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  X-Com Returns to Turn-Based Strategy with Enemy Unknown

  Legion of old-school X-Com fans groaned in frustration when 2K Games revealed that their upcoming re-imagination of the beloved strategy game would be a first-person shooter. But now, the publisher’s revealed a second title that goes back to the franchise’s roots. Per Game Informer, X-Com: Enemy Unknown will be a turn-based strategy game developed by…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 5, 2012
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  Batman? Cole Phelps? Bah! Give Us a Real Detective Game

  While games like L.A. Noire and Batman: Arkham Asylum put on a good detective show, are we really detecting anything? Commenter Soleyu describes what a true detective game should be like in today’s elementary edition of Speak Up on Kotaku. I just read about the Sherlock Holmes Series and I’m reminded about my greatest gripe…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 5, 2012
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  GameFly Says People Wanted Batman More than Modern Warfare 3 or Skyrim

  Picking the best games of the year always boils down to opinion, which always leads to dissension over subjectivity and bias. So, while Kotaku‘s staffers rallied around Portal 2 as the site’s GOTY, readers held their own damn awards and anointed Skyrim as their standout title for 2011. Gamefly subscribers, however, came down differently than…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 5, 2012
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  Talk Amongst Yourselves

  Welcome back to Kotaku‘s official forum, the place for you to chat about video games. Let’s also stand and applaud today’s superb TAYpic, submitted by reader Benevolence. Bravo! Join in the fun and submit your own TAYpic. Please do your best—or your worst—and share your own riffs on our January image to our #TAYpics thread.…

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2012
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  This is the Non-Boring Version of Bejeweled That I Can’t Stop Playing

  Bejeweled is an eye-roller. It’s The Da Vinci Code of video games or the Lady Gaga or whatever your favorite example is of something that far too many people are into. To like Bejeweled is to be common. To play it is to be as daring in taste as a person who drinks tap water.…

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2012
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  The Creators of Gears of War Don’t Like Pirates or SOPA

  Epic Games, the people who make Gears of War, Bulletstorm and the Unreal graphics engine has weighed in on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act. A spokesperson writes: “Epic Games supports efforts that would stop overseas websites profiting from pirating our games, but we have to do that in a way that’s compatible with freedom…

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2012
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  You Found New Music! Nintendo Add More Tunes and Tour Dates to Legend of Zelda Concert Series

  It’s 2012, which means that it’s not even The Legend of Zelda‘s 25th Anniversary any more. But that’s not stopping Nintendo from extending the tour that celebrates the music of their long-lived adventure RPG franchise. Eleven more dates have been added in the U.S. and Canada for The Legend of Zelda concert series and audiences…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 5, 2012
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  Confirmed: Lego Batman 2 Will Assemble a MiniFig Justice League This Summer

  The World’s Finest team-up that’s been rumored and then teased in advertising for months finally gets announced as Warner Bros. Interactive reveals Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes today. Aside from Batman, Robin and Superman, the game will also feature Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. The miniature Superfriends gather together to stop Lex Luthor and…

  By Evan Narcisse Published January 5, 2012
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  House of the Dead Arcade Games Coming to the PS3

  Sega announced this morning that both House of the Dead 3 and House of the Dead 4 will be coming to the PS3 as downloadable titles on the PlayStation Network. Both will include Move support. While Sega says both games “have been updated with HD graphics”, don’t go expecting a big HD overhaul. They’ve just…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  A Japanese Street, Circa 1986

  Cityscape | How I like to imagine Japan actually looked in the 1980s. Like a giant Famicom game. Via noirlac When Video Games Come to Life, Emilio Estevez Must Die When it comes to old video game movies, you’ve probably seen, or at least heard of, stuff like The Last Starfighter. Or Joysticks. Or adaptations…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  Bullet Bill Will Destroy This Man’s Kitchen

  The aspiring baker at the wonderfully-named Bake With a Vengeance got just about the best Christmas present ever for someone who loves video games and who wants to bake stuff: a Bullet Bill blender. It was made by taking a black KitchenAid Pro mixer and getting some custom decals sent over. After that, the mixer’s…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  How a $21,000 Half-Life Gun Was Made

  Harrison Krix’s replica Half-Life 2 gravity gun looked incredible, but it was never destined for his shelf, or that of an international adult collectible retailer. It was built for charity, and it’s for charity it was auctioned. Awesomely, the gun went as part of a Child’s Play auction for a whopping $21,000. That’d be a…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  Metroid Cosplay Based On Nerdy Metroid Cartoon

  Early last year, artist Chris Furniss drew some cute Metroid cartoons, one of which had Samus giving a TED talk It was as cute as it was dorky, but not half as either as this cosplay picture taken by David Dorn, which recreates it in the real world. Dorn did a few of Furniss’ other…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  Courtroom Setback in Epic Fight ‘Tis a Flesh Wound, Says Silicon Knights

  Much has been made of a recent ruling adverse to Silicon Knights in its long-running lawsuit with Epic Games, the Gears of War maker whose Unreal Engine was to have been the guts of 2008 flop Too Human. Basically, a judge tossed out an expert witness for Silicon Knights; he was going to give his…

  By Owen Good Published January 5, 2012
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  New Kingdom: Unicorns Were Horses

  Ah, New Kingdom. They came, they went and few cared, except people who started sampling them a decade later and made everybody else realise what the hell they’d missed. Formed in 1987 and releasing their second and final album in 1996, New Kingdom were a rap duo from NYC comprised of Nosaj and Sebastian. It’s…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  Somebody Built An Actual Minecraft Village, And It Is Amazing

  Oh man. So, the tech that lets you print 3D recreations of in-game objects in Minecraft can be used for a lot more than objects. You can recreate entire villages using it. Then build them and sit them on your desk. A Flickr user by the name of post-apocalyptic research institute has printed, glued and…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  PC Gamers, Remember the Name Castle Story

  Sauropod, a two-man indie studio from Canada, is working on this interesting little PC game called Castle Story It’s a seemingly simple strategy game where players control a team of little yellow men who can build a castle from the surrounding countryside. LEGO Stronghold, if you will. What’s cool is that it isn’t just an…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
• Culture

  The Head-Punching Game & Comic Art of Dave Wilkins

  Dave Wilkins is a concept artist in the video game business. He’s also an artist in the comics business. So if you see awesome art in this gallery about comic characters in video games, or video game characters in comic books, do not be alarmed. What you’ll see in the gallery above is a selection…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  Oh, If Only We’d Actually Gotten This Brilliant Battlestar Galactica RPG

  In the same vein as the previously wonderful Game of Thrones RPG parody video, CollegeHumor has posted a mock-up of what a SNES RPG based on the recent Battlestar Galactica series would have looked like. And just like with GoT, they nail it. Especially the effects budget stuff. If you haven’t seen the show, and…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012
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  What If Skyward Sword Was a…Game Boy Game!

  Let’s imagine, for a moment, that 2011 Wii game The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword had been released a little earlier. Early enough to have wound up on the Game Boy. Artist Constantin Georges provides the illustration of this fantasy, mocking up both box art and some impressive screenshots to go with it. The Legend…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2012