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  CultureTotal Recall

  Ni No Kuni Isn’t Miyazaki/Ghibli’s First Video Game Appearance

  Much has been made, and rightly so, of the involvement of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli with Level-5’s PS3 RPG Ni No Kuni (out this week in Japan). It’s helped the game look amazing. While it’s a welcome partnership, though, it’s not the first time the animation legend, or his studio, have turned up in a…

  By Luke Plunkett Published November 25, 2011
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  Watch Kotaku Live on GameTrailers TV Tonight!

  At 12:30am EST tonight, tune into GTTV Presents GameStop Unwrapped: GTTV on Spike to catch some of your favourite Kotaku editors talkin’ bout video games on the TV set.

  By Luke Plunkett Published November 24, 2011
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  Even Saints Row Wants to Know Where Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Is…

  Reader Naroon sends us this snap he took of a “well-hidden easter egg” he found while playing Saints Row the Third Volition, I could tell you where most of those ships are, even the Ishimura, but your guess on the Borealis is as good as mine, sadly. You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of…

  By Luke Plunkett Published November 24, 2011
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  This Skyrim Pianist Not Only Plays, She Cosplays!

  You might remember Lara from this previous Kotaku post, featuring a beautiful rendition of the Skyrim theme. That, dear reader, is only the tip of the music iceberg. And that iceberg is wearing numerous outfits. The Australian specializes in not only playing game themes (and playing them really well), she also dresses as game characters…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published November 24, 2011
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  The Thing About American Accents In Video Games

  American accents are everywhere in video games. Even when something is developed in Canada, or Britain, or Japan, the principal characters usually speak with one kind of American accent or another. Ever wonder what the significance of that is? As in, why they’re often used when they’re used, and in what context? You probably haven’t,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published November 24, 2011
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  Duck Mouths and the Ladies Who Love Them

  Seventeen-year-old Mana wasn’t in school. Heck, she wasn’t even in her school uniform. Wearing a white bikini, the student-by-day, idol-by-night took the stage earlier this month at the Sofmap in Tokyo’s geek district, Akihabara. Holding her “image DVD” titled Kiss Me, one in which the DVD’s maker says she “takes off a lot”, Mana posed…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published November 24, 2011
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  Finally, Someone Talks Common Sense About PC Piracy

  Ubisoft has no idea on the topic of piracy and the PC market. None. It must be embarrassing for lower-downs at the company who do have an idea to have to listen to people like Stanislas Mettra open their mouths Thankfully, not everybody in the industry shares that stance. Trevor Longino, from Good Old Games,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published November 24, 2011
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  Come on! Heroes Is Nintendo’s Sauciest Game Name Yet

  Today’s Nintendo DSi Ware features this innocuous little RPG-influenced shooter with a name that might ring a little less innocuously to American ears. Come on! Heroes is a game of tiny men lobbing projectiles at an onslaught of knights and priests, who explode in a puff of milky smoke. It’s a bold political statement from…

  By Joel Johnson Published November 24, 2011
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  Your Friend Who Is Playing Facebook Games All the Time at Work

  For the hopelessly devoted Facebook gamer on your list, sure, you could just load up a gift card and give them $100 to burn through in MafiaCitySimSocialCastleFarmWars. You could also stage an intervention. Neither option is going to make both giver and recipient happy. Instead, here are some ideas that, like the best holiday gifts…

  By Owen Good Published November 24, 2011
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  Modern Warfare 3 Looks Even Better In LEGO

  This is as close to an official LEGO interpretation of Activision’s tentpole franchise as we’re gonna get, I reckon. Honestly, it looked pretty believable until they blew up the LEGO Eiffel Tower. There’s no way that would happen in real LEGO life. (I love how well these guys mix minifig-scale work with microscale forced perspective,…

  By Joel Johnson Published November 24, 2011
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  Building the World’s Biggest LAN Party

  The DreamHack festivals, held throughout the year in Sweden, are the world’s biggest LAN parties. How big is big? The one starting today, DreamHack Winter 2011, is the biggest of the lot, and should pull in over 12,000 people. The event set a world record for LAN parties last year when it drew 12,754 computers…

  By Luke Plunkett Published November 24, 2011
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  Feast Your Eyes on Even More Black Friday Deals

  Get your Black Friday battle plan together with this special edition of The Moneysaver, showcasing more than 80 deals on games, accessories, PCs and HDTVs spanning more than a dozen brands and retailers. Do not venture into a mall or big box tomorrow without reading The Moneysaver, brought to you by Dealzon, today! Protip: The…

  dealzon Published November 24, 2011
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  People That Overuse the Word “Kawaii”

  “Kawaii”. In Japanese, it means “cute” or “adorable”. The word was adopted by Westerners enamored with Japanese culture. But it’s gone mainstream, and it now appears in the Oxford English Dictionary Diehard Japanophiles have been using it from long before, peppering their English conversations with a “kawaii” here, a “kawaii” there. Is it possible to…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published November 24, 2011
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  A 100 Ways To Die in Skyrim; The Musical

  This fourteen and a half minute long video delivers 100 ways to die in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (and more than a few laughs) set to Elvis’ A Little Less Coversation. Two great things in one great video. Enjoy. You can contact Brian Crecente, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also…

  By Brian Crecente Published November 24, 2011
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  How To “Undress” Your King of Fighters XIII Fighters

  Now, you can’t really undress your fighters in King of Fighters XIII. However, you can customize them. You know what that means? You can “undress” them! As a Japanese KOF site pointed out, it’s possible to change the color of the fighter’s clothes. What players do with that customize mode and which bits of clothing…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published November 24, 2011
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  Now This is a Turkey Worthy of a Third-Party Accessories Manafacturer

  The employees of peripheral maker PDP Gaming celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday with a turkey made of pastry and cream. What’s in your stomach? You can contact Michael Fahey, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

  By Mike Fahey Published November 24, 2011
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  Your Guide to the Biggest Games of 2011. The Ones You Want. The Ones That Stink.

  Throughout the year, we here at Kotaku have covered most of the biggest video games on any machine that will play video games. From Arkham City to Zelda: Skyward Sword, from Dungeon Raid to Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery, we covered the biggest and best of them. As the holidays approach and shopping season kicks in,…

  By Stephen Totilo Published November 24, 2011
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  The Boy You’ve Got a Crush On

  OMG have you seen Justin? He’s the hottest guy in class, but he’s too busy talking about video games to notice me. Now it’s Christmas, and I have to get his attention with the perfect gift, before that slut Amber gets to him. God I hate Amber. With her hair and that stupid eyeliner. It’s…

  By Mike Fahey Published November 24, 2011
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  Fund Immortal Souls Sequel for a New Twist On RPGs

  Immortal Souls Sequel is exactly why you don’t judge books by their covers. At first I was skeptical of its style and plot, but the gameplay mechanics won me over with a Puzzle Quest-inspired fighting system. This could be a really fun game. Goal: $14,000 Notable Reward: $25 – You get a copy of the…

  By Chris Carolan Published November 24, 2011
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  GameStop Opening Thousands of Stores for Black Friday Midnight Madness

  You’re going to have to shake off that that turkey coma this year, because there are deals to be had. Video game deals. GameStop’s going to opening up 2,200 store up at 12:00 a.m. so you and thousands of others can swoop down and grab up the games and hardware you’ve been lusting after. Today’s…

  By Evan Narcisse Published November 24, 2011