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  Kotaku East

  Rumor: Final Fantasy Versus XIII Is Dead [Update]

  It’s been six years since Square Enix first showed Final Fantasy Versus XIII’s debut trailer. Six long years. When that trailer premiered, George W. Bush was president, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were alive, and the global financial crisis had not yet hit. 2006 was a different world, a long, long time ago. Now…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published July 20, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  Who Needs Cosplay Photos When You’ve Got Slow-Motion Cosplay Swordfighting Videos?

  Cosplay cinematographer and convention hound Angel James de Ocampo was at Japan Expo 2012 this year, a French show that’s fast becoming one of the best places in the world to see people dress up as people from other stuff. What’s cool about his videos is that, instead of just taking cosplay photos, he gets…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 20, 2012
• Culture

  Nazi Explosions Meet Beautiful Landscape Paintings in This Video Game Concept Art

  Geoffroy Thoorens is a French concept artist who currently works at Quantic Dream, the developers of Heavy Rain and the upcoming Beyond: Two Souls. He’s also done stuff for movies, TV shows and even board games, so the gallery you’ll see here is a mix of all kinds of work, ranging from landscape painting to…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 20, 2012
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  Panorama Shots Wrap This Game Around You

  Reader Daniel, who’s playing MMO The Secret World, made these panorama screenshots and asked if we thought they looked interesting. I don’t have the slightest care for the Secret World and looked at every single one of them, so yeah, I guess that’s a yes!

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 20, 2012
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  CultureTotal Recall

  It Took Japan to Add a Little Style to Alien vs Predator

  It’s been over twenty years since some bright sparks decided it’d be cool to see Aliens fight Predators. Since then we’ve had good comics, good video games, bad video games and terrible movies based on the idea. When people talk about the games, though, they almost exclusively remember the three first-person shooter titles. While the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 20, 2012
• CultureTotal Recall

  The Dangers of Using Wikipedia for Video Game History

  When I put Total Recall stories together, I use a ton of sources. My memory/brain, for one, but also specialised history and collector sites, weird blogs, books, all kinds of places. Wikipedia is, sometimes, one of those places. It’s also not always the most reliable. A great piece this week over on Hardcore Gaming reminds…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 20, 2012
• Uncategorized

  DayZ Might Have Some Competition From a New Zombie MMO

  Zombie survival sim DayZ is awesome, but its ability to really follow through on its promise is limited somewhat by the constraints of the game it’s a mod for, ArmA II. The War Z, which has an awful name, sounds like it’s doing much the same thing, dropping people into a zombie-filled world and asking…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 20, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  Here’s the Gorgeous Intro (Well, Intros) to Guild Wars 2

  It’s testament to just how damn pretty Guild Wars 2 is that, despite me being someone who’d normally rather set my face on fire than play an MMO, I’m quietly excited about sitting down the game. Until that time comes, though, I’m going to have to content myself with watching these intro videos instead. Which,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 20, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  Men Spend 71 Hours Sorting 65,000 Pieces of LEGO. And Film It.

  Delightful Swedish pair Rymdreglage, whose LEGO videos you may have seen here before, are making another LEGO video. This is a LEGO video about the LEGO video they’re making. In which they left a camera running while they spent 71 hours sorting 65,000 pieces from 100 boxes. Most of it is done by the one…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 19, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  Moscow’s Metro Isn’t a Post Apocalyptic Wasteland. It’s Actually Quite Lovely.

  For a generation of gamers, the words “Metro” and “Moscow” will conjure images of an oppressive, bleak place, a last refuge for humanity against the forces of mutants, darkness and whatever the hell else had been conjured up when we blew up the planet. Which, I think, is a bit of a shame. Because in…

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 19, 2012
• CultureTotal Recall

  Total Recall, Kotaku’s History Section, is Moving

  Just a quick public service announcement to let you know that Total Recall, Kotaku’s history feature, is changing timeslots. It’ll now appear between 1am and 2am Eastern, Tuesday through Friday.

  By Luke Plunkett Published July 19, 2012
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  It’s Time For A Breaking Bad Death-Pool

  Tell me you guys watch Breaking Bad. You do, right? If you don’t… well, you should. It’s a very good show. It features a lot of what my sister calls “Capital ‘A’ Acting,” and kickass cinematography and cool music and it’s basically just wicked-cool. As the show fires up its final season (well, the first…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published July 19, 2012
• Reviews

  An Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse So Powerful You Can Use It One-Handed

  Not a day goes by that I don’t get an email from left-handed mutants wondering why I don’t review mice made just for them. I believe I just answered that question. What I can do, however, is review a gaming mouse for people both right and wrong-handed. A mouse that weighs its fearful symmetry to…

  By Mike Fahey Published July 19, 2012
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  Apple Store Rips Down Torchlight Ripoff

  The mall cops in the iTunes App Store today finally ejected Armed Heroes Online, a Chinese-published MMO, sold only in iTunes’ Canadian store, which evidently stole most, if not all, of its audiovisual assets from the PC dungeon-crawling hit Torchlight. The takedown came about a week after demands from Torchlight‘s lawyers. That doesn’t mean Armed…

  By Owen Good Published July 19, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  The Uncertain Musical Fate Of Assassin’s Creed

  Assassin’s Creed III is going to introduce a lot of changes to the series. It will feature a new setting, a new time period and a new protagonist. And one of the biggest changes has yet to be fully explored—the game’s soundtrack will be crafted by an entirely new composer. Jesper Kyd, the composer responsible…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published July 19, 2012
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  Miles Davis Hated Everything

  Jazz trumpet genius Miles Davis had a lot of things going for him. He had a unique musical intelligence, an unparalleled instinct for musical innovation, and a reserved sense of compositional control that set his music apart from the many trumpeters of his day. And yet when you asked people to list his positive attributes,…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published July 19, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  Dyad‘s Ending Is Perfect

  Few endings get it right—often, they can be the most disappointing part of a work. But Dyad, the PS3’s new psychedelic downloadable racer, nails it. Spoilers ahead! You can’t lose. Actually, most of the challenge and complexity that earlier levels build up to is gone. There’s only enemies lined up to make simple pairs, allowing…

  By Patricia Hernandez Published July 19, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  Rhythm Thief And The Case Of The Ultimate Ringtone

  Just listen to it. That’s the music that plays every time you clear a puzzle in Sega’s Rhythm Thief and the Emperor’s Treasure. It’s like… some unholy blend of classic Sega “level cleared” music and hilarious vocal jazz. I love it so much. I liked this game a whole lot, and the main reason I…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published July 19, 2012
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  Uncategorized

  From Tetris to Metroid: The ‘Hip’ Tanaka Mixtape

  Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka’s music is infectious. It gets in your blood. Metroid, Tetris, Kid Icarus: if you own a Gameboy, or a Nintendo you’ve had one of his songs stuck in your head. Possibly for a week. This week on the Kotaku Mixtape, we take a look at one of the great composers of all…

  By Chris Person Published July 19, 2012
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  Too Bad You Can’t Actually Travel Across The Room With These Portals

  Sure, it’s fairly cheap and easy to make yourself a Portal-themed mirror with some paint and a quick trip to IKEA. But what really makes a portal fun isn’t just its blue or orange halo but rather, that trippy infinity effect. For that, you need two mirrors. And some LEDs. Or if you’re not particularly…

  By Kate Cox Published July 19, 2012