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  Hello New Plastic Friends!

  Comiket, aka Comic Market, isn’t only about comics. It’s also about cosplay. Oh, and plastic figures. At this year’s Comiket, which runs Dec. 28 to Dec. 31 at Tokyo Big Sight, famed Japanese figure makers are showing off upcoming statues: some are finalized production models, while others are unpainted prototypes. In this gallery, with photos…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 31, 2011
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  A Multiplayer Role-Playing Game You Can Play in Swapnote

  Savannah College of Art and Design game design student Ben “MNC Dover” Gray saw more than just a chance to draw dicks with Nintendo’s free Swapnote program for the 3DS. He saw a chance to draw +4 vorpal dicks. What Ben is proposing in this video is a nifty variation of good old play-by-mail Dungeons…

  By Mike Fahey Published December 30, 2011
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  Do You Object to Any of These Phoenix Wright Actors?

  Next February, Japanese movie theaters are going to lawyer up when the Phoenix Wright movie puts its legal smack down on celluloid. Directed by famed Japanese director Takashi Miike, it could be great. Last October, Kotaku posted the first image of actor Hiroki Narimiya as Phoenix Wright. Today, here are photos of the entire cast…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 30, 2011
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  Handsome Man Brings Iconic Cartoon Cat To Life

  Doraemon is a fat, robotic blue cat from the future. In his belly, Doraemon carries all sorts of cool gadgets. The character, viewable here, is iconic in Japan. Doraemon also not something one would equate with handsome dude—or good hair. Yet, as this recent cosplay shows, those associations are totally possible. くれ えいぞう [twitpic]

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 30, 2011
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  The Best Game Music of 2011: Readers’ Choice

  We’ve already recognized a whole bunch of the best game soundtracks of 2011. But of course, there are only so many hours in the day—only so much time to play games, and one can only write about so many game soundtracks. Fortunately, you guys were up to the task of nominating outstanding soundtracks that didn’t…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published December 30, 2011
• Culture

  This Year in the Business: ‘The Hacker is 2011’s Person of the Year’

  This week, Industry Gamers took a look at what happened in 2011, and what will happen in 2012. QUOTE | “The Hacker is 2011’s Person of the Year.” – James Brightman, Editor-in-Chief of IndustryGamers, presents the Top 10 people of the year and why they mattered to the game industry in 2011 in this 4-part…

  Steve Peterson Published December 30, 2011
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  This Man Will Soothe You with Skyrim Strings

  YouTube user Jason Yang cloned himself for one very special reason: to play beautiful Skyrim music to you. That’s so nice! And the Jason Yang clone orchestra doesn’t only play the violin. There’s some drumming, too. Clone drumming. Skyrim Violin Cover [YouTube]

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 30, 2011
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  Watch Real Animals Kick Ass at Video Games

  You remember that Bearded Dragon, right? Or the orangutans? Or the African bull frog crushing virtual ants? In the first video, a cat slices and dices his way through Fruit Ninja, posting an impressive score—and possibly scratching up the screen in the process. After Nintendo capitalized on games for old people and non-gamers, it looks…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 30, 2011
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  The Virtual Pikachu That Didn’t Need Food, Just Affection

  Back in 1998, Pokémon was the shiz-nittle-bam-snip-snap-sack. Much like Ninja Turtles the decade before, Pokémon was -the- children’s franchise. Even people who didn’t watch the show could instantly recognize the American series mascot, Pikachu. It was during this time that Nintendo and Game Freak decided to release a giga-pet based on owning an actual Pokémon.…

  John Kazemaini Published December 30, 2011
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  These Are the Best Indie Games of 2011

  Just as its sister site ModDB picks the top PC gaming mods of the year, IndieDB rounds out the year with a countdown of the top independently developed games of the year. Think of it as a shopping list to help establish your indie gaming cred. How many of the top ten have you played?…

  By Mike Fahey Published December 30, 2011
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  Let This Comiket Cosplay Gobble You Up: Day Two

  The Comiket, aka Comic Market, is in full swing in Tokyo. Comiket is not only the biggest self-published comic book fair in the world, it’s also a huge cosplay extravaganza. As previously mentioned, Comiket, first held in 1975, is now a biannual event, drawing half a million visitors to both the summer and the winter…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 30, 2011
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  Is L.A. Noire Kotaku‘s Game of the Year?

