”

  The crackdown continues. League of Legends developers Riot have banned three more e-sports hopefuls from the game, this time only days away from a LoL Championship Series qualifying event in Poland. The three players—Khaled Abusagr, Nicolaj Jensen & Simon Näslund—were all banned having repeatedly been suspended for poor behaviour (such as verbal abuse), while Jensen…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2013
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  Report: Rockstar Threatened To “Sue The S**t” Out Of A TV Show Called LA Noir. [UPDATE: Game Publisher Denies.]

  Hollywood director and writer Frank Darabont was working on a TV show called LA Noir, which aside from having a similar name to Rockstar’s 2011 adventure was also set in Los Angeles circa 1947, the same year the game begins. Despite being based on a book by the same name, he says he’s had to…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2013
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  The Mars Volta Breaks Up, Never To De-Louse In Another Comatorium

  Well, this is a shame. The Mars Volta, a band I have always had a great deal of respect for, is officially no more. Via the A.V. Club, lead singer/freak of nature Cedric Bixler Zavala announced his departure, and the band’s breakup, in a series of tweets last night: I have to say, the only…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 24, 2013
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  The Hidden Beauty Of Skill Trees

  The recent launch of Path Of Exile‘s open beta—a new hack & slash action RPG known especially for its enormous skill tree, as you can see in the pic above—inspired us to collect some of the best looking skill and research trees spanning a variety of genres. It’s interesting to see how creatively devs can…

  By Gergo Vas Published January 24, 2013
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  This Is What Romance Looks Like In Fire Emblem: Awakening

  Sure, the Fire Emblem series is known for its well-designed tactical challenges. The newest game in the series, Fire Emblem: Awakening, is no different. But a lesser-known aspect of Awakening is just how romantic it can be. See, when your soldiers (of which you’ll amass dozens) fight alongside one another, they get closer and eventually…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 24, 2013
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  You Can Pay For Weapons In Dead Space 3 Because Of Mobile Gamers, Apparently

  Many Dead Space fans were disappointed this week after hearing that Dead Space 3 would feature microtransactions—or, the ability to buy in-game goods for real money. Today in an interview with CVG, Dead Space 3 producer John Calhoun stated that microtransactions exist because they intend to court mobile gamers. There’s a lot of players out…

  By Patricia Hernandez Published January 24, 2013
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  The Sad, Final Days Of THQ

  This afternoon, THQ CEO Brian Farrell and president Jason Rubin met with about a hundred of their staff at corporate headquarters in southern California. Tomorrow, most of them will lose their jobs. Within the next few weeks, the video game publisher will disappear entirely. This was their last meeting. “There were plenty of people crying,”…

  By Jason Schreier Published January 24, 2013