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  Mortal Kombat Coming to the PlayStation Vita In Spring 2012

  Mortal Kombat, once just one of those games we knew was coming to the Vita somewhere down the line, is now coming this Spring. It’s basically the same game as the PS3 version with “brand new gameplay features and content developed exclusively for the new handheld device”. And what are those? Warner says they “will…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 18, 2012
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  Mass Effect, Portal, and More as Things of Pixelated Beauty

  What Mass Effect, Portal 2, Deus Ex, and BioShock have in common are memorable worlds and visual flairs. Not sacrificing either, artist Pieceoftoast traded the games’ high-def graphics for pixels. The result is stunning. Seeming to channel Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, the art not only captures the feeling and mood of each game, but…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 18, 2012
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  Dear Esther, You Still Look Gorgeous

  What was once a fancy, moody Half-Life mod looks to be one of 2012’s fanciest, moodiest games, as Dear Esther – up for four awards at this year’s Independent Games Festival – lulls us into stillness with this new trailer. It’ll be out on PC on February 14. Chances are you will have never played…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 18, 2012
• Culture

  Christian Bravery’s Concept Art Kills Zones, Borders Lands

  Christian Bravery, who founded and still works at concept art studio Leading Light, has been in the business for over two decades In that time, he’s helped shape the appearance of franchises as diverse as LittleBigPlanet, Killzone, Borderlands, Fable, NBA Jam and XCOM Sadly much of that good stuff is, as is typical in the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 18, 2012
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  D.I.Y. Assassin’s Creed Arm Blades Sure Look Scary!

  A guy in his bedroom, with a dangerous sleeve weapon. No, you’re not watching Taxi Driver, but rather, YouTube user Angelegend showing off his arm-blade. You know, like the ones in Assassin’s Creed The arm blade was created from things like a door hinge, which doesn’t sound easy. According to Angelegend, “It’s a bit complex,…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 18, 2012
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  Wow, the Xbox 360 is Absolutely Killing it (in the US, Anyway)

  I tend to let monthly sales charts wash over me these days because, well, I’m 31 now and don’t give a shit which console sells more than another in any given month. Sometimes, though, I like to get a little hypocritical and take a peek at annual sales. And 2011’s make for interesting reading. While…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 18, 2012
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  You Better Believe Internet Cats Can Fus Ro Dah

  I shouldn’t enjoy this. It’s an internet cat video, playing out a tired video gag from a game I’m pretty sure I’ve over-consumed in the past two months. And yet…here it is. After I laughed. In spite of all that. I think it’s more the victim’s reaction after than the shout itself, because unlike the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 18, 2012
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  The Fun And Games Of The FBI

  Republished from Kotaku Australia A member of the FBI is in the room but we’re not sure who or where he is. He probably already knows everything about us. Our phone lines are probably already tapped. We’ve probably been x-rayed in our sleep. We bet he loves black coffee and cherry pie, too. We keep…

  Tracey Lien Published January 18, 2012
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  Alienware Launches PC That’s Disguised as a Console

  As consoles become more like personal computers with their patches and their upgrades, so too do PCs become more like consoles, with more people using control pads and hooking them up to TVs than ever before. Alienware sees a market in this, with the launch of the X51, a small PC that looks, and is…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2012
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  Why George Lucas Won’t Make Any More Star Wars Movies

  From an interview with The New York Times (Top photo by Ethan Miller | Getty)

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2012
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  Here’s Your Borderlands 2 Lilith Model, in the Flesh

  Gearbox’s long and no-doubt exhaustive search for an attractive young woman who looks like an attractive video game woman is over. Australian Yasemin Arslan will be playing the part of Lilith in the upcoming Borderlands 2. You can see her in-character in the clip below. Hopefully with this competition over Gearbox can now turn their…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2012
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  Hand Over the Roast Beef and Nobody Gets Hurt

  Happy Tuesday, Kotaku-eers. Welcome to another late-night open thread. I’m your friendly MC, Benekirk Humblethatch. Have you had a good start to your week? Are you as excited as I am that Justified‘s third season begins tonight? You may be taking tomorrow off to boycott SOPA, but we’ll still be here at Kotaku, reporting SOPA…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 17, 2012
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  CultureTotal Recall

  Let’s Watch the Intro to Syndicate, Circa 1993

  The single best piece of video game news today is that the original Syndicate is this Thursday going on sale over on Good Old Games for $6. You’ll get more fun out of that game than you will most games costing 10x as much. So let’s celebrate. Here’s the intro to the original 1993 game,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2012
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  Mass Effect 3 + Kinect Looks Like This, Beta On February 14

  Mass Effect 3 will use Kinect. But how, you ask, will that work? How dorky will I sound yelling things at my TV set? Watch this clip to find out. It’s…well, it doesn’t look too bad! Though these commands are all rather sterile. How well it works with my eyes full of tears or my…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2012
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  Shadow of the Colossus, Amalur Demo, Uncharted 3 DLC New This Week on the PlayStation Store

  Some good stuff in this week’s PlayStation store update. We’ve got full-game downloads for a number of solid titles, including Crysis 2, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and individual downloads for the HD versions of both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. That latter one, in particular, is certainly worth $20, even if you played it on…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 17, 2012
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  Hey, Valve, What’s Going On, Eh?

  Republished from Rock, Paper Shotgun Valve have created themselves an interesting situation. Presenting themselves as bastions of consumers, remarkably accessible to gamers, regularly inviting in groups of modders – often to give them jobs – and always being present to offer a quote on how customers deserve to be treated with more dignity, they establish…

  John Walker | Rock Paper Shotgun Published January 17, 2012
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  Power.

  Mood lighting | U.S. Marines take aim in a scene lit like an action game. (Image via Flickr.) These Are The 40 Most Powerful People In Video Games The world of video games is full of mighty people-people whose mere whims control what video games we play, what we play games on, how we buy…

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 17, 2012
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  I See a Faster Fable in the The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo

  You get exclusive items for Mass Effect 3 if you play the demo of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, but that shouldn’t be the only reason you play it. From the demo, Reckoning looks like it could be a fairly entertaining and worth-while RPG. If you played Fable and thought, “Man, this combat is too slow!”…

  By Nick Vannucci Published January 17, 2012
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  Double Fine’s Latest Gets a Launch Date

  Double Fine’s latest game, the Kinect XBLA minigame collection Happy Action Theater, now has a launch date of February 1st. It will cost 800 Microsoft Points, or $10.

  By Kirk Hamilton Published January 17, 2012
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  Would You Let Hissing Cockroaches Crawl On Your Face for a PlayStation Job?

  Season three of Sony’s The Tester sees competitors doing completely ridiculous things for a chance at a production associate at PlayStation’s Santa Monica Studio. What sort of ridiculous things? See for yourself. I’ve gone through a great deal of shit in the pursuit of gainful employment over the past several decades, but I can honestly…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 17, 2012