  The hardest thing at the end of the year is to parse yourself from the hype you’re experiencing and think back to the games you played during the summer, the spring, and yes, 2011’s early months. This fall, when so many of the big games were released, the studio that made my GOTY was going…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 30, 2011
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  One Very Good Reason to Be a Nintendo-Exclusive Gamer

  Tired of being picked on and looked down upon for being a Nintendo-exclusive console owner, commenter ClaudioIphigenia speaks up on Kotaku about the rather reasonable reasoning behind his brand loyalty. So after having just replied to three different comments on why I only own a Nintendo console, I figured it was time for a Speak…

  By Mike Fahey Published December 30, 2011
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  Wipeout 2048 Was This Close to a Beautiful Zombie Apocalypse

  For some odd reason Wipeout 2048 lead designer Karl Jones and game director Stuart Tilley decided it was a good idea to explain in detail just how cool the futuristic PlayStation Vita racer was before they scrapped the terror-inducing Zombie secret game mode. How can a futuristic racing game possibly add zombies? I know it…

  By Mike Fahey Published December 30, 2011
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  Talk Amongst Yourselves

  Another Friday, another holiday weekend. This time, it’s New Years, and we all have to celebrate the end o’ times. We all have one more year people. What are we going to do with it? Personally, I plan on buying a Virtua Boy. What are you going to do with your final year (you can’t…

  By Chris Carolan Published December 30, 2011
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  Little Kid Freaks Out over iPod Touch

  For years, the Nintendo 64 Kid has been the epitome of holiday game gift giving. Two kids went bananas over getting a Nintendo console, complete with box paw scratching and raised fists. It was a heroic moment. That was then. The Nintendo 64 Kid is all grown up. This is now. This is the iPod…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 30, 2011
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  A Beatdown in Which No One Threw the First Punch

  The guy who supposedly started this rides a crotch-rocket motorcycle, and his Facebook gallery is full of shirtless, sunglassed, dudebro posturing, koozied beer in hand. He’s in marketing and he can’t spell for shit, even when he’s insulting you. He may even be a steroid user Halfway into the Internet’s No. 1 white-hot outrage of…

  By Owen Good Published December 30, 2011
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  Time Magazine Digs Minecraft Enough to Call It Game Of The Year

  It’s been an incredible year for Mojang’s sandbox construction game, with mobile versions out in the wild, an ever-growing fanbase and their very own convention. To top all of that off, Notch and crew had Minecraft deemed as the past year’s best game by one of the world’s oldest newsmagazines. Time Magazine--with some help from…

  By Evan Narcisse Published December 30, 2011
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  A Co-Creator of Jak & Daxter Gets Literary with Fantasy Novel The Darkening Dream

  What do you do after founding and retiring from one of video games’ most successful development houses? If you’re Naughty Dog co-founder Andy Gavin, you write books. The first of said books is The Darkening Dream, a shadowy fantasy novel about a young girl caught up in a battle that pits ancient supernatural forces like…

  By Evan Narcisse Published December 30, 2011
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  Old Grandma Hardcore Returns At Last to Dragon-Shout a Few Cuss Words

  We haven’t heard much out of Old Grandma Hardcore—her last video was her cussing up a storm playing Final Fantasy XIII in 2010. Don’t worry. She is quite alright and still her old, irascible, potty-mouthed self, as this session with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim demonstrates. Spoiler Alert: Per OGHC’s grandson, this video “contains massive…

  By Owen Good Published December 30, 2011