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  Bethesda Promises to be More Careful With Patches

  Bethesda finally realises something Oblivion and Fallout 3 fans could have told them years ago. [Bethesda] (Top image by Deadendthrills)

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
• Reviews

  Minecraft: The Kotaku Review

  For all that’s been written about Minecraft over the past few years, you’d think it was one of the greatest video games ever created. A liberating experience that’s showing big-budget game developers what the public really wants and helping revolutionise the way games are developed and sold. In some ways, it totally is. In others?…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
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  Bungie’s Other Sci-Fi Series Improved, Free

  Marathon, the classic FPS series that made Bungie kinda-famous before Halo made them really famous, has been modernised and brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century. You can get ’em on PC, Mac & Linux. For free. [Aleph One]

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
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  How Girl Nerds Accidentally Reveal Their Inner Geek

  In Japan, the word “otaku” can be dicey. Some think the moniker carries a lot of baggage and evokes negative, even frightening, imagery. Others don’t care and proudly call themselves “otaku”. As Otome Sugoren, a website for Japanese females, pointed out, it’s hard for Japanese women to label themselves “otaku” or “geeks”. There is a…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 2, 2011
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  Star Wars’ Famous Trench Run, Recreated as a Minecraft Movie

  This isn’t one of those mildly boring “look at an object I recreated in Minecraft” posts. This is hot-blooded machinima, Minecraft’s blocks used to recreate whole sequences from the end of Star Wars It’s the work of reader Grahame, aka Paradise Decay, who is not just a games musician, he’s a dude who has found…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
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  A Tabletop Version of SimCity is Only a 3D Printer Away

  Skimbal, a man who knows his way around a 3D printer (ie a box of magic), has been designing templates letting anyone with access to such sorcery print out tiny replicas of the buildings from SimCity 2000 Which means, yes, you can print off actual SimCity…cities. The templates were built in Google Sketch-Up, and while…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
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  Damn Good Japanese Socks Allow People To Wear Shoes Indoors

  Every year since 1957, the Good Design Award (aka “G Mark”) has been awarded to a standout Japanese product. The award marks excellence in Japanese design. A committee of sixty designers is given in a broad category of products that enter in the selection process, whether that be home electronics, apartment buildings or apparel. Today,…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 2, 2011
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  This Indie Xbox Shooter is Pretty (and Cheap!)

  Orbitron: Revolution is, for an Xbox Live Indie game, gorgeous. The shmup, developed by Firebase Industries (and with music by Audio Antics, of Geometry Wars fame), is now out, and costs a ridiculous 240 MSP. Get on it

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
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  It Might Soon be Cool to Jailbreak Your Consoles

  It’s totally cool to “jailbreak” an iPhone to get around its DRM. Apple may not like that, but the courts say otherwise, so it has to abide. Video game consoles? Less cool. But that could soon change. The reason the iPhone is exempt is because a few years back the Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully lobbied…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
• Uncategorized

  First Image of Brand New Square Enix RPG. Do You Give a Hoot?

  Square Enix is working on a brand new role-playing game that isn’t Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Pointing that out makes it sure seem like Square Enix only makes FF and DQ. It doesn’t. The new role-playing game is an action RPG and is apparently aimed at Westerners. If you are a Westerner, well, what…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published December 2, 2011
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  Kinectimals Isn’t Cute, It’s Terrifying

  You might think Microsoft’s Kinectimals (actually developed by the guys who made Lostwinds), is for kids. It’s all cuddles and sunshine. Nunh unh. It’s a killer

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
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  These PS3 Ads Built a Real Holodeck. It’s Amazing.

  You know Star Trek’s holodeck? If not, here is Star Trek’s holodeck. Anyway, once the property of science fiction, some advertisers have actually built one for a PlayStation 3 commercial. As you’ll see, there is no post-production work being done on the footage. All the effects are being done in the room, using 3D projection…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
• CultureTotal Recall

  The Best Part of Fighting Games? The Stupid Quotes.

  There’s a charm to fighting games that’s irresistible. I mean, aside from all the face-punching, the character rosters are usually insane, and there’s a tongue-in-cheek vibe that runs deep through most titles in the genre. Nowhere is this more evident than in the stupid little quotes you get after a match in most games. To…

  By Luke Plunkett Published December 2, 2011
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  Great, Now You Can Pay a Subscription to Play Tetris

  Electronic Arts has figured out a way to make peopLe pay indefinitely for the privilege of playing Tetris. A 99-cent version of the classic puzzler just went live on the iOS store but, obviously, you’ll want more than the seven Tetrominoes that buck buys you, right? Right? Well, good news, there’s now something called the…

  By Owen Good Published December 1, 2011
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  Xbox Live’s UFC Pay-Per-View Support Arrives Dec. 20

  Announced back in September, pay-per-view fights in the mixed martial arts UFC series will be available Dec, 20 via Xbox Live, Microsoft said today. Fights will be served through an application that becomes available on that date; the events themselves are not free, an account-holder must still purchase it. However, when viewing them on Xbox…

  By Owen Good Published December 1, 2011
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  Hoping Each Time That His Next Leap Will Be The Leap Home

  Hello all, and welcome to yet another late-night Kotaku open thread. The week is drawing to a close, and we have a brief chance to breathe after Thanksgiving and before Christmas (or, you know, Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Festivus, or whatever you may observe). Here, as always, are some conversation-starters for your perusal. “The Worst…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published December 1, 2011
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  Why Modern Warfare 3 Remains an Un-Game

  Republished from Rock, Paper Shotgun. Last Wednesday Kotaku republished (with permission, of course) my review of Modern Warfare 3′s single player campaign. A review in which I described it as an “un-game with a core of nastiness”. This caught the attention of Kill Screen’s Brendan Keogh, who wrote a riposte to my piece on the…

  John Walker | Rock Paper Shotgun Published December 1, 2011
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  Augmented Reality NBA App Makes You the King of Someone’s Driveway

  An NBA-branded augmented-reality game released today for Android and iOS devices, promises to make you the King of the Court at any number of real-world basketball locations around you. So far I’m the King of a neighboring cul-de sac and a Wendy’s parking lot. King of the Court, by Ogmento, is free to play (but,…

  By Owen Good Published December 1, 2011
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  NFL Blitz‘s “Cover” Also Put Up to a Fan Vote

  Though not a retail release, the January reboot of NFL Blitz will still have a cover star, following a fan-voted campaign taking place during the Spike Video Game Awards next weekend. The candidates for the downloadable game (on Xbox Live and Playstation Network) are the Atlanta Falcons receiver Roddy White, the Baltimore Ravens running back…

  By Owen Good Published December 1, 2011
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  Fez Tantalizes Us With Another “Long Screenshot”

  Fez, which is going on four years in development, was delayed to “early 2012” way back in September, so at least this luxurious long shot of the perspective-switching indie platformer isn’t some oblique way of saying “BTW, it’s been pushed back again.” That we know of. Still, put in headphones and listen to this. Sounds…

  By Owen Good Published December 1, 2